
'•'ac*^. 



.r*v II 



,]l' 








foxgottexL qTjite 

AR former scenes of dear cLeliglit , 

C oim-ubial lo^v^e p ar ent al joy — 

No syinpatliies like these Ms soul eraploy; 

BxLt all is dart "witTnTi . .- — 

Tcnros& ■ 



LO"NDO"N. WILLIAM TEGG & 0° CSEAPSIDE. 



FRONTISPIECE to thk ORIGINAL EDITION. 





n c^ □ c^„ 



THE 

ANATOMY OF 
MELANCHOLY 

WJiai it is, with all the J-dnds, causes, 

jy mptoTTis, pro (gnostics Sc several cures of it 

In three Partitions.^th their several 

Sections numbers & subsections 

PhilosophicctlLy, MecUciiicLlli/ , 

MLstoricaJZy opened^ cut icp. 

Deniocritus Junior, 

With ct Sati/ricdl Preface conducuiff 

to the follow iriff Discoicr,se . 

The Sirth Edition , corrected and 

dut/inented bj/ the Author . 

Omnr tiiht punctum, qui ' mTscuit utile dula 




Hvpocondnacu-s 



T o I 



r^ rP^Cr/U f ^ 




Hellebor. 



c i o U-'^*->~,.v "vpVCm" a 



THE 



ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, 

WHAT IT IS, 



ALL THE KINDS, CAUSES, SYMPTOMS, PEOGNOSTICS, AND 
SEVEEAL CUBES OF IT. 

IN THREE PARTITIONS. 

WITH THEIR SEVEEAL 

SECTIONS, MEMBERS, AND SUBSECTIONS, PHILOSOPHICALLY, MEDICALLY, 
HISTOKICALLY OPENED AND CUT UP. 



BY DEMOCEITUS JUNIOR, ^r-^. 



A SATIRICAL PKEFACE, CONDUCING TO THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSE. 



% Mm dWm. 

IT TRANSLATIONS OF THE NU: 

BY DEMOCEITUS MINOE. ^iv.^. 



CORRECTED, AND ENRICHED BT TRANSLATIONS OF THE NUMEROUS CLASSICAL EXTRACTS. 



LONDON: 

WILLIAM TEGG AND CO., S5, QUEEN STREET, 

CHEAPSIDE. 

1854. 






> 



\^ 






— WORKS, NKWTOM. 



HONOKATISSIMO DOiin^O, 
NON MINTS TIKTUTE SUA, QUAM GENEKIS SPLENDOSE, 

ILLVSTKISSIMO, 

GEOEaiO BEEKLEIO, 

MILITI DE BAXNEO, BAEONI DE BEKIiLEY, MOIJBEET, SEGEAVE, 

D. DE BEUSE, 
DOMINO SUO MULTIS NOMINIBUS OBSEETANDO, 

HANG SUAM 

MELANCHOLIA ANATOMEN, 

JAM SEXTO EETISAM, D.D. 

BEMOCEITUS JUMOE. 



ADVERTISEJ?^iENT. 



The work now restored to public notice has had an extraor- 
dinary fate. At the time of its original publication it obtained a 
great celebrity, which continued more than half a century. During 
that period few books were more read, or more deservedly ap- 
plauded. It was the delight of the learned, the solace of the 
indolent, and the refuge of the uninformed. It passed through at 
least eight editions, by which the bookseller, as Wood records, got 
an estate; and, notwithstanding the objection sometimes opposed 
against it, of a quaint style, and too great an accumulation of 
authorities, the fascination of its wit, fancy, and sterling sense, 
have borne down all censures, and extorted praise from the first 
writers in the Enghsh language. The grave Johnson has praised 
it in the warmest terms, and the ludicrous Sterne has interwoven 
many parts of it into his own popular performance. Milton did 
not disdain to build two of his finest poems on it; and a host of 
inferior writers have embellished their works with beauties not 
their own, cuUed from a performance which they had not the 
justice even to mention. Change of times, and the frivolity of 
fashion, suspended, in some degree, that fame which had lasted 
near a century; and the succeeding generation affected indiffer- 
ence towards an author, who at length was only looked into by 
the plunderers of literature, the poachers in obscure volumes. The 
plagiarisms of Tristram Shandy^ so successfully brought to light by 
Dr. Ferriar, at length drew the attention of the public towards 
a writer, who, though then little known, might, without impeach- 



Vlll ADVERTISEMENT. 

ment of modesty, lay claim to every mark of respect; and inquiry 
proved, beyond a doubt, that the calls of justice had been little 
attended to by others, as well as the facetious Yorick. Wood 
observed, more than a century ago, that several authors had un- 
mercifully stolen matter from Burton without any acknowledg- 
ment. The time, however, at length arrived, when the merits of 
the Anatomy of Melancholy were to receive their due praise. The 
book was again sought for and read, and again it became an 
applauded performance. Its excellencies once more stood confessed, 
in the increased price which every copy offered for sale produced ; 
and the increased demand pointed out the necessity of a new 
edition. This is now presented to the public in a manner not dis- 
graceful to the memory of the author; and the publisher relies 
with confidence, that so valuable a repository of amusement and in- 
formation, will continue to hold the rank to which it has been restored, 
firmly supported by its own merit, and safe from the influence and 
blight of any future caprices of fashion. To open its valuable 
mysteries to those who have not had the advantage of a classical 
education, translations of the countless quotations from ancient writers 
which occur in the work, are now for the first time given, and obsolete 
orthography is in all instances modernised. 




ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR. 



EoBERT Burton was the son of Ralph Burton, of an ancient and genteel 
family at Lindley, in Leicestershire, and was born there on the 8 th of February, 
1576.* He received the first rudiments of learning at the free school of 
Sutton Coldfield, in Warwickshire,t from whence he was, at the age of 
seventeen, in the long vacation, 1593, sent to Brazen Nose College, in the 
condition of a commoner, where he made a considerable progress in logic and 
philosophy. In 1599 he was elected student of Christ Church, and, for form 
sake, was put under the tuition of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards Bishop of 
Oxford. In 1614 he was admitted to the reading of the Sentences, and on the 
29th of ISTovember, 1616, had the vicarage of St. Thomas, in the west suburb 
of Oxford, conferred on him by the dean and canons of Christ Church, which, 
with the rectory of Segrave, in Leicestershire, given to him in the year 1636, 
by George, Lord Berkeley, he kept, to use the words of the Oxford antiquary, 
with much ado to his dying day. He seems to have been first beneficed at 
Walsby, in Lincolnshire, through the munificence of his noble patroness, 
Frances, Countess Dowager of Exeter, but resigned the same, as he tells us, for 
some special reasons. At his vicarage he is remarked to have always given 
the sacrament in wafers. Wood's character of him is, that " he was an exact 
mathematician, a curious calculator of nativities, a general read scholar, a 
thorough-paced philologist, and one that understood the surveying of lands 
well. As he was by many accounted a severe student, a devourer of authors, 
a melancholy and humorous person ; so by others, who knew him well, a persor 
of gTeat honesty, plain dealing and charity. I have heard some of the ancients 
of Christ Church often say, that his company was very merry, facete, and 

* His elder brother was William Burton, the Leicestershire antiquarj^, born 24th August, 1575, educated 
at Sutton Coldfield, admitted commoner, or gentleman commoner, of Brazen Nose College, 1591 ; at the Inner 
Temple, 20th May, 1593; B.A. 22nd June, 1594; and afterwards a barrister and reporter in the Court of 
Common Pleas. "But his natural genius," says Wood, "leading him to the studies of heraldry, genealo- 
gies, and antiquities, he became excellent in those obscu^re and intricate matters; and, look upon him as a 
gentleman, was accounted, by all that knew him, to be the best of iiis time for those studies, as may appear 
by his ' Description of Leicestershire.' " His weak constitution not permitting him to follow business, he retired 
into the country, and his greatest work, "The Description of Leicestershire," was published in folio, 1622. 
He died at Falde, after suffering much in the civil war, 6th April, 1645, and was buried in the parish church 
belonging thereto, called Hanbury. 

t This is Wood's account. His will says, Nuneaton; but a passage in this work [vbl. i. p. 395,] mentions 
Sutton Coldfield: probably he may have'beeu at both schools. 



X ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOK. 

juvenile; and no man in his time did surpass him for his ready and dexterous 
interlarding his common discourses among them with verses from the poets, or 
sentences from classic authors;, which being then all the fashion in the Univer- 
sity, made his company the more acceptable." He appears to have been a 
universal reader of all kinds of books, and availed himself of his multifarious 
studies in a very extraordinary manner. From the information of Hearne, we 
learn that John Rouse, the Bodleian librarian, furnished him with choice books 
for the prosecution of his work. The subject of his labour and amusement, 
seems to have been adopted from the inj&rmities of his own habit and constitu- 
tion. Mr. Granger says, " He composed this book with a view of relieving 
his own melancholy, but increased it to such a degree, that notliing could make 
him laugh, but going to the bridge-foot and hearing the ribaldry of the barge- 
men, which rarely failed to throw him into a violent fit of laughter. Before 
he was overcome with this horrid disorder, he, in the intervals of his vapours, 
was esteemed one of the most facetious companions in the University." 

His residence was chiefly at Oxford ; where, in his chamber in Christ 
Church College, he departed this life, at or very near the time which he had 
some years before foretold, from the calculation of his own nativity, and which, 
says Wood, " being exact, several of the students did not forbear to whisper 
among themselves, that rather than there should be a mistake in the calcula- 
tion, he sent up his soul to heaven through a slip about his neck." Whether 
this suggestion is founded in truth, we have no other evidence than an obscure 
hint in the epitaph hereafter inserted, which was written by the author himself, 
a short time before his death. His body, with due solemnity, was buried near 
that of Dr. Bobert Weston, in the north aisle which joins next to the choir of 
the Cathedral of Christ Church, on the 27th of January, 1639-40. Over his 
grave was soon after erected a comely monument, on the upper pillar of the 
said aisle, with his bust, paiuted to the life. On the right hand is the following 
calculation of his nativity : 




ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR. XI 

and under the bust; this inscription of his own composition :— 

Panels notus, paucioribus ignotus, 

Hie jacet Democritus junior 

Cui vitam dedit et mortem 
Melaneholia. 
Ob. 8 Id. Jan. A. C. mdcxxxix. 

Arms : — Azure on a bend 0. between three dogs' heads 0. a crescent G. 

A few months before his death; he made his will, of which the following is 
a copy: 

Extracted from the Eegistry of the Prerogative Court o^ Canterbury. 

In Nomine Dei Amen. Angust 15^^ One thousand six hundred thirty nine beeause 
there be so many casualties to which our life is subject besides quarrelling and contention 
which happen to our Successors after our Death by reason of unsettled Estates I Robert 
Burton Student of Christchurch Oxon. though my means be but small have thought good 
by this my last Will and Testament to dispose of that little which I have and being at 
this present I thank God in perfect health of Bodie and Mind and if this Testament be 
not so formal according to the nice and strict terms of Law and other Circumstances 
peradventtn-e required of which I am ignorant I desire howsoever this my Will may be 
accepted and stand good according to my true Intent and meaning First I bequeath 
Animam Deo Corpus Terrse whensoever it shall please God to call me I give my Land in 
Higham which my good Father Ralphe Burton of Lindly in the County of Leicester 
Esquire gave me by Deed of Gift and that which I have annexed to that Farm by purchase 
since, now leased for thirty eight pounds per Ann. to mine Elder Brother William Burton 
of Lindly Esquire during hi^ life and after him to his Heirs I make my said Brother 
William likewise mine Executor as well as paying such Annuities and Legacies out of my 
Lands and Goods as are hereafter specified I give to my nephew Cassibilan Burton 
twenty pounds Annuity per Ann. out of my Land in Higham during his life to be paid 
at two equall payments at our Lady Day in Lent and Michaelmas or if he be not paid 
within fourteen Days after the said Feasts to distrain on any part of the Ground on or 
any of my Lands of Inheritance Item I give to my sister Katherine Jackson during her 
life eight pounds per Ann. Annuity to be paid at the two Feasts equally as above said or 
else to distrain on the Ground if she be not paid after fourteen days at Lindly as the other 
some is out of the said Land Item I give to my Servant John Upton the Annuity of Forty 
Shillings out of my said Farme during his life (if till then my Servant) to be paid on 
Michaelmas day in Lindley each year or else after fourteen days to distrain Now for my 
goods I thus dispose them First I give an C^ pounds to Christ Church in Oxford where I 
have so long Kved to buy five pounds Lands per Ann. to be Yearly bestowed on Books 
for the Library Item I give an hundredth pound to the University Library of Oxford to 
be bestowed to purchase five pound Land per Ann. to be paid out Yearly on Books as 
Mrs. Brooks formerly gave an hundred pounds to buy Land to the same purpose and the 
Rent to the same use I give to my Brother George Burton twenty pounds and my watch 
I give to my Brother Ralph Burton five pounds Item I give to the Parish of Seagrave in 
Leicestershire where I am now Rector ten pounds to be given to certain Feofiees to the 
perpetual good of the said Parish Oxon^ Item I give to my Niece Eugenia Bm*ton One 
hundredth pounds Item I give to my Nephew Richard Burton now Prisoner in London an 
hundredth pound to redeem him Item I give to the Poor of Higham Forty Shillings where 
my Land is to the Poor of Ntmeaton where I was once a Grammar Scholar three pound 
to my Cousin Purfey of Wadlake [Wadley] my Cousin Purfey of Calcott my Cousin 
Hales of Coventry my Nephew Bradshaw of Orton twenty shillings a piece for a small 
remembrance to Mr. Whitehall Rector of Cherkby myne own Chamber Fellow twenty 
shillings I desire my Brother George and my Cosen Purfey of Calcott to be the Overseers 
of this part of my Will I give moreover five pounds to make a small Monument for my 
Mother where she is buried in London to my Brother Jackson forty shillings to my 
Servant John Upton forty shillings besides his former Annuity if he be my Servant till I 
die if he be till then my Servant f— ROBERT BURTON— Charles Russell Witness 
— John Pepper Witness. 

* So in the Register. f So in the Register. . 



XU ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR. 

An Appendix to this my Will if I die in Oxford or whilst I am of Christ Church and 
with good Mr. Paynes August the Fifteenth 1639. 

I Give to Mr. Doctor Fell Dean of Christ Church Forty Shillings to the Eight Canons 
twenty Shillings a piece as a small remembrance to the poor of St. Thomas parish Twenty 
Shillings to Brasenose Library five pounds to Mr. Rowse of Oriell Colledge twenty 
Shillings to Mr. Ileywood xxs. to Dr. Metcalfe xxs. to Mr. Sherley xxs. If I have any 
Books the University Libraiy hath not, let them take them If I have any Books our own 
Library hath not, let them take them I give to Mrs. Fell all my English Books of 
Husbandry one excepted to her Daughter Mrs. Katherine Fell my 

Six Pieces of Silver Plate and six Silver Spoons to Mrs lies my Gerards Herball to Mrs. 
Morris my Country Farme Translated out of French 4. and all my English Physick Books 
to Mr. Whistler the Recorder of Oxford I give tv/enty shillings to all my fellow 
Students IVT'"* of Arts a Book in fol. or two a piece as Master Morris Treasurer or Mr 
Dean shall appoint whom I request to be the Overseer of this Appendix and give him for 
his pains Atlas Geografer and Ortelius Theatrum Mond' I give to John Fell the Dean's 
Son Student my Mathematical Instruments except my two Crosse Staves which I give to 
my Lord of Donnol if he be then of the House To Thomas lies Doctor lies his Son 
Student Saluntch on Paurrheha and Lucian's Works in 4 Tomes If any books be left let 
my Executors dispose of them with all such Books as are written with my own hands 
and half my Melancholy Copy for Crips hath the other half To Mr. Jones Chaplin and 
Chanter my Surveving "^Books and Instruments To the Servants of the House Forty 
Shillings ROB. BURTON— Charles Russell Witness— John Pepper Witness— This Will 
was shewed to me by the Testator and acknowledged by him some few days before his 
death to be his last Will Ita Testor John Morris S Th D. Prebendari' Eccl Chri' Oxon 
Feb. 3, 1639. 

Probatum fuit Testamentmn suprascriptum, &c. ll^ 1640 Juramento Willmi Burton 
Fris' et Executoris cui &c. de bene et fideliter administrand. &;c. coram Mag'ris 
Nathanaele Stephens Rectore Eccl. de Drayton, et Edwardo Farmer, Clericis, 
vigore commissionis, &c. 

The only work our aiitlior executed was that now reprinted, which 
probably was the principal employment of his life. Dr. Ferriar says, it was 
originally published in the year 1617; but this is evidently a mistake;* the 
first edition was that printed in 4 to, 1621, a copy of which is at present in 
the collection of John Nichols, Esq., the indefatigable illustrator of the 
History of Leicestershire; to whom, and to Isaac Reed, Esq., of Staple Inn, 
this account is greatly indebted for its accuracy. The other impressions of it 
were in 1624, 1628, 1632, 1638, 1651-2, 1660, and 1676, which last, in the 
title-page, is called the eighth edition. 

The copy from which the present is re-printed, is thab of 1651-2: at the 
conclusion of which is the following address : 

" To THE READER. 

" Be pleased to know (Courteous Reader) that since the last Impression of this Book, 
the ingenuous Author of it is deceased, leaving a Copy of it exactly corrected, with several 
considerable Additions by his own hand ; this Copy he committed to my care and custody, 
with directions to have those Additions inserted in the next Edition ; which in order to his 
command, and the Publicke Good, is faithfully performed in this last Impression." 

H. C. (i. e. HEN. CRIPPS.) 

* Originatinj?, perhaps, In a note, p. 448, 6tli edit. (p. 504 of the present), in which a book is quoted 
as having been " printed at I'aris 1624, seven years after Burton's first edition." As, however, the editions 
after that of 1621, are re£;-ularlj^ marked iu succession to the eighth, printed in 1676, there seems very little 
reason to douht that, in the note above alluded to, either 1624 has been a misprint for 1628, or seven years for 
three years. The numerous typographical errata in other parts of the work strongly aid this latter suppo- 
sition. 



ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR. Xlll 

The following testimonies of various authors will serve to show the estima- 
tion in which this work has been held : — 

" The Anatomt of Melancholy, wherein the author hath piled up variety of much 
excellent learning. Scarce any book of philology in our land hath, in so short a time, 
passed so many editions." — Fuller's Worthies^ fol. 16. 

" 'Tis a book so full of variety of reading, that gentlemen who have lost their tim^e, and 
are put to a push for invention, may farnish themselves with matter for common or scholas- 
tical discom'se and writing." — Wood's Athence Oxoniensis^ vol. i. p. 628. 2d edit. 

" If you never saw Burton upon Melancholy, printed 1676, I pray look into it, and 
read the ninth page of his Preface, 'Democritus to the Reader.' There is something 
there which touches the point we are upon ; but I mention the author to you, as the 
pleasantest, the most learned, and the most full of sterling sense. The wits of Queen 
Anne's reign, and the beginning of George the First, were not a little beholden to him." 
■ — Archbishop Herring's Letters, 12mo, 1777. p. 149. 

" Bukton's Anatomy of Melancholy, he (Dr. Johnson) said, was the only book that 
ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise." — BoswelVs Life of 
Johnson, vol. i. p. 580, 8vo. edit. 

" Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is a 'valuable book," said Dr. Johnson. *' It is, 
perhaps, overloaded Avith quotation. But there is great spirit and great power iu what 
Burton says when he writes from his own mind." — Ibid. vol. ii. p. 325. 

" It will be no detraction from the powers of Milton's original genius and invention, to 
remark, that he seems to have borrowed the subject of L' Allegro and II Penseroso together 
with some particular thoughts, expressions, and rhymes, more especially the idea of a con- 
trast between these two dispositions, from a forgotten poem prefixed to the first edition of 
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, entitled, ' The Author's Abstract of Melancholy ; or 
A Dialogue between Pleasure and Pain.' Here pain is melancholy. It was written, as I 
conjecture, about the year 1600. I will make no apology for abstracting and citing as 
much of this poem as will be suflScient to prove, to a discerning reader, how far it had 
taken possession of Milton's mind. The measure will appear to be the same; and that 
our author was at least an attentive reader of Burton's book, may be already concluded 
from the traces of resemblance which I have incidentally noticed in passing through the 
LAllegro and II Penseroso.'" — After extracting the lines, Mr. Warton adds, "as to the 
very elaborate work to which these visionary verses are no unsuitable introduction, the 
writer's variety of learning, his quotations from scarce and curious books, his pedantry 
sparkling with rude wit and shapeless elegance, miscellaneous matter, intermixtvire of 
agreeable tales and illustrations, and, perhaps, above all, the singularities of his feelings, 
clothed in an uncommon quaintness of style, have contributed to render it, even to modern 
readers, a valuable repository of amusement and information." — Warton' s Milton. 2d. edit. 
p. 94. 

" The Anatomy of Melancholy is a book which has been universally read and admired. 
This work is, for the most part, what the author himself styles it, ' a cento ; ' but it is a 
very ingenious one. His qtiotations, which abound in every page, are pertinent; but if he 
had made more use of his invention and less of his commonplace-book, his work would 
perhaps have been more valuable than it is. He is generally free from the affected 
language and ridiculous metaphors which disgrace most of the books of his time." 
— Granger's Biographical History. 

" Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a book once the favourite of the learned and 
the witty, and a source of surreptitious learning, though written on a regular plan, consists 
chiefly of quotations: the author has honestly termed it a cento. He collects, under every 
division, the opinions of a multitude of writers, without regard to chronological order, and 
has too often the modesty to decline the interposition of his own sentiments. Indeed the 
bulk of his materials generally overv/helms him. In the course of his folio he has contrived 
to treat a great variety of topics, that seem very loosely connected with the general sub- 
ject; and, like Bayle, Avhen he starts a favourite train of quotations, he does not scruple 
to let the digression outrun the principal question. Thus, from the doctrines of religion 
to military discipline, from inland navigation to the morality of dancing-schools, every 
thing is discussed and determined." — Ferriar's Illustrations of Sterne, p. 58. 



XIV ACCOUNT OP THE AUTHOR. 

" The archness which Burton displays occasionally, and his indulgence of playful digres- 
sions from the most serious discussions, often give his style an air of familiar conversation, 
notwithstanding the laborious collections which supply his text. He Avas capable of Avrit- 
ing excellent poetry, but he seems to have cultivated this talent too little. The English 
verses prefixed to his book, which possess beautiful imagery, and great sweetness of versi- 
fication, have been frequently published. His Latin elegiac verses addressed to his book, 
shew a very agreeable turn for raillery. "^ — Ibid. p. 58. 

" When the force of the subject opens his own vein of prose, we discover valuable sense 
and brilliant expression. Such is his account of the fi.rst feelings of melancholy persons, 
written, probably, from his own experience." [See p. 161, of the present edition.] — Ibid. 
p. 60. 

" During a pedantic age, like that in which Bukton's production appeared, it must 
have been eminently serviceable to writers of many descriptions. Hence the unlearned 
might furnish themselves with appropriate scraps of Greek and Latin, whilst men of letters 
would find their inquiries shortened, by knowing where they might look for what both 
ancients and moderns have advanced on the subject of human passions. I confess my 
inability to point out any other English author who has so largely dealt in apt and 
original quotation." — Manuscript note of the late George Steevens, Esq.* in his copy of Tim 
Anatomy of MELANcaoLY. 



DEMOCEITUS JUNIOE AD LIBRUM SUUK 



Vade liber, qualis, non ausim dicere, fcelix, 

Te nisi foelicem fecerit Alma dies, 
Vade tamen quocunque lubet, quascunque per oras, 

Et Genium Domini fac imitere tui. 
I blandas inter Charites, mystdmque saluta 

Musarum quemTis, si tibi lector erit. 
Kvu'a colas, urbem, snbeasve palatia regum, 

Submisse, placide, te sine dente geras. 
Nobibs, aut si quis te forte inspexerit heros, . 

Da te morigeriun, perlegat nsque lubet. 
Est quod Nobilitas, est quod desideret heros, 

Gratior heec forsan cbarta placere potest. 
Si quis morosus Cato, tetricusque Senator, 

Hunc etium librum forte videre velit, 
Sive magistratus, turn te reverenter habeto; 

Sed nullus ; muscas non capiunt Aquilse. 
JSTon vacat his tempus fugitivum impendere nugis. 

Nee tales cupio ; par mihi lector erit. 
Si raatrona gravis casu diverterit istuc, 

Illustris domina, aut te Comitissa legat : 
Est quod displiceat, placeat quod forsitan illis, 

Ingerere his noli te modo, pande tamen. 
At si virgo tuas dignabitur inclyta chartas 

Tangere, sive schedis haereat ilia tuis : 
Da modo te facilem, et queedam folia esse memento 

Conveniant oculis quae magis apta suis. 
Si generosa ancilla tuos aut alma puella 

Visura est ludos, annue, pande lubens. 
Die utinam nunc ipse mens* (nam diligit istas) 

In praesens esset conspiciendus herus. 
Ignotus notusve mihi de gente togata 

Sive aget in ludis, pulpita sive colet, 
Sive in Lycoeo, et nugas evolverit istas, 

Si quasdam mendas viderit inspiciens. 
Da veniam Authori, dices; nam plui-ima vellet 

Expungi, quae jam displicuisse sciat. 
Sive Melancholicus quisquam, seu blandus Amator, 

Aulicus aut Civis, seu bene comptus Eques 
Hue appellat, age et tuto te crede legenti, 

Multa istic forsan non male nata leget. 
Quod fugiat, caveat, quodque amplexabitur, ista 

Pagina fortassis promere multa potest. 
At si quis Medicus coram te sistet, amice 

Fac circumspecte, et te sine labe geras: 
Inveniet namque ipse meis quoque plurima scriptis, 

Non leve subsidium quae sibi forsan erunt. 
Si quis Causidicus chartas impingat in istas, 

Nil mihi vobiscum, pessima turba vale ; 
Sit nisi vir bonus, et jui'is sine fraude peritus, 

Turn legat, et forsan doctior inde siet. 

* Hecc cornice dicta cave ne male capias. 



XVI DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR AD LIBRUM SUUM. 

Si quis cordatus, facilis, lectorque benignus 

Hue oculos vertat, quae velit ipse legat ; 
Candidus ignoscet, nietuas nil, pande libenter, 

Offensus mendis non erit ille tuis, 
Laudabit nonnulla. Venit si Rhetor ineptus, 

Limata at tersa, et qui bene cocta petit, 
Claude eitus librum; nulla hie nisi ferrea verba, 

Offendent stomachum quae minus apta suum. 
At si quis non eximius de plebe poeta, 

Annue ; namque istie plurima fieta leget. 
Nos sumus e numero, nullus mihi spirat Apollo, 

Grandiloquu.s Vates quilibet esse nequit. 
Si Criticus Lector, tumidus Censorqxie molestus, 

Zoilus et Momus, si rabiosa cohors: 
Kinge, freme, et noli turn pandere, turba malignia 

Si occurrat sannis invidiosa suis : 
Tae fugias ; si nulla tibi sit copia eundi, 

Contemnes, tacite scommata quseque feres. 
Frendeat, allatret, A'acuas gannitibus auras 

Impleat, baud cures; his plaeuisse nefas. 
Verum age si forsan divertat purior hospes, 

Cuique sales, ludi, displiceantque joci, 
Objiciatque tibi sordes, lasoivaque : dices, 

Lasciva est Domino et Musa jocosa tuo. 
Nee lasciva tamen, si pensitet omne; sed esto; 

Sit lasciva licet pagina, vita proba est. 
Barbarus, indoctusque rudis spectator in istam 

Si messem intrudat, fuste fugabis eum, 
Fungum pelle procul ( jubeo) nam quid mihi fungo? 

Conveniunt stomacho non minus ista suo. 
Sed nee pelle taraen ; Iseto omnes accipe vultu, 

Quos, quas, vel quales, inde vel unde viros. 
Gratus erit quicunque venit, gratissimus hospes 

Quisquis erit, facilis difficilisque mihi. 
Nam si culparit, qusedam culpasse juvabit, 

Culpando faciet me meliora sequi. 
Sed si laudarit, neque laudibus eflferar uUis, 

Sit satis hisce malis opposuisse bonum. 
Haec sunt quae nostro placuit mandare libello, 

Et quae dimittens dicere jussit Herug. 



DEMOCRITUS JUNIOE TO HIS BOOK. 



PARAPHRASTIC METRICAL TRANSLATION. 

Go forth my book into the open day; 

Happy, if made so by its garish eye. 
O'er earth's wide surface take thy vagrant way, 

To imitate thy master's genius try. 
The graces three, the Muses nine salute, 

Should those who love them try to con thy lore. 
The country, city seek, grand thrones to boot, 

With gentle courtesy humbly bow before. 
Should nobles gallant, soldiers frank and brave 

Seek thy acquaintance, haU their first advance : 
From twitch of care thy pleasant vein may save. 

May laughter cause or wisdom give perchance. 
Some surly Cato, Senator austere. 

Haply may wish to peep into thy book: 
Seem very nothing — tremble and revere : ^ 

No forceful eagles, butterflies e'er look. 
They love not thee : of them then little seek. 

And wish for readers triflers like thyself. 
Of ludeful matron watchful catch the beck, 

Or gorgeous countess full of pride and pelf. 
They may say "pish!" and frown, and yet read on: 

Cry odd, and silly, coarse, and yet amusing. 
Should dainty damsels seek thy page to con. 

Spread thy best stores: to them be ne'er refusing: 
Say, fair one, master loves thee dear as life ; 

Would he were here to gaze on thy sweet look. 
Should known or unknown student, free'd from strife 

Of logic and the schools, explore my book : 
Cry mercy critic, and thy book withhold : 

Be some few errors pardon'd though observ'd : 
An humble author to implore makes bold. 

Thy kind indulgence, even undeserv'd, 
ShoTild melancholy wight or pensive lover. 

Courtier, snug cit, or carpet knight so trim 
Our blossoms cull, he'll find himself in clover. 

Gain sense from precept, laughter from our whim. 
Should learned leech with solemn air unfold 

Thy leaves, beware, be civil, and be wise: 
Thy volume many precepts sage may hold. 

His well fraught head may find no trifling prize. 
Should crafty lawyer trespass on our ground. 

Caitiffs avaunt! disturbing tribe away! 
Unless (white crow) an honest one be found; 

He'll better, wiser go for w hat we say. 
Should some ripe scholar, gentle and benign. 

With candour, care, and judgment thee peruse: 
Thy faults to kind oblivion he'll consign ; 

Nor to thy merit will his praise refuse. 



XVIU DEMOCEITUS JUNIOR TO HIS BOOK. 

Thou may'st be searched for polish'd words and verse; 

By flippant spouter, emptiest of praters: 
Tell him to seek them in some mawkish verse : 

My periods all are rough as nutmeg graters. 
The doggrel poet, wishing thee to read, 

Reject not; let him glean thy jests and stories. 
His brother I, of lowly sembling breed : 

Apollo grants to few Parnassian glories. 
Menac'd by critic with sour furrowed brow, 

Momus or Troilus or Scotch reviewer: 
Ruffle your heckle, grin and growl and vow: 

Ill-natured foes you thus will find the fewer. 
When foul-mouth'd senseless railers cry thee down. 

Reply not ; fly, and show the rogues thy stern : 
They are not Avorthy even of a frown : 

Good taste or breeding they can never learn; 
Or let them clamour, tiu^n a callous ear, 

As though in dread of some harsh donkey's bray 
If chid by "censor, friendly though severe. 

To such explain and turn thee not away. 
Thy vein, says he perchance, is all too free; 

Thy smutty language suits not learned pen: 
Reply, Good Sir, throughout, the context see; 

Thought chastens thought; so prithee judge again. 
Besides, although my master's pen may wander 

Through devious paths, by which it ought not stray 
His life is pure, beyond the breath of slander : 

So pardon grant ; 'tis merely but his way. 
Some rugged ruffian makes a hideous rout — 

Brandish thy cudgel, threaten him to baste; 
The filthy fungus far from thee cast out; 

Such noxious banquets never suit my taste. 
Yet, calm and cautious moderate thy ire, 

Be ever courteous should the case allow— 
Sweet malt is ever made by gentle fire : 

Warm to thy friends, give all a civil bow. 
Even censure sometimes teaches to improve, 

Slight frosts have often cured too rank a crop, 
So, candid blame my spleen shall never move. 

For skilful gard'ners wayward branches lop. 
Go then, my book, and bear my words in mind ; 
Guides safe at once, and pleasant them you'll find. 



THE AEGUMENT OF THE FRONTISPIECE * 



Ten distinct Squares here seen apart, 
Are joined in one bj Cutter's art. 



I. 

Old Democritus under a tree. 
Sits on a stone with book on knee; 
About him hang there many features, 
Of Cats, Dogs and such like creatm^es, 
Of which he makes anatomy, 
The seat of black choler to see. 
Over his head appears the sky. 
And Saturn Lord of melancholy. 



To the left a landscape of Jealousy, 
Presents itself unto thine eye. 
A Itingfisher, a Swan, an Hern, 
Two fighting-cocks you may discern, 
Two roaring Bulls each other hie, 
To assault concerning venery. 
Symbols are these ; I say no more, 
Conceive the rest by that's afore. 



III. 

The next of solitariness, 
A Portraiture doth well express. 
By sleeping dog, cat: Buck and Doe, 
Hares, Conies in the desart go: 
Bats, Owls the shady bowers over, 
In melancholy darkness hover. 
Mark well : If t be not as't should be, 
Blame the bad Cutter, and not me. 



r th' under column there doth stand 

Inamorato with folded hand ; 

Down hangs his head, terse and polite. 

Some ditty sure he doth indite. 

His lute and books about him lie. 

As symptoms of his vanity. 

If this do not enough disclose. 

To paint him, take thyself by th' nose. 



Hypocondriaous leans on his arm, 
Wind in his side doth him much harm, 
And troubles him full sore, God knows, 
Much pain he hath and many woes. 
About him pots and glasses lie, 
Newly brought from's Apothecary. 
This Saturn's aspects signify. 
You see them portray'd in the sky. 



Beneath them kneeling on his knee, 
A Superstitious man you see : 
He fasts, prays, on his Idol fixt, 
Tormented hope and fear betwixt : 
For hell perhaps he takes more pain, 
Than thou dost heaven itself to gain. 
Alas poor soul, I pity thee, 
What stars incline thee so to be ? 



But see the madman rage downright 
With furious looks, a ghastly sight. 
Naked in chains bound doth he lie. 
And roars amain he knows not why! 
Observe him ; for as in a glass. 
Thine angry portraiture it was. 
His picture keeps still in thy presence ; 
'Twixt lum and thee, there's no difference. 



VIII, IX. 

Borage and Hellehor fill two scenes. 
Sovereign plants to purge the veins 
Of melancholy, and cheer the heart, 
Of those black fumes which make it smart; 
To clear the brain of misty fogs. 
Which dull our senses, and Soul clogs. 
The best medicine that e'er God made 
For this malady, if well assay'd. 



Now last of all to fill a place. 
Presented is the Author's face; 
And in that habit which he wears, 
His image to the world appears. 
His mind no art can well express, 
That by his writings yoti may guess. 
It was not pride, nor yet vain glory, 
(Though others do it commonly,) 
Made him do this: if you must know. 
The Printer would needs have it so. 
Then do not frown or scoff at it. 
Deride not, or detract a whit. 
For surely as thou dost by him. 
He will do the same again. 
Then look upon't, behold and see. 
As thou Uke'st it, so it likes thee. 
And I for it will stand in view, 
Thine to command, Reader, adieu. 



* These verses refer to the Frontispiece, which is dividecl into ten compartments that are here severally 
explamed. The author's portrait, mentioned in the tenth stanza, is copied in page ix. 



THE AUTHOE'S AESTRACT OF MELANCHOLY, A,a\oyoj;. 



"When I go musing all alone, 
Thinking of divers things fore-known, 
When I build castles in the air, 
Void of sorrow and void of fear, 
Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet, 
Methinks the time runs very fleet. 
All my joys to this are folly, 
Naught so s weet as melancholy. 
"When I lie waking all alone, 
Recounting what I have ill done, 
My thoughts on me then tyrannise, 
Pear and sorrow me surprise, 
"Whether I tarry still or go, 
Methinks the time moves very slow. 
All my griefs to this are jolly. 
Naught so sad as melancholy. 
"When to myself I act and smile. 
With pleasing thoughts the time beguile. 
By a brook side or w^ood so green. 
Unheard, unsought for, or unseen, 
A thousand pleasures do me bless. 
And crown my soul Avith happiness. 
All my joys"besides are folly. 
None so sweet as melancholy. 
"When I lie, sit, or walk alone, 
I sigh, I grieve, making great mone, 
In a dark grove, or irksome den, \ 
"With discontents and Furies then, \ 
A thousand miseries at once / 

Mine heavy heart and soul ensonce, 
All my griefs to this are joLiy, 
None so sour as melancholy. 
Methinks I hear, methinks I see. 
Sweet music, wondrous melody. 
Towns, palaces, and cities fine ; ) 
Here now, then there; the world is mine. 
Rare beauties, gallant ladies shine, 
"Whate'er is lovely or divine. 
All other joys to this are folly. 
None so sweet as melancholy. 
Methinks I hear, methinks I see 
Ghosts, goblins, fiends ; my fantasy 
Presents a thousand ugly shapes. 
Headless bears, black men, and apes. 
Doleful outcries, and fearful sights. 
My sad and dismal soul affrights. 
All my griefs to this are jolly. 
None so damn'd as melancholy. 



! Methinks I court, methinks I kiss, 
Methinks I now embrace my mistress. 

blessed days, O sweet content, 
In Paradise my time is spent. 
Such thoughts may still my fancy move, 
So may I ever be in love. 

All my joys to this are folly, 
Naught so sweet as melancholy. 
"When I recount love's many frights, 
My sighs and tears, my waking nights. 
My jealous fits; O mine hard fate 

1 now repent, but 'tis too late. 
No torment is so bad as love, 
So bitter to my soul can prove. 

All my griefs to this are jolly. 
Naught so harsh as melancholy. 
Friends and companions get you gone, 
'Tis my desire to be alone; 
Ne'er well but when my thoughts and I 
Do domineer in privacy. 
No Gem, no treasure like to this, 
'Tis my delight, my crown, my bliss. 
All my joys to this are folly, 
Naught so sweet as melancholy. 
'Tis my sole plague to be alone, 
I am a beast, a monster grown, 
I will no light nor company, 
I find it now my misery. 
The scene is turn'd, my joys are gone. 
Fear, discontent, and sorrows come. 
All my griefs to this are jolly. 
Naught so fierce as melancholy. 
I'll not change life with any King, 
I ravisht am: can the world bring 
More joy, than still to laugh and smile. 
In pleasant toys time to beguile? 
Do not, O do not trouble me, 
So sweet content I feel and see. 
All my joys to this are folly. 
None so divine as melancholy. 
I'll change my state with any wretch. 
Thou canst from gaol or dunghill fetch; 
My pain's past cure, another hell, 
I may not in this torment dwell I 
Now desperate I hate my life. 
Lend me a halter or a knife ; 
All my griefs to this are jolly, 
Naught so damn'd as melancholy. 



PEMOCRITUS JUNIOR 

TO THE EEA.DEII. 



GENTLE Reader, I presume tliou wilt be very inquisitive to know wtat 
antic or personate actor this is, that so insolently intrudes upon this 
common theatre, to the world's view, arrogating another man's name ; whence 
he is, why he doth it, and what he hath to say; although, as ""he said, 
Primum si noluero, non respondebo, quis coacfurus est ? I am a free man born, 
and may choose whether I will tell; who can compel me? If I be urged, I will 
as readily reply as that Egyptian in Tlutarch, when a curious fellow would 
needs know what he had in his basket, Quum vides velatam, quid inquiris in 
rem absconditam? It was therefore covered, because he should not know what 
was in it. Seek not after that which is hid ; if the contents please thee, 
" "and be for thy use, suppose the Man in the Moon, or whom thou wilt to be 
the Author;" I would not willingly be known. Yet in some sort to give thee 
satisfaction, which is more than I need, I will show a reason, both of this 
usurped name, title, and subject. And first of the name of Democritus; lest 
any man, by reason of it, should be deceived, expecting a pasquil, a satire, some 
ridiculous treatise (as I myself should have done), some prodigious tenet, or 
paradox of the earth's motion, of infinite worlds, in infinito vacuo, exfortuitd 
atomorum coUisione, in an infinite waste, so caused by an accidental collision 
of motes in the sun, all which Democritus held, Epicurus and their master 
Lucippus of old maintained, and are lately revived by Copernicus, Brunus, and 
some others. Besides, it hath been always an ordinary custom, as ^Gellius 
observes, " for later writers and impostors, to broach many absurd and insolent 
fictions, under the name of so noble a philosopher as Democritus, to get them- 
selves credit, and by that means the more to be respected," as artificers 
usually do, J^ovo qui marmori ascrihunt Praxatilem suo. 'Tis not so with me. 

e Non hie Centauros, non Gorgonas, Harpyasque I No Centraurs here, or Gorgons look to find, 
Invenies, hominem pagina nostra sapit. | My subject is of mau and human kind. 

Thou thyself art the subject of my discourse. 

'Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, I Wliate'er men do, vows, fears, in ire, in sport, 
Gaudia, discursus, nostri farrago lihelli. I Joys, wand' rings, are the sum of my report. 

My intent is no otherwise to use his name, than Mercurius Gallobelgicus, 
Mercurius Britannicus, use the name of Mercury, ^Democritus Christianus, &c.; 
although there be some other circumstances for which I have masked myself 
under this vizard, and some peculiar respect which I cannot so well express, 
until I have set down a brief character of this our Democritus, what he was, 
with an Epitome of his life. 

Democritus, as he is described by ^Hippocrates and 'Laertius, was a little 
wearish old man, very melancholy by nature, averse from company in his latter 
days,"^ and much given to solitariness, a famous philosopher in his age, ^cocevus 

a Seneca in ludo in mortem Claudii Cposaris. ^ Lib. de Curiositato. c jjodo hasc tibi usui sint, quemvia 
auctorem fingito. Weaker. ^ Lib. 10, c. 12. Miilta a male feriatis in Democriti nomine commenta data, 
nobilitatis, auctoritatiague ejus perfngio utentibus. e Martialis, lib. 10. epigr. 14. *' Juv. sat. 1. 

e Auth. Pet. Besseo edit. ColoniiB, 1616. ^ Hip. Epist. Dameget. ' Laert. lib. 9. k Hortulo sibi cellulam 
seligens, ibique seipsum includens, visit solitarius. ' Floruit Olympiade 80? 700 annis post Ti-oiam. 

B 



2 Democritus to the Reader. 

■vritli Socrates, wholly addicted to his studies at the last, and to a private life : 
WT?ote many excellent works, a great divine, according to the divinity of those 
times, an e^-pert physician, a politician, an excellent mathematician, as "Dia- 
cosmus and the rest of his works do witness. He was much delighted with the 
studies of husbandry, saith "" Columella, and often I find him cited by "Constan- 
tinus and others treating of that subject. He knew the natures, difierencesof all 
beasts, plants, fishes, birds; and, as some say, could ^understand the tunes and 
voices of them. In a word, he was omnifariam doctus, a general scholar, a great 
student; and to the intent he might better contemplate, '^I find it related by 
some, that he put out his eyes, and was in his old age voluntarily blind, yet sav/ 
more than all Greece besides, and ""writ of every subject, Nihil in toto op'ficio 
naturcB, de quo non scripsit.^ A man of an excellent wit, profound conceit ; 
and to attain knowledge the better in his younger years he travelled to Egypt 
and *Athens, to confer with learned men, ""admired of some, despised of 
others." After a wandering life, he settled at Abdera, a town in Thrace, and 
was sent for thither to be their law-maker. Recorder, or town-clerk as some 
will; or as others, he was there bred and born. Howsoever it was, there he 
lived at last in a garden in the suburbs, wholly betaking himself to his studies 
and a private life, "''saving that sometimes he would walk down to the haven, 
^and laugh heartily at such variety of ridicnlous objects, which there he saw." 
Such a one was Democritus. 

But in the mean time, how doth this concern me, or upon what reference do 
I usurp this habit? I confess, indeed, that to compare myself unto him for aught 
I have yet said, were both impudency and arrogancy. I do not presume to make 
any parallel, Antistat mihi millihus irecentis, ^parvus sum, nullus sum, altum neo 
sjnro, nee spero. Yet thus much I will say of myself, and that I hope with- 
out all suspicion of pride, or self-conceit, I have lived a silent, sedentary, solitary, 
private life, inlhi et musis in the University, as long almost as Xenocrates in 
Athens, ad senectamfere to learn wisdom as he did, penned up most part in 
my study. For I have been brought up a student in the most flourishing 
college of Europe, '^augustissimo collegio, and can brag with ^Jovius, almost, 
in ed luce domicilii Vacicani, totius orhis celeherrimi, per 37 ajinos multa 
opportunaqiie didici;'" for thirty years I have continued (having the use of as 
good ""libraries as ever he had) a scholar, and would be therefore loth, either 
by living as a drone, to be an unprofitable or unworthy member of so learned 
and noble a society, or to write that which should be any way dishonourable to 
such a royal and ample foundation. Something I have done, though by my 
profession a divine, yet turbine raptus ingenii, as ^he said, out of a running 
v»dt, an unconstant, unsettled mind, I had a great desire (not able to attain to 
a superficial skill in any) to have some smattering in all, to be aliquis in omni- 
bus, nullus in singulis'', which "^Plato commends, out of him ^Lipsius approves 
and furthers, "' as fit to be imprinted in all curious wits, not to be a slave of 
one science, or dwell together in one subject, as most do, but to rove abroad, 
centum puer artium, to have an oar in every man's boat, to ^ taste of every 
dish, and sip of every cup," which, saith ^Montaigne, was well performed by 
Aristotle, and his learned countryman Adrian Turaebus. This roving humour 

( 

m Diacos. quod cnnctis operibus facile excellit. Laevt. " Col. lib. 1. c. I. » Const. lib. de agric. passim. 
P Volucrum voces et linguas intelligere se dicit Abderitans Ep. Hip. <i Sabellicus e.xempl., lib. 10. Oculis se 
privavit, ut melius contemplationi operam daret, siiblimi vir ingenio, profundse cogitationis, &c. ' Natu- 
ralia, moralia, mathematica, liberales discipliuas, artiumque omnium peritiam callebat. « Nothing in nature's 
power to contrive of which he has not written. * Veni Athenas, et nemo me novit. "Idem contemptui 
et adrairationi habitus. ' Solebat ad portam ambulare, et inde, &c. Hip. Ep. Dameg. ■"' Perpetuo risu 
pulmonem agitare solebat Democritus. Juv. Sat. 7. ^ Non sum dignus prasstare mattella. Mart. 

y Christ Church in Oxford. ^ Pra2fat. hist. * Keeper of our college library, lately revived by Otho Nicolson, 
Esquire. ^ Scaliger. <= Somebody in everything, nobody in each thing. <* In Theat. e phu. Stoic, li. 
diff. 8. Dogma cupidis et curiosis ingeniis imprimendum, ut sit talis qui nulli rei sei-viat, aut exacte unum 
aliquid elaboret, alia negligens, ut artifices, Ac. ^ Delibare giatum de quocunque cibo, et pittisare de quo- 
cunque dolio jucundum. e Essays, lib. 3. 



4 



Democritiis to the Reader. 3 

(tlioiigli Hot with like success) I have ever had, and like a ranging spaniel, 
that barks at every bird he sees, leaving his game, I have followed all, saving 
that which I should, and may justly complain, and truly, qui uhique est, nus- 
quam est^ which * Gesner did in modesty, that I have read many books, but 
to little purpose, for want of good method j I have confusedly tumbled over 
divers authors in our libraries, with small proiit for want of art, order, memory, 
judgment. I never travelled but in map or card, in which my unconfined 
thoughts have freely expatiated, as having ever been especially delighted with 
the study of Cosmography. J Saturn was lord of my geniture, culminating, 
&c., and Mars principal significator of manners, in partile conj unction with my 
ascendant ; both fortunate in their houses, &c. I am not poor, I am not rich ; 
nihil est, nihil chest, I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in 
Minerva's tower. Greater preferment as I could never get, so am I not in 
debt for it, I have a competence (laus Deo) from my noble and munificent 
patrons, though I live still a collegiate student, as Democritus in his garden, 
and lead a monastic life, ipse raihi theatrwn, sequestered from those tumults 
and troubles of the world, Ut tanquam in speeula positus, (^ as he said) in some 
high place above you all, like Stoicus Sapiens, omnia scBcula, prceterita presen- 
tiaque videiis, uno velut intuitu, I hear and see what is done abroad, how others 
^ run, ride, turmoil, and macerate themselves in court and coimtry, far from 
those wrangling lawsuits, aulm vanitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo : 
I laugh at all, "only secure lest my suit go amiss, my ships perish, corn and 
cattle miscarry, trade decay, I have no wife nor children good or bad to provide 
for. A mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they 
act their parts, which methinks are diversely presented unto me as from a 
common theatre or scene. I hear new news every day, and those ordinary 
rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, 
comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in 
France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c., daily musters and prepa- 
rations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afibrd, battles fought so 
many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies, and sea-fights ; peace, 
leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms. A vast confusion of vows, wishes, 
actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, 
grievances, are daily brought to our ears. New books every day, pamphlets, 
currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, 
opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, &c. Now 
come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, 
embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays : 
then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, 
enormous villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, new dis- 
coveries, expeditions, now comical, then tragical matters. To-day we hear of 
new lords and officers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed, and then 
again of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned; one 
purchaseth, another breaketh : he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt : now 
plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, 
laughs, weeps, &c. Thus I daily hear, and such like, both private and public 
aews, amidst the gallantry and misery of the v/orld; jollity, pride, perplexities 
^nd cares, simplicity and villany ; subtlety, knavery, candour and integrity, 
mutually mixed and offering themselves; I rub on privus privatus ; as I have 
still lived, so I now continue, statu quo p)rius, left to a solitary life, and mine 
own domestic discontents : saving that sometimes, ne quid iiientiar, as Diogenes 

^ He that is everywhere is nowhere. »Pr£efat. bibliothec. J Ambo fortes et foi'tunati, Mars idem 

maj^isterii dominas juxta priraam Leovittii regulam. ^ Hensius. ^ Calide ambientes, solicite litigantes, 
a'lt misere escidentes, voces, strepitum, contentiones, &c. ™ Cyp. ad Donat. Unice secm'uSj ne excidam 
iu foro, aut iu mariJndico bonis elua, de dote filiiiej patrimonio fiLi nun sum solici.us. 



4 Democritus to the Reader. 

went into tlie city, and Democritus to the haven to see fashions, I did for my 
recreation now and then walk abroad, look into the world, and could not choose 
but make some little observation, non tain sagax observator, m simpUx red- 
tator,'' not as they did, to scoff or laugh at all, but with a mixed passion. 

" Bilem saspe, joctitn vestri movere tumultus." 
Ye wretched mimics, whose fond heats have been, 
How oft ! the objects of my mirth and spleen. 

I did sometime laugh and scoff with Lucian, and satirically tax with 
Menippus, lament with Heraclitus, sometimes again I was '^petulanti splene 
chachinno, and then again, ^urere bills jecur, I was much moved to see that 
abuse which I could not mend. In which passion howsoever I may sympathize 
with him or them, 'tis for no such respect I shroud myself under his name ; 
but either in an unknown habit to assume a little more liberty and freedom of 
speech, or if you will needs know, for that reason and only respect which 
Hippocrates relates at large in his Epistle to Damegetus, wherein he doth 
express, how coming to visit him one day, he found Democritus in his garden 
at Abdera, in the suburbs, "^ under a shady bower, ^with a book on his knees, 
busy at his study, sometimes writing, sometimes walking. The subject of his 
book was melancholy and madness; about him lay the carcases of many several 
beasts, newly by him cut up and anatomised ; not that he did contemn God's 
creatures, as he told HijDpocrates, but to find out the seat of this atra hilis, 
or melancholy, whence it j^roceeds, and how it was engendered in men's bodies, 
to the intent he might better cure it in. himself, and by his writings and obser- 
vations Heach others how to prevent and avoid it. Which good intent of his, 
Hippocrates highly commended: Democritus Junior is therefore bold to 
imitate, and because he left it imperfect, and it is now lost, quasi succentu- 
riator Democriti, to revive again, prosecute, and finish in this treatise. 

You have had a reason of the name. If the title and inscription offend 
your gravity, were it a sufficient justification to accuse others, I could produce 
many sober treatises, even sermons themselves, which in their fronts carry 
more fantastical names. Howsoever, it is a kind of policy in these days, to 
prefix a fantastical title to a book which is to be sold; for, as larks come 
down to a day-net, many vain readers will tarry and stand gazing like silly 
passengers at an antic picture in a painter's shop, that will not look at a 
judicious piece. And, indeed, as "Scaliger observes, "nothing more invites 
a reader than an argument unlooked for, unthought of, and sells better than a 
scurrile pamphlet," twm maxime cum novitas excitat '^palatum. " Many men," 
saith Gellius, "are very conceited in their inscriptions," "and able (as ^ Pliny 
quotes out of Seneca) to make him loiter by the way that went in haste to 
fetch a midwife for his daughter, now ready to lie down." For my part, I 
have honourable "^precedents for this which I have done : I will cite one for 
all, Anthony Zara, Pap. Episc, his Anatomy of Wit, in four sections, mem- 
bers, subsections, &c., to be read in our libraries. 

If any man except against the matter or manner of treating of this my 
subject, and will demand a reason of it, I can allege more than one; I write of 
melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. /There is no greater cause of 
melancholy than idleness, "no better cure than business," "as *Ilhasis 

n Not so sagacious an observer as simple a narrator. oHor. Ep. lib. 1. xix., 20. pPer. A laugher with 
a petulant spleen. <i Hor. lib. 1. sat. 9. "^Secundum moenia locus erat frondosis populis opacus, 

vitibusque sponte natis, tenuis prope aqua defluebat, placide murmurans, ubi sedile et domus Democriti 
conspiciebatur. ^Ipse composite considebat, super genua volumen habens, et utrinque alia patentia 

parata, dissec; aque animalia cumulatim strata, quorum viscera rimabatur. * Cum mundus extra 

se sit, et mente captus sit, et nesciat se languere, ut medelam adhibeat. nScallger, Ep. ad Patisonem. 

Nihil magis lectorem invitat quam inopinatum argumentum, neque vendibilior merx est quam petulans liber. 
* Lib. XX. c. 11. Miras sequuntur inscriptionum festivitates. '"Prsefat. Nat. Hist. Patri obstetricem par- 
turient! filiSB accersenti moram injicere possunt. "" Anatomy of Popery, Anatomy of Immortality, 
Angelas salas, Anatomy of Antimony, &c. ^ Cont. 1 . 4, c. 9. Non est cura raelior quaiu laboF. 



Dejnocritus to the Reader. 5 

holds : and howbeit, stultus labor est inepiiarum, to be busy in toys is to 
small purpose, yet hear that divine Seneca, aliud agere quam niliil, better do 
to no end, than nothing. I wrote therefore, and busied myself in this playing 
labour, otiosaq. diligentia ut vitarem t07yorem feriaQidi with Vectius in Ma- 
crobiuS; atq. otium in utile verterem negotium. 

y Simiil et jucunda et idonea dicere vitce, 
Lectorem delectando simul atque moHendo. 
Poets would profit or delight mankind, 
And witli the pleasing have th' instructive join'd. 
Profit and pleasure, then, to mix with art, 
T' inform the judgment, nor offend the heart. 
Shall gain all votes. 

To this end I write, like them, saith Luclan, that " recite to trees, and 
declaim to pillars for want of auditors :" as ''Paulus -^gineta ingenuously 
confesseth, "not that anything was unknown or omitted, but to exercise 
myself," which course if some took, I think it would be good for their bodies, 
and much better for their souls ; or peradventure as others do, for fame, to 
show myself {Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter). I might be of 
Thucydides' opinion, " *to know a thing and not to express it, is all one as 
if he knew it not." When I first took this task in hand, et quod ait ^ille, 
impellente genio negotium suscepi, this I aimed at ; ''vel ut lenirem animuvi 
scribendo, to ease my mind by writing ; for I had gravidum cor,fxtum caput, a 
kind of imjDOsthume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of, 
and could imagine no fitter evacuation than this. Besides, I might not well 
refrain, for ubi dolor, ibi digitus, one must needs scratch where it itches. 
I was not a little offended with this malady, shall I say my Mistress " melan- 
choly," my ^geria, or my malus genius ? and for that cause, as he that is 
stung with a scorpion, I would expel clavum clavo, ^comfort one sorrow with 
another, idleness with idleness, ztt ex viperd Theriacum, make an antidote out 
of that which was the prime cause of my disease. Or as he did, of whom 
^Eelix Plater speaks, that thought he had some of Aristophanes' frogs in his 
belly, still crying Brecc, cJcex, coax, coax, oop, oop, and for that cause studied 
physic seven years, and travelled over most part^pf Europe to ease himself. 
To do myself good I turned over such physicians as our libraries would afford, 
or my ^private friends impart, and have taken this pains. And why not ? 
Garden professeth he wrote his book, "De Consolatione " after his son's 
death, to comfort himself; so did TuUy write of the same subject with like 
intent after his daughter's departure, if it be his at least, or some impostor's 
put out in his name, which Lipsius probably suspects. Concerning myself, 
I can peradventure affirm with Marius in Sallust, "^that which others hear 
or read of, I felb and practised myself; they get their knowledge by books, 
I mine by melancholising." Experto crede Roberto. Something I can speak 
out of experience, cerumnabilis experientia me docuit; and with her in the 
poet, ^Eaudignara raali miseris succurrere disco; I would help others out of 
a fellow-feeling; and, as that virtuous lady did of old, "^ being a leper 
herself, bestow all her portion to build an hospital for lepers," I will spend 
my time and knowledge, which are my greatest fortunes, for the common 
good of all. 

Yea, but you will infer that this is ^ actum agere, an unnecessary work, 
crarr^en Us coctam apponere, the same again and again in other words. To 

y Hor. De Arte Poet. ' Xon quod de novo quid addere, aut a veteribus prsetermissum, sed proprite 

exercitationis causa. » Qui novit, neque id quod sentit exprimit, perinde est ac si nesciret. *> Jovius 
Praef. Hist. 'Erasmus. ^ otium otio dolorem dolore sum solatus. f Observat. 1. 1. s M. Joh. Ecus, 
our Protobib. Oxon. M. Hopper, M. Guthridge, ike. ^ Quse illi audire et legere solent, eorum partim 

vidi egomet, alia gessi, quas illi Uteris, ego militando didici, nunc vos ^existimate facta an dicta pluris sint. 
•Dido Virg. "Taught by that Power that pities me, I learn to pity them." ^ Camden, Ipsa elephan- 

tiasi correpta elephantiasis hospicium construxit. i Iliada post Homerum. 



•6 DemocTitus to the Header. 

what purpose? """ISTotliing is omitted that may well be said," so thought 
Lucian in the like theme. How many excellent physicians have written just 
volumes and elaborate tracts of this subject ? JSTo news here j that which 
I have is stolen from others, "^Dicitque mild mea pagina, fur es. If that 
severe doom of ° Synesius be true, " it is a greater offence to steal dead men's 
labours, tlian their clothes," what shall become of most writers ? I hold up 
my hand at the bar among others, and am guilty of felony in this kind, habes 
confiteiitem reum, I am content to be pressed with the rest. 'Tis most true, 
tenet insana.hile muUos scribendi cacoethes, and "^ there is no end of writing of 
books," as the Wise-man found of old, in this ''scribbling age, especially 
wherein '""the number of books' is without number, (as a worthy man saith,) 
presses be oppressed," and out of an itching humour that every man hath to 

show himself, ^desirous of fame and honour {scribimus indocti doctique ), 

he will write no matter what, and scrape together it boots not whence. 
"* Bewitched with this desire of fame, etiarn mediis in morbis, to the dis- 
paragement of their health, and scarce able to hold a pen, they must say 
something, " "and get themselves a name," saith Scaligcr, " though it be to 
the downfall and ruin of many others." To be counted writers, scrip fores ut 
salutentur, to be thought and held Polumathes and Polyhistors, apud imperitwni 
vulgus ob ventosce nomen artis, to get a paper-kingdom : nulla spe qucestus sed 
ampldfamcB, in this precipitate, ambitious age, nunc ut est sceculum, inter imma- 
turam eruditionem. ambitioswiii et prceceps ('tis ^ Scaliger's censure) ; and they 
that are scarce auditors, mx auditor es, must be masters and teachers, before they 
be capable and fit hearers. They will rush into all learning, togatam armatam^ 
divine, human authors, rake over all indexes and pamphlets for notes, as our 
merchants do strange havens for traffic, write great tomes. Cum non sint re 
vera doctiores, sed loquaciores, whereas they are not thereby better scholars, 
but greater praters. They commonly pretend j)ublic good, but as *Gesner 
observes, 'tis pride and vauity that eggs them on ; no news or aught worthy 
of note, but the same in other terms. Ne feriarentur fortasse typographic vel 
ideo scribendum est aliquid ut se vixisse testentu/r. As apothecaries we make 
A new mixtures every day, pour out of one vessel into another ; and as those old 
j [Romans robbed all the cities of the world, to set out their bad-sited Kome, we 
■ skim off the cream of other men's wits, pick the choice flowers of their tilled 
gardens to set out our own sterile plots. Castrant alios ut libros suos per se 
graciles alieno adipe suffarciant (so * Jovius inveighs). They lard their lean 
books with the fat of others' works. Ineruditi fares, &c. A fault that every 
writer finds, as I do now, and yet faulty themselves, ^ ^'Vmm litera/i^m homines, 
all thieves ; they pilfer out of old writers to stuff up their new comments, 
scrape Ennius dung-hills, and out of ""Democritus' pit, as I have done. By 
v/hich means it comes to pass, ""^that not only libraries and shops are full of 
our putid papers, but every close-stool and jakes, Scribunt carmina quce legunt 
cacantes ; they serve to put under pies, to ®lap spice in, and keep roast-meat 
from burning. "With us in France," saith ^Scaliger, "every man hath 
liberty to write, but few ability. ^ Heretofore learning was gTaced by judicious 
scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers," 
that either write for vain-glory, need, to get money, or as parasites to flatter 
and collogue with some great men, they put out ^ burras, quisquiliasque inep- 

m Nihil prEetermisstim quod a quovis did possit. " Martialis. « Magis itnpium mortuoriim lucu- 

brationes, quam vestes furari. p Eccl. ult. i Libros Eunuchi gignunt, steriles pariunt. r D. King 
praefat. lect. Jonas, the late right reverend Lord B. of London. » Homines famelici gloria ad osteata- 

tionem eruditionis undique congerunt. Buchananus. ' Etfacinati etiam laudis amore, &c. Justus Baro- 
nius. " Ex minis aUenaj existimationis sibi gradum ad faraam struunt. ^ Exercit. 288. » Omnes sibi 
famam qussrunt et quovis modo in orbera spargi contendunt, utnov^alicujusrei habeantur auctores. Prsef. 
biblioth. * Pragfat. hist. ^ piautus. <= E Democriti puteo. '^ Non tam refertas bibliothecae quam 
cloacas. « Et quicquid cartis amicitur ineptis. ' Epist. ad Petas. in regno Franciae omnibus scribendi 
datur libertas, paucis facultas, s Olim literee ob homines in precio, nunc sordent ob homines. ^ Ans. pac. 



Democritus to ilce Recidcr. 7 

tiasque. * Amongst so many tliousand authors you shall scarce find one, by 
reading of whom you shall be any whit better, but rather much worse, quibus 
ir.fi'Atur potiics quam perjicitury by which he is rather infected than any way 
penccted. 

^ Qui talialesit, 

Quid didicit tandem, quid scit nisi somnia, nugas? 

So that oflentimes it falls out (which Callimachus taxed of old) a great book is 
a great mischief. ^Cardan finds fault with Frenchmen and Gennans, for their 
scribbling to no purpose, non inqidt ah edendo deterreo, modo novum cdiquid 
inveniant, he doth not bar them to write, so that it be some new invention of 
their own ; but we weave the same web still, twist the same rope again and 
again ; or if it be a new invention, 'tis but some bauble or toy which idle 
fellows write, for as idle fellows to read, and who so cannot invent] """He 
must have a baiTen \At, that in this scribbling age can forge nothing. ° Princes 
show their armies, rich men vaunt their buildings, soldiers their manhood, and 
scholars vent their toys j" they must read, they must hear wliether they will 



or no. 

o Et qnodcunqne semel charHs illeverit, oranes 
Gestiet a farno redeuntes scire lacuque, 
Et pueros et anus 



What or.ee is said and writ, all men mnst know, 
Old wives and children as they come and go. 



" What a company of poets hath this year brought out," as Pliny complains 
to Sossius Sinesius. "PThis April every day some or other have recited.'* 
What a catalogue of new books all this year, all this age (I siiy), have our 
Frankfort Marts, our domestic Marts brought out ? Twice a 3'ear, " ^Pro- 
ferunt se nova ingenia et ostentant, we stretch our wits out, and set them to 
sale, onagno conatic nihil agimiis. So that which ^Gesner much desires, if a 
speedy reformation be not had, by some Prince's Edicts and grave Super- 
visors, to restrain this liberty, it will run on in infinitum. Quis tarn avidus 
librarum Iielluo, who can read them ? As already, we shall have a vast Chaos 
and confusion of books, we "are ''oppressed with them, ^our eyes ache with 
reading, our fingers wdth turning. For my part I am one of the number nos 
numerus sumus, (we are mere ciphers) : I do not deny it, I have only this of 
Macrobius to say for myself, Omne meum, nihil meum, 'tis all mine, and none 
mine. As a good housewife out of divers fleeces weaves one piece of cloth, 
a bee gathers wax and honey out of many flowers, and makes a new bundle of 
^11, Floriferis ut aj^es in scdtihus omnia lihant, I have laboriously ^collected this 
Cento out of divers writei's, and that sine injuria, I have A\T:onged no authors, 
but given every man his own ; which ^Hieromsomuchcommendsin]SJ"epotianj he 
stole not v/hole verses, pages, tracts, as some do now-a-days, concealing their 
author's names, but still said this was Cyprian's, that Lactantius, that Hillarius, 
so said Minutius Felix, so Yictorinus, thus far Arnobius : I cite and quote mine 
authors (which, howsoever some illiterate scribblers account pedantical, as a 
cloak of ignorance, and opposite to their affected fine style, T must and will 
use) sumjpsi, non surripui ; and what Yarro, lib. 6, de re rust, speaks of bees, 
minime maleficce nidlius opus vellicantes faciunt deterius, I can say of myself, 
Whom have I injured ?. The matter is theirs most part, and yet mine, aj^jxtrct 
unde sumi^tum sit (which Seneca approves), aliud tamen quam unde sumptum 
sit apparet, which nature doth with the aliment of our bodies incorporate, digest, 

' Inter tot mille volumina ris unus a cuius Icctione quis melior evadat, immo potius non pejor. ^ Palingenius. 
"What does any one, who reads such works, learn or know but dreams and ti'ifling things, i Lib. 5. de Sap. 
•» Sterile oportet esse ingenium quod in hoc scripturientum pruritus, itc. " Cardan, prajf. ad Consol. 

o Hor. lib. 1, sat. 4. p Epist. lib. 1. Magnum poetarum proventum annus hie attulit, mense Aprili 

nullus fere dies quo non aliquis recitavit. » Idem. t. Principibus et doctoribus deliberandum relinquo, 
ut arguantur auctorum furta et millies repetita tollanhir, et temere scribendi libido coerceatur, aliter in 
infinitum progressura. <= Onerabuntur ingenia, nemo legendis sufiicit. ^ Libris obruimur, oculi legendo, 
manus volitando dolent. Fam. Strada Momo. Lucretius. ^ Quicquid ubique bene dictum facio meum, et 
illud nunc meis ad compendium, nunc ad fidem et auctoriiatem alienis exprimo verbis, omnes auctores 
meos clientes esse arbitror, etc. Sarisburiensis ad Polycrat. prol. '' In Epitaph. Xep. illud Cyp. hoc 

Lact. illud Hilar, est, ita Yictorinus, in hunc moduai loquutus est Arnobius, &c. 



8 Democritus to the Reader. 

assimilate, I do concoquere quod haiisi, dispose of what I take. I make tliem 
pay tribute, to set out tliis my Maceronicon, the method only is mine own, I 
must usurp that of ^ Wecker e Ter. nihil dictum quod non dictum prius, 
'niethodus sola artijicem ostendit, we can say nothing but what hath been said, 
the composition and method is ours only, and shows a scholar. Oribasius, 
-^sius, Avicenna, have all out of Galen, but to their own method, diverso stilo^ 
non diversdjide. Our poets steal from Homer; he spews, saith ^lian, they 
lick it up. Divines use Austin's words verhatim still, and our story-dressers, 
do as much ; he that comes last is commonly best. 

donee quid grandius setas 

Postera sorsque ferat melior ^^ 

Though there were many giants of old in Physic and Philosophy, yet I say 
with 'Didacus Stella, "A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see 
farther than a giant himself;" I may likely add, alter, and see farther than 
my predecessors ; and it is no greater prejudice for me to indite after others, 
than for ^lianus Montaltus, that famous physician, to write de morhis capitis 
after Jason Pratensis, Heurnius, Hildesheim, &c., many horses to run in a 
race, one logician, one rhetorician, after another. Oppose then what thou wilt, 

Allatres licet usque nos et usque, 
Et Gannitibus improbis lacessas. 

I solve it thus. And for those other faults of barbarism, "Doric dialecf-, 
extemporanean style, tautologies, apish imitation, a rhapsody of rags gathered 
together from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and fopperies 
confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgment, wit, learning, harsh, 
raw, rude, fantastical, absurd, insolent, indiscreet, ill-composed, indigested, 
vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry; I confess all ('tis partly affected), thou 
canst not think worse of me than I do of myself 'Tis not worth the 
reading, I yield it, I desire thee not to lose time in perusing so vain a 
subject, I should be perad venture loth myself to read him or thee so writing; 
'tis not oijerce pretium. All I say is this, that I have ''precedents for it, which 
Isocrates cdWs,, perfugium iis qui peccant, others as absurd, vain, idle, illiterate, 
&c. Nonnidli alii idemfecerwit; others have done as much, it may be more, and 
perhaps thou thyself, Novimus et qui te, &c. We have all our faults ; scimus, 
et hanc veniam, &c, ; ^'thou censurest me, so have I done others, and may do 
thee, Cedimus inque mcem, &c,, 'tis lex talionis, quid pro quo. Go now, 
censure, criticise, scoff* and rail. 

^ Nasutus sis usque licet, sis denique nasus : I Wert thou all scoffs and flouts, a very Momua, 

Non potes in nugas dicere plura meas, Than we ourselves, thou canst not say worse of us. 

Ipse ego quam dixi, &c. | 

Thus, as when women scold, have I cried whore first, and in some men*s 
censures I am afraid I have overshot myself, Laudare se vani, vituperare stulti, 
as I do not arrogate, I will not derogate. Primusjpestrum non sum, nee imuSj 
I am none of the best, I am none of the meanest of you. As I am an inch, 
or so many feet, so many parasangs, after him or him, I may be peradventure 
an ace before thee. Be it therefore as it is, well or ill, I have essayed, put 
myself upon the stage ; I must abide the censure, I may not escape it. It is 
mos't true, stylus virum arguit, our style bewrays us, and as ® hunters find their 
game by the trace, so is a man's genius descried by his works, Multb melius ex 
sermone quam liiieamentis, de morihus hominum judicamus ; it was old Cato's 
rule. I have laid myself open (I know it) in this treatise, turned mine inside 

6 Prsef. ad Syntax, med. *• Until a later age and a happier lot produce something more truly grand. 
* In Luc. 10. torn. 2. Pigmei Gigantura humeris impositi plusquam ipsi Gigantes vident. » Nee 

aranearum textus ideo meli&r quia ex se fila gignuntur, nee noster ideo vilior, quia ex alienis libamus ut 
apes. Lipsius adversus dialogist. ^ Uno ahsurdo dato mille sequuntur. « Non duhito multos 

lectores hie fore stultos. ** Martial, 13, 2. e Ut venatores feiam e vestigio impresso, virum scripti- 

uncula. Lips. 



Democritus to the Reader. 9 

outward : I shall be censured, I doubt not; for, to say truth with Erasmus, 
nihil morosius hominiim judiciis, there is naught so peevish as men's judg- 
ments; yet this is some comfort, ut palata, sic judicia, our censures are as 
various as our palates. 

f Tres mihi convivse prope disseaitlre videntur, I Three gtiests 1 have, dissenting at ray feast, 
Poscentes vario multum diversa palato, &c. Eequiring each to gratify his taste 

I With different food. 

Our writings are as so many dishes, our readers guests, our books like beauty, 
that which one admires another rejects; so are we approved as men's fancies 
are inclined. Pro captu lectoris hahent sua fata libelli. That which is most 
pleasing to one is ainaracum sui, most harsh to another. Quot homines, tot 
sententice, so many men, so many minds : that which thou condemnest he 
commends. ^ Quodpetis, id sane est invisum acidwnque duobus. He respects 
matter, thou art wholly for words ; he loves a loose and free style, thuu art 
all for neat composition, strong lines, hyperboles, allegories; he desires a fine 
frontispiece, enticing pictures, such as *Hieron. Natali the Jesuit hath cut to 
the Dominicals, to draw on the reader's attention, which thou rejectest; that 
which one admires, another explodes as most absurd and ridiculous. If it be 
not pointblank to his humour, his method, his conceit, ^si quidforsan omissuin, 
quod is animo conceperit, si quae dictio, &c. If aught be omitted, or added, 
which he likes, or dislikes, thou art mancipium pauccE lectionis, an idiot, an 
ass, nullus es, or plagiarius, a trifler, a trivant, thou art an idle fellow ; or 
else it is a thing of mere industr}^, a collection without wit or invention, a very 
toy. * Facilia sic piitant omnes quce jam facta, nee de salehris cogitant uhi via 
strata ; so men are valued, their labours vilified by fellows of no worth them- 
selves, as things of nought, who could not have done so much. Unusquisqus 
ahitndat sensu suo, every man abounds in his own sense ; and whilst each 
particular party is so affected, how should one please all? 

^ Quid dera ? quid non dem ? Renuis tu quod jubet ille. 

What courses must I chuse ? 

What not ? What both would order you refuse. 

How shall I hope to express myself to each man's humour and ^ conceit, or to 
give satisfaction to all? Some understand too little, some too much, qui simi- 
liter in legendos libros, atque in saluia^idos homines irruunt, non cogitantes 
quotes, sedquihus vestibus induti sint, as ^Austin observes, not regarding what, 
but who write, ""orexin habet auctoris celebriias, not valuing the metal, but 
stamp that is upon it, Cantharum acpiciunt, non quid in eo. If he be not rich, 
in great place, polite and brave, a great doctor, or full fraught with grand titles, 
though never so well qualified, he is a dunce ; but, as ^Baronius hath it of 
Cardinal Caraffa's works, he is a mere hog that rejects any man for liis poverty. 
Some are too partial, as friends to overween, others come with a prejudice to 
carp, vilify, detract, and scoff; (qui de meforsan, quicquid est, omni contemptu 
contemptius judicant) some as bees for honey, some as spiders to gather 
poison. What shall I do in this case? As a Dutch host, if you come to an 
inn in Germany, and dislike your fare, diet, lodging, &c., replies in a surly 
tone, " ° aliud tibi quceras diversorium,'" if you like not this, get you to another 
inn : I resolve, if you like not my writing, go read something else. I do not 
much esteem thy censure, take thy course, it is not as thou wilt, nor as I will, 
but when we have both done, that of ppiinius Secundus to Trajan will prove 
true, "Every man's witty labour takes not, except the matter, subject, occa- 
sion, and some commending favourite happen to it." If I be taxed, exploded 

'Hor. eHor. * Antwerp, fol. 1607. ^Muretus. 'Lipsius. ^Hor. » Fieri non potest, 
ut quod quisque cogitat, dicat unus. Muretus. »Lit). 1. de ord., cap. 11. "Erasmus. * Annal. Tom. 3. 
ad annum 360. Est porcus ille qui sacerdotem ex amplitudine redituum sordide demetitur. <> Erasm. dial. 
p Epist. lib. 6. Cujusque ingenium nou statim emergit, nisi materise fautor, occasio, commendatorque 

contingai;. 



10 Democrltus to the Reader. 

by thee and some such, I shall haply be approved and commended by others, 
and so have been {Expertus loquor), and may truly say with "^ Jovius in like 
case, {ahsit verbo jactantia) heroum quorundam, pontificum, et virorum 
nohilium familiaritatem et mnicitiam, gratasque. gi^atias, et multorum ' bene 
laudatoTum laudes sum inde promeritus, as I have been honoured by some 
worthy men, so have I been vilified by others, and shall be. At the first 
publishing of this book, (which * Probus of Persius' satires), editum librum 
continub mirari homines, atque avide deripere cceperunt, I may in some sort 
apply to this my work. The first, second, and third editions were suddenly 
gone, eagerly read, and, as I have said, not so much approved by some, as 
scornfully rejected by others. But it was Bemocritus his fortune, Idem admi- 
rationi et *irridoni habitus. 'Twas Seneca's fate, that superintendent of wit, 
learning, judgment, *<xc^ stupor em doctus, the best of Greek and Latin writers, 
in Plutarch's opinion; "that renowned corrector of vice," as "Pabius terms 
him, " and painful omniscious philosopher, that writ so excellently and admir- 
ably well," could not please all parties, or escape censure. How is he vilified 
by '^ Caligula, Agellius, Fabius, and Lipsius himself j his chief propugner? In 
eo pleraque pernitiosa, saith the same Fabius, many childish tracts and 
sentences he hath, sermo illaboratus, too negligent often and remiss, as Agellius 
observes, oratio vulgaris etx>rotrita, dicaces et ineptce se^itentice, eruditio plebeia, 
an homely shallow writer as he is. In jyccrtibus spinas etfastidia habet, saith 
t Lipsius j and, as in all his other works, so especially in his epistles, alim in 
argiitiis et ineptiis occupantur, intricatus alicubi, et parum compositus, sine 
copia rerum hoc fecit, he jumbles up many things together immethodically, after 
the Stoics' fashion, paruim ordinavit, midta accumulavit, &c. If Seneca be 
thus lashed, and many famous men that I could name, what shall I expect? 
How shall I that am vix umbra tanti 2^hilosophi, hope to please ? " No man 
so absolute (^Erasmus holds) to satisfy all, except antiquity, prescription, &c., 
set a bar," But as I have proved in Seneca, this will not always take place, 
how shall I evade? 'Tis the common doom of all writers, I must (I say) 
abide it; I seek not applause; '^N on ego ventosce venor suffragia plebis ; again, 
nan sum adeo informis, I would not be *^ vilified. y 



''latidatus abuncle, 



Non fastiditus si tibi, lector, cro, 

I fear good men's censures, and to their favourable acceptance I submit my 
labours, 

' et linguas mancipiorum 



Contemno. 

As the barking of a dog, I securely contemn those malicious and scurrile 
obloquies, flouts, calumnies of railers and detractors ; I scorn the rest. What 
therefore I have said, pro tenuitate mea, I have said. 

One or two things yet I was desirous to have amended if I could, concerning 
the manner of handling this my subject, for which I must apologise, deprecari, 
and upon better advice give the friendly reader notice : it was not mine intent 
to prostitute my muse in English, or to divulge secreta Minervce, but to have 
exposed this more contract in Latin, if I could have got it printed. Any 
scurrile pamphlet is welcome to our mercenary stationers in English ; they 
print all, .^ 

cuduntqne libellos 

In quorum foliis vix simia nuda cacaret ; 

q Prasf . hist, ^ Laudari a laudato laus est. ^ vit. Persii, * Minuit praesentia famaro, t Lipsius 
Judic. de Seneca. " Lib. 10. Plurimum studii, multam rerum cognitionem, omnem studiorura materiam, 
&c., multa in eo probanda, multa admiranda. ^ Suet. Arena sine calce. f Introduct. ad Sen. y Judic. 
de Sen. Vix aliquis tarn absolutus, ut alteri per omnia saiisfaciat, nisi longa temporis prajscriptio, semota 
judicandi libertate, religione quadam animos occuparit. ^Har. Lp. 1. lib. 19. a^que turpe fi-igide laudari 
ac insfctanter vituperari, Pliavorinus A, Gel. lib. 19, cap. 2, ^Ovid. tri::;t, 11, ele^. 6. ^ juven. sat. 5. 



DemocrUus to the Reader. 11 

But in Latin tliey will not deal; wliich is one of the reasons *I^icliolas Car, in 
his oration of the paucity of English writers, gives, that so many flourishing 
wits are smothered in oblivion, lie dead and buried in this our nation. Another 
main fault is, that I have not revised the copy, and amended the style, which 
now flows remissly, as it was first conceived ; but my leisure would not permit ; 
Fed nee quod potui, nee quod volui, I confess it is neither as I would, nor as it 
should be. 

e Cum relego scripsisse pudet, quia plurima cevno I Wlien I peruse this ti'aet v.-hich I hare writ, 
Me quoque qu£e fueraut judice digna lini. | I am abash" d, and much I hold unfit. 

Et quod gravissimum, in the matter itself, many things I disallow at this 
present, which when I writ, ^JSfon eadem est cetas, non mens; I would 
willingly retract much, &c., but 'tis too late, I can only crave pardon now for 
what is amiss. 

I might indeed, (had I wisely done) observed that precept of the poet, 

nonumque prematur in annum, and have taken more care : or, as Alexander 
the physician would have done by lapis lazuli, fifty times washed before it be 
used I should have revised, corrected and amended this tract ; but I had not 
(as I said) that happy leisure, no amanuenses or assistants. Pancrates in 
^Lucian, wanting a servant as he went from Memphis to Coptus in Egypt, 
took a door bar, and after some superstitious words pronounced (Eucrates the 
relator was then present) made it stand up like a serving-man, fetch him water, 
turn the spit, serve in supper, and what work he would besides; and when he 
had done that service he desired, turned his man to a stick again. I have no 
such skill to make new men at my pleasure, or means to hire them ; no whistle 
to call like the master of a ship, and bid them run, &c. I have no such 
authority, no such benefactors, as that noble '"'Ambrosius was to Origen, 
allowing him six or seven amanuenses to write out his dictates; I must for 
that cause do my business myself, and was therefore enforced, as a bear doth 
her whelps, to bring forth this confused lump ; I had not time to lick it into 
form, as she doth her young ones, but even so to publish it, as it was first 
written quicquid in buccam venit, in an extemporean style, as ''I do commonly 
iall other exercises, effudi quicquid dictavit genius meus, out of a confused 
company of notes, and writ with as small deliberation as I do ordinarily speak, 
without all affectation of big words, fustian phrases, jingling terms, tropes, 
strong lines, that Kke tAcesta's arrows caught fire as they flew, strains of wit, 
brave heats, elogies, hyperbolical exornations, elegancies, &c., which mauy so 
much affect. I am 'aquce iMor, drink no wine at all, which so much improves 
our modern wits, a loose, plain, rude \f£itQv, ficum vocoficum, et ligonem ligo- 
nem, and as free, as loose, idem calamo quod in mente, i call a spade a spade, 
animis hcec scribo, non auribus, I respect matter not words; remembering that 
of Cardan, verba propter res, non res 2^Topter verba : and seeking with Seneca, 
quid scribam, non quemadmodum, rather lohat than hoio to write : for as Philo 
thinks, " ^He that is conversant about matter, neglects words, and those that 
excel in this art of speaking, have no profound learning, 

m Verba nitent phaleris, at nullas verba medullas 
Intas habeut 

Besides, it was the observation of that wise Seneca, ""when you see a fellow 
cai-eful about his words, and neat in his speech, know this for a certainty that 

* Ant artis inscii aut quEBstui magis quam Uteris student, hab. Cantab, et Lond. Excus. 167S. e Qvld. 
de pont. Eleg. 1. 6. ^Hor. t'Toni. 3. Philopseud. accepto pessulo, quum carmen quoddam dixisset, 

effecit ut ambularet, aquam hauriret, urnam pararet, &c. * Eusebius, eccles. hist. lib. 6. ^ Stans 

pede in uno, as he made verses. 'j' Vli'g'. ^ Xon eadem a summo expectes, minimoque poeta. i^ Stylus 
hie nuUus, pra;ter parrhesiam. i Qui rebus se exercet, verba negligit, et qui callet artem dicendi, 

nuUam disciplinam habet recognitam. >"Palin genius. Words may be resplendent Avith ornament, but 

they contain no man-ow within. ".Cujuscunque orationem vides politam et sollicitam, scito animum in 

pusillis occupatum, in scriptis nil solidum. Epist. lib. J . 21. 



12 Democritus to the Reader, 

man's mind is 'busied about toys, there's no solidity in him. JSfon est orna- 
Qnentum virile concinnitas : as he said of a nightingale, vox es, prceterea nihil, 
&c. I am therefore in this point a professed disciple of "i^.poUonius a scholar 
of Socrates, I neglect phrases, and labour wholly to inform my reader's under- 
standing, not to please his ear; 'tis not my study or intent to compose neatly, 
which an orator requires, but to express myself readily and plainly as it 
happens. So that as a river runs sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and 
slow; now direct, then per ambages; now deep, then shallow; now muddy, 
then clear; now broad, then narrow; doth my style flow: now serious, then 
light; now comical, then satirical; now more elaborate, then remiss, as the 
present subject required, or as at that time I was affected. And if thou 
vouchsafe to read this treatise, it shall seem no otherwise to thee, than the 
way to an ordinary traveller, sometimes fair, sometimes foul ; here champaign, 
there inclosed ; barren in one place, better soil in another : by woods, groves, 
hills, dales, plains, &c. I shall lead thee per ardua tnontium, et lubrica 
vallimn, et roscida cespitum, et ^'glehosa camporum, through variety of objects 
that which thou shalb like and surely dislike. 

For the matter itself or method, if it be faulty, consider I pray you that of 
Columella, JVi/iil perfectum, aut a singulari consummatu^n industrid, no man 
can observe all, much is defective no doubt, may be justly taxed, altered, and 
avoided in Galen, Aristotle, those great masters. Boni venatoris (^ one holds) 
plures feras capere, non omnes; he is a good huntsman, can catch some, not 
all ; I have done my endeavour. Besides, I dwell not in this study, Non hie 
sidcos ducimus, non hoc pulvere desudamus, I am but a smatterer, I confess, a 
stranger, ''here and there I pull a flower; I do easily grant, if a rigid censurer 
should criticise on this which I have writ, he should not find three sole faults, as 
Scaliger in Terence, but three hundred. So many as he hath done in Cardan's 
subtleties, as many notable errors as ''Gul. Laurembergius, a late professor of 
Kostocke, discovers in that anatomy of Laurentius, or Barocius the Venetian in 
Sacro hoscus. And although this be a sixth edition, in which I should have been 
more accurate, corrected all those former escapes, yet it was magni laboris 
opus, so difficult and tedious, that as carpenters do find out of experience, 'tis 
much better build a new sometimes, than repair an old house; I could as soon 
write as much more, as alter that which is written. If aught therefore be 
amiss (as I grant there is), I require a friendly admonition, no bitter invective, 
^Sint musis socii Charites, Furia omnis abesto, otherwise, as in ordinary 
controversies, funem contentionis nectamus, sed cui bono 1 We may contend, 
and likely misuse each other, but to what purpose? We are both scholars, say, 



: Arcades ambo, I Both young Arcadians, both alike inspir'd 



Et cantare pares, et respondere parati. | To sing and answer as the song requir'd. 

If we do wrangle, what shall we get by it? Trouble and wrong ourselves, 
make sport to others. If I be convict of an error, I will yield, I will amend. 
Si quid bonis moribus, si quid veritati dissentaneum, in sacris vel humanis 
Uteris a me dictum sit, id nee dictum esto. In the mean time I require a favour- 
able censure of all faults omitted, harsh compositions, pleonasms of words, 
tautological repetitions (though Seneca bear me out, nunquam nimis dicitur, 
quod nunquam satis dicitur) perturbations of tenses, numbers, printers' faults, 
&c. My translations are sometimes rather paraphrases than interpretations, 
no7i ad verbum, but as an author, I use more liberty, and that's only taken 
which was to my purpose. Quotations are often inserted in the text, which 

o Philostratus, lib. 8. vit. Apol. Negligebat oratoriam facultatem, et penitus aspemabatur ejus profes- 
sores, quod linguam duntaxat, non autem mentem redderent eruditiorem. * Hie enim, quod 

Seneca de Ponto, bos herbam, clconia larisam, canis leporem, virgo florem legat. p Pet. Nannius not. in 
Hor. q Non hie colonus domicilium habeo, sed topiarii in morem, hinc inde florem vellico, ut canis Niluiu 
lambens. r Supra bis mille notables enorea Laurentii demonstravi, &c. » Philo de Con. » Virg. 



Democritus to tJie Reader. 13 

makes tlie style more harsh, or in the margin as it happened. Greek authors, 
• Plato, Plutarch, Athenseus, &c., I have cited out of their interpreters, because 
the original was not so ready. I have mingled sacra prophanis, but I hope 
not prophaned, and in repetition of authors' names, ranked them per accidens^ 
not according to chronology ; sometimes Neotericks before Ancients, as my 
memory suggested. Some things are here altered, expunged in this sixth 
edition, others amended, much added, because many good *author3 in all 
kinds are come to my hands since, and 'tis no prejudice, no such indecorum, 
or oversight. 

' Nunquam ita quicqnam bene siibducta ratione ad yitam fuit, 
Quin res, setas, usus, semper aliquid apportent novi, 
Aliquid moneant, ut ilia quae scire te credas, nescias, 
Et quaa tibi pixtaris prima, in exercendo ut repudias. 
Ne'er was aught yet at first contrived so fit, 
But use, age, or something would alter it; 
Advise thee better, and, upon peruse, 
Make thee not say, and what thou takest refuse. 

But I am now resolved never to put this treatise out again, iVe quid nimis, I 
will not hereafter add, alter, or retract ; I have done. The last and greatest 
exception is, that I, being a divine, have meddled with physic, 

y Tantumne est ab re tua otii tibi, 

Aliena ut cures, eaque nihil quae ad te attinent ? 

"Which Menedemus objected to Chremes; have I so much leisure, or little 
business of mine own, as to look after other men's matters which concern me 
not? What have I to do with physic? Quod medicorum est promittant 
medici. The "■' Lacedemonians were once in counsel about state matters, a 
debauched fellow spake excellent well, and to the purpose, his speech was 
generally approved : a grave senator steps up, and by all means would have it 
repealed, though good, because dehonestabatur pessimo auctore, ifc had no better 
an author; let some good man relate the same, and then it should pass. This 
counsel was embraced, factum est, and it was registered forthwith. Et sic bona 
sententia mansit, malus auctor mutatus est. Thou sayest as much of me, sto- 
machosus as thou art, and grantest, peradventure, this which I have written in 
physic, not to be amiss, had another done it, a professed physician, or so ; but 
why should I meddle with this tract? Hear me speak. There be many other 
subjects, I do easily grant, both in humanity and divinity, fit to be treated of, 
of which had I written ad ostentationem only, to show myself, I should have 
rather chosen, and in which I have been more conversant, I could have more 
willingly luxuriated, and better satisfied myself and others; but that at this 
time I was fatally driven upon this rock of melancholy, and carried away by 
this by-stream, which, as a rillet, is deducted from the main channel of my 
studies, in which I have pleased and busied myself at idle hours, as a subject 
most necessary and commodious. Not that I prefer it before divinity, 
which I do acknowledge to be the queen of professions, and to which all the 
rest are as handmaids, but that in divinity I saw no such great need. For had 
I written positively, there be so many books in that kind, so many commen- 
tators, treatises, pamphlets, expositions, sermons, that whole teams of oxen 
cannot draw them ; and had I been as forward and ambitious as some others, I 
might have haply printed a sermon at Paul's Cross, a sermon in St. Marie's 
Oxon, a sermon in Christ-Church, or a sermon before the right honourable, 
right reverend, a sermon before the right worshipful, a sermon in Latin, in 
English, a sermon with a name, a sermon without, a sermon, a sermon, &c. 
But I have been ever as desirous to suppress my labours in this kind, as others 
have been to press and publish theirs. To have written in controversy had 
been to cut off an hydra's head, ^lis litem generat, one begets another, so 

* Frambesarius, Sennertus, Ferandus, &c. ^Ter. Adelph. y Heaut. Act. 1. seen. 1. ' Gellius, lib. 18, 
cap. 3. "»£t inde catena qusedara fit, quje hceredes etiam ligat. Cardan. Hensius. 



14 Democrltus to the Reader. 

many duplications, triplications, and swarms of questions. In sacro hello hoc 
quod stili mucrone agitur, that having once begun, I should never make an end. 
One had much better, as ''Alexander^ the sixth pope, long since observed, 
provoke a great prince than a begging friar, a Jesuit, or a seminary priest, I 
will add, for inexpugnahile genus hoc hominum, they are an irrefragable society, 
they must and will have the last word j and that with such eagerness, impu- 
dence, abominable lying, falsifying, and bitterness in their questions they 
proceed, that as he ^'said, furorne ccecus, an rapit vis acrior, an culpa^ 
responsum date ? Blind fury, or error, or rashness, or what it is that eggs 
them, I know not, I am sure many times, which "^ Austin perceived long since, 
tempestate contentionis serenitas charitatis ohnuhilatur, with this tempest of 
contention, the serenity of charity is overclouded, and there be too many 
spirits conjured up already in this kind in all sciences, and more than we can 
tell how to lay, which do so furiously rage, and keep such a racket, that as 
*'Fabius said, " It had been much better for some of them to have been born 
dumb, and altogether illiterate, than so far to dote to their own destruction." 

At melius fuerat non scribere, namque tacere * 
Tutum semper erit, 

'Tis a general fault, so Severinus the Dane complains ^in physic, " unhappy 
men as we are, we spend our days in unprofitable questions and disputations," 
intricate subtleties, de land caprina, about moonshine in the water, " leaving 
in the meantime those chiefest treasures of nature untouched, wherein the 
best medicines for all manner of diseases are to be found, and do not only 
neglect them ourselves, but hinder, condemn, forbid, and scoff at others, that 
are willing to inquire after them." These motives at this present have 
induced me to make choice of this medicinal subject. 

If any physician in the mean time shall infer, Ne sutor ultra crepidam, and 
find himself grieved that I have intruded into his profession, I will tell him in 
brief, I do not otherwise by them, than they do by us. If it be for their 
advantage, I know many of their sect which have taken orders, in hope of a 
benefice, 'tis a common transition, and why may not a melancholy divine, that 
can get nothing but by simony, profess physic? Drusianus an Italian (Cru- 
sianus, but corruptly, Trithemius calls him) " ^because he was not fortunate 
in his practice, forsook his profession, and writ afterwards in divinity." 
Marciiius Ficinus was semel et simul; a priest and a physician at once, and 
^T. Linacer in his old age took orders. The Jesuits profess both at this 
time, divers of them permissu superiorum, chirurgeons, panders, bawds, and 
midwives, &c. Many poor country-vicars, for want of other means, are driven 
to their shifts; to turn mountebanks, quacksalvers, empirics, and if our 
greedy patrons hold ns to such hard conditions, as commonly they do, they 
will make most of us work at some trade, as Paul did, at last turn taskers, 
maltsters, costermongers, graziers, sell ale as some have done, or worse. 
Howsoever in undertaking this task, I hope I shall commit no great error or 
indecorum, if all be considered aright, I can vindicate myself with Georgius, 
Braunus, and Hieronymus Hemingius, those two learned divines; who (to 
borrow a line or two of mine 'elder brother) drawn by a "natural love, the 
one of pictures and maps, prospectives and corographical delights, writ that 
ample theatre of cities; the other to the study of genealogies, penned theatrum 

''Malle se bellum cum magno principe gerere, quam cum ttno ex fratrum mendicantium ordine. 
eHor. epod.lib. od. 7. ^ Epist. 86, ad Casulam presb. e Lib. 12. cap. 1. Mutos nasci, et omni scientia 
CA'ere satius fuisset, quam sic in propriam perniciem insanire. * But it -would be better not to write, for 

silence is the safer course. f Infelix mortalitas inutilibus quiBstionibus ac disceptationibus vitara traduci- 
mus, naturge principes thesauros, in quibus gravissimas morborum medicinse collocatae sunt, interim intactos 
relinquimus. Nee ipsi solum relinquimus, sed^ et alios prohibemus, impedimus, condemnamus, ludi- 
briisque afficimus. g Quod in praxi minime fortunatus esset, medicinam reliquit, et ordinibus initiatus 

in Theologia postmodum scripsit. Gesner Bibliotheca. ^p. jovius. 'M. W. Burton, preiaco 

to his description of Leicestershire, printed at London by W. Jaggavd, for J. White, 1622. - - 



Democritus to the Reader . 15 

genealogicumy Or else I can excuse my studies with ^Lessius tlie Jesuit in 
like case. It is a disease of the soul on which I am to treat, and as much 
appertaining to a divine as to a physician, and who knows not what an agree- 
ment there is betwixt these two jDrofessions ? A good divine either is or 
ought to be a good physician, a spiritual physician at least, as our Saviour 
calls himself, and was indeed. Mat. iv. 23; Luke, v. 18; Luke, vii. 8. They 
differ but in object, the one of the body, the other of the soul, and use divers 
medicines to cure: one amends animmn per corpus, the other corpus per 
animam, as ^ our Regius Professor of physic well informed us in a learned 
lecture of his not long since. One helps the vices and passions of the soul, 
anger, lust, desperation, pride, presumption, &c., by applying that spiritual 
physic ; as the other uses proper remedies in bodily diseases. Now this being 
a common infirmity of body and soul, and such a one that hath as much need 
of spiritual as a corporal cure, I could not find a fitter task to busy myself 
about, a more apposite theme, so necessary, so commodious, and generally 
concerning all sorts of men, that should so equally participate of both, and 
require a whole physician. A divine in this compound mixed malady can do 
little alone, a physician in some kinds of melancholy much less, both make 
an absolute ciu^e. 

«" Alterius sic altera poscit opem. 

-when in fi-ienclship join'd 



A mutual succour in eacli other find. 

And 'tis proper to them both, and I hope not unbeseeming me, who am by my 
profession a divine, and by mine inclination a physician. I had Jupiter in my 
sixth house; I say with ""Beroaldus, nan sum medicus, nee Qnedicince prorsus 
expers, in the theory of physic I have taken some pains, not v/ith an intent 
to practice, but to satisfy myself, which was a cause likewise of the first 
undertaking of this subject. 

If these reasons do not satisfy thee, good reader, as Alexander Munificus 
that bountiful prelate, sometimes bishop of Lincoln, v/hen he had bidlt six 
castles, ad invidiam operis eluendam, saith °Mr. Cambden, to take away the 
envy of his work (which very words Nubrigensis hath of Roger the rich 
bishop of Salisbury, who in king Stephen's time built Shirburn castle, and 
that of Devizes), to divert the scandal or imputation, which might be thence 
inferred, built so many religious houses. If this my discourse be over- 
medicinal, or savour too much of humanity, I promise thee that I will here- 
after make thee amends in some treatise of divinity. But this I hope shall 
suffice, when you have more fully considered of the matter of this my subject, 
rem suhstratam, melancholy, madness, and of the reasons following, which 
were my chief motives : the generality of the disease, the necessity of the 
cure, and the commodity or common good that will arise to all men by the 
knowledge of it, as shall at large appear in the ensuing preface. And I doubt 
not but that in the end you v,^ill say with me, that to anatomise this humour 
aright, through all the members of this our Microcosmus, is as great a task, 
as to reconcile those chronological errors in the Assyrian monarchy, find out 
the quadrature of a circle, the creeks and sounds of the north-east, or north- 
west passages, and all but as good a discovery as that hungry ^ Spaniard's of 
Terra AustraKs Incognita, as great trouble as to perfect the motion of Mars 
and Mercury, which so crucifies our astronomers, or to rectify the Gregorian 
Kalender. I am so affected for my part, and hope as "^ Theophrastus did by 

^ In Hygiasticon, neque enim hsec tractatio aliena videri dehet a theologo, &c., agitur de morbo anim^e. 
• D. Clayton in comitiis, anno 1621. m Hor. n Lib. de pestil. ° In Newark in Nottinghamshire. 

Cum duo edificasset castella, ad tollendam structionis invidiam, et expiandam maculam, duo instituit 
coenobia, et collegis religiosis implevit. p Ferdinando de Quir. anno 1612. Amsterdami impress. 

^Prffifat. ad Characteres : Spero enim (0 Policies) libros nostros meliores inde futures, quod istiusmodi 
nicmorias manUata reliquerimus, ex preceptis et exemplis nostris ad vitam accoinmodatis, ut se inde corrigaiit. 



16 Democritus to the Reader. 

Ilia characters, " That our posterity, O friend Policies, shall be the better for 
this which we have written, by correcting and rectifying what is amiss in 
themselves by our examples, and applying our precepts and cautions to their 
own use." And as that great captain Zisca would have a drum made of his 
skin when he was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his 
enemies to flight, I doubt not but that these following lines, when they shall 
be recited, or hereafter read, will drive away melancholy, (though I be gone) 
as much as Zisca's drum could terrify his foes. Yet one caution let me give 
by the way to my present, or my future reader, who is actually melancholy, 
that he read not the '"symptoms or prognostics in this following tract, lest by 
applying that which he reads to himself, aggravating, appropriating things 
generally spoken, to his own person (as melancholy men for the most part do), 
he trouble or hurt himself, and get in conclusion more harm than good. 
I advise them therefore warily to peruse that tract, Lapides loquitur (so said 
" Agrippa de occ. Phil.) et caveant lector es ne cerebrum Us excutiat. The rest 
I doubt not they may securely read, and to their benefit. But I am over- 
tedious, I proceed. 

Of the necessity and generality of this which I have said, if any man doubt, 
I shall desire him to make a brief survey of the world, as * Cyprian adviseth 
Donat, " supposing himself to be transported to the top of some high moun- 
tain, and thence to behold the tumults and chances of this wavering world, he 
cannot chuse but either laugh at, or pity it." S. Hierom out of a strong 
imagination, being in the wilderness, conceived with himself, that he then saw 
them dancing in Pome; and if thou shalt either conceive, or climb to see, 
thou shalt soon perceive that all the world is mad, that it is melancholy, dotes; 
that it is (which Epichthonius Cosmopolites expressed not many years since in a 
map) made like a fool's head (with that motto. Caput helleboro dignum) a crazed 
head, cavea stultorum, a fool's paradise, or as Apollonius, a common prison of 
gulls, cheaters, flatterers, &c,, and needs to be reformed. Strabo in the ninth 
book of his geography, compares Greece to the picture of a man, which 
comparison of his, Nic. Gerbelius in his exposition of Sophianus' map, approves; 
the breast lies open from those Acroceraunian hills in Epirus, to the Sunian 
promontory in Attica; Pagse and Magsera are the two shoulders ; that Isthmus 
of Corinth the neck; and Peloponnesus the head. If this allusion holds 'tis 
sure a mad head ; Morea may be Moria, and to speak what I think, the in- 
habitants of modern Greece swerve as much from reason a.nd true religion at 
this day, as that Morea doth from the picture of a man. Examine the rest 
in like sort, and you shall find that kingdoms and provinces are melancholy, 
cities and families, all creatures, vegetal, sensible, and rational, that all sorts, 
sects, ages, conditions, are out of tune, as in Cebes' table, omnes errorem 
hihunt, before they come into the world, they are intoxicated by error's cup, 
from the highest to the lowest have need of physic, and those particular actions 
in "Seneca, where father and son prove one another mad, may be general; 
Porcius Latro shall plead against us all. For indeed who is not a fool, melan- 
choly, mad? — '^ Qui nil molitur inepte, who is not brain-sick? Polly, melan- 
choly, madness, are but one disease, Delirium is a common name to all. 
Alexander, Gordonius, Jason Pratensis, Savanarola, Guiauerius, Montaltus, 
confound them as differing secundum magis et minus; so doth David, 
Psal. xxxvii. 5. "I said unto the fools, deal not so madly," and 'twas an 
old Stoical paradox, omnes stultos insanire. ^all fools are mad, though some 
madder than others. And who is not a fool, who is free from melancholy 1 

"■Part 1. sect. 3. "Praef. lectori. 'Ep. 2. 1. 2. ad Donatum. Paulisper te crede subduci in ardui montis 
verticein celsiorem, speculate indererumjacentium facies, et oculis in diversa porrectis, fluctuantis mundi 
turbines intueri, jam simul aut ridebis aut misereberis, &c. "Controv. 1. 2. cent. 7. & 1. 6. conti, 

X Horatius. y Idem, Hor. 1. 2. Satyra 3. Damasippus Stoicus probat omnes stultos insanii'e. 



Democritus to tlve Reader. 17 

Who is not touched more or less in habit or disposition ? If in disposition, 
" ill dispositions beget habits, if they persevere," saitli ^Plutarch, habits either 
are, or turn to diseases. 'Tis the same which Tully maintains in the second 
of his Tusculans, omnium insipientum animi in morbo sunt, et perturhatorum, 
fools are sick, and all that are troubled in mind : for what is sickness, but as 
° Gregory Tholosanus defines it, " A dissolution or perturbation of the bodily 
league, which health . combines : " and who is not sick, or ill-disposed? in 
whom doth not passion, anger, envy, discontent, fear and sorrow reign ? Who 
labours not of this disease 1 Give me but a little leave, and you shall see by 
what testimonies, confessions, arguments, I will evince it, that most men are 
mad, that they had as much need to go a pilgrimage to the Anticyrce (as in 
^Strabo's time they did) as in our days they run to Compostella, our Lady of 
Sichem, or Lauretta, to seek for help ; that it is like to be as prosperous a 
voyage as that of Guiana, and that there is much more need of hellebore than 
of tobacco. 

That men are so misaffected, melancholy, mad, giddy-headed, hear the 
testimony of Solomon, Eccl. ii. 12. " And I turned to behold wisdom, mad- 
ness and folly," &c. And ver. 23 : " All his days are sorrow, his travel grief, 
and his heart taketh no rest in the night," So that take melancholy in what 
sense you will, properly or improperly, in disposition or habit, for pleasure or 
for pain, dotage, discontent, fear, sorrow, madness, for part, or all, truly, or 
metaphorically, 'tis all one. Laughter itself is madness according to Solomon, 
and as St. Paul hath it, " Worldly sorrow brings death." " The hearts of 
the sons of men are evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live," 
Eccl. ix. 3. "Wise men themselves are no better," Eccl. i. 18. "In the 
multitude of wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth wisdom increaseth 
sorrow," chap. ii. 17. He hated life itself, nothing pleaded him : he hated 
his labour, all, as °he concludes, is "sorrow, grief, vanity, vexation of spirit." 
And though he were the v/isest man in the world, sanctuarium sapientics, and 
had wisdom in abundance, he will not vindicate himself, or justify his own 
actions. " Surely I am more foolish than any man, and have not the under- 
standing of a man in me," Prov. xxx. 2. Be they Solomon's words, or the 
words of Agiir, the son of Jakeh, they are canonical. David, a man after 
God's own heart, confesseth as much of himself, Psal. xxxvii. 21, 22. "So 
foolish was I and ignorant, I was even as a beast before thee." And condemns 
all for fools, Psal. liii. ; xxxii. 9; xlix. 20. He compares them to "beasts, 
horses, and mules, in which there is no understanding." The Apostle Paul 
accuseth himself in like sort, 2 Cor. xi. 21. "I would you would suffer a. 
little my foolishness, I speak foolishly." " The whole head is sick," sffith 
Esay, " and the heart is heavy," cap. i. 5. And makes lighter of thein than 
of oxen and asses, " the ox knows his owner," &c. : read Deut/" xxxii. 6 ; 
Jer. iv. ; Amos, iii. 1 ; Ephes. v. 6. " Be not mad, be not deceived, foolish 
Galatians, who hath bewitched you ?" How often are they branded with this 
epithet of madness and folly 1 No word so frequent amongst the ftithers of 
the Church and divines ; you may see what an opinion they had of the world, 
and how they valued men's action. 

I know that we think far otherwise, and hold them most part wise men that 
are in authority, princes, magistrates, ^rich men, they are wise men born, all 
politicians and statesmen must needs be so, for who dare speak against them 1 
And on the other, so corrupt is our judgment, we esteem wise and honest 



' Tom. 2. Sj-mpos. lib. 5. c. 6. Animi affectiones, si dintius inlijcreant, pravos generant liaMtus. » Lib. 
28. cap. 1. Synt. art. mir. Morbus nihil est aliud quam dissolutio qusedam ac perturbatio foederis in corpore 
existentis, sicut et sanitas est consentientis bene corporis consnmmatio qua^dam. ^ Lib. 9. Geogr. Plures 
olim gentes navigabant illuc sanitatis causa. <: Eccles. i. 24. <i Jux-e liosreditario sapere jubentar. 

Euphormio Satyr. 

C 



18 Democritus to the Header. 

men fools. Whicli Democritus well signified in an epistle of liis to Hippocrates : 
*tlie " Abderites account virtue madness," and so do most men living. Shall 
I tell you the reason of it % '"Eortune and Virtue, Wisdom and Folly, their 
seconds, upon a time contended in the Olympics; every man thought that 
Fortune and Folly would have the worst, and pitied their cases; but it fell 
out otherwise. Fortune was blind and cared not where she stroke, nor whom, 
without laws, Andahatarum instar, &c. Folly, rash and inconsiderate, 
esteemed as little what she said or did. Virtue and Wisdom gave ^ place, 
were hissed out, and exploded by the common people; Folly and Fortune 
admired, and so are all their followers ever since : knaves and fools commonly 
fare and deserve best in worldlings' eyes and opinions. Many good men have 
no better fate in their ages: Achish, 1 Sam. xxi. 14, held David for a mad- 
man. ^Elisha and the rest were no otherwise esteemed. David was derided 
of the common people, Ps, ix. 7, " I am become a monster to many." And 
generally we are accounted fools for Christ, 1 Cor. xiv. " We fools thought 
his life madness, and his end without honour," Wisd. v. 4. Christ and his 
Apostles \YeYQ censured in like sort, John x. ; Mark iii. ; Acts xxvi. And so 
were all Christians in 'Pliny's im\e,fuerunt et alii similis dementice, &c. And 
called not long after, ^ Vesanice sectatores, eversores hominum, polluti novatores, 
fanatici, canes, malpfici, venefici, Galilcei homunciones, &c. 'Tis an ordinary 
thing with us, to account honest, devout, orthodox, divine, religious, plain- 
dealing men, idiots, asses, that cannot, or will not lie and dissemble, shift, 
flatter, accommodare se ad cum locum uhi nati sunt, make good bargains, 
supplant, thrive, patronis inservire ; solennes ascendendi inodos aj)prefiendere, 
leyes, mores, consuetudines recte ohservare, candide laudare, fortiter defenders, 
sententias am.plecti, duhita.re de nullis, credere omnia, accipere omnia, nihil 
reprehendere, coiteraque quce promotionem ferunt et securitatem, quce sine 
amhage fodicem reddunt hominem, et vere sapientem apud nos ; that cannot 
temporise as other men do, ^hand and take bribes, &c. but fear God, and 
make a conscience of their doings. But the Holy Ghost that knows better 
how to judge, he calls them fools. "The fool hath said in his heart," 
Psal. liii . 1 . " And their ways utter their folly," Psal. xlix. 14. " " For what 
can be more mad, than for a little worldly pleasure to procure unto themselves 
eternal punishment ? " As Gregory and others inculcate unto us. 

Yea even all those great philosophers the world hath ever had in admiration, 
whose works we do so much esteem, that gave precepts of wisdom to others, 
inventors of Arts and Sciences, Socrates the wisest man of his time by the 
Oracle of Apollo, whom his two scholars, "Plato and °Xenophon, so much 
extol and magnify with those honourable titles, " best and wisest of all mortal 
men, the happiest, and moat just;" and as tAlcibiades incamparably com- 
mends him; Achilles was a worthy man, but Bracides and others were as 
worthy as himself; Antenor and Nestor were as good as Pericles, and so of 
the rest ; but none present, before, or after Socrates, nemo veterum neque 
eorum qui nunc sunt, were ever such, will match, or come near him. Those 
seven wise men of Greece, those Britain Druids, Indian Brachmanni, Ethio- 
pian Gymnosophists, Magi of the Persians, ApoUonius, of whom Philostratus, 
Non doctus, sed natus sapiens, wise from his cradle, Epicurus so much admired 
by his scholar Lucretius : 



e Apud quos virtus, insania & furor esse dicitur. ^Calcagninus Apol. oinnes mirabantur, putantes 

illisum iri stuUitiam. Sed prseter expectationem les evenit, Audax stultitia in earn irruit, &c. ilia cedit irrisa, 
& plures hinc habet sectatores stultitia. g Non est respondendum stulto secundum stultitiam. ^ 2 Reg. 7. 
» Lib. 10. ep. 97. ^ Aug. ep. 178. i Quis nisi mentis inops, &c. " Quid insanius quam pro momen- 
tanea foelicitate seternis te mancipare suppliciis ? " In fine Phsedonis. Hie finis fuit amici nostri, 8 

Eucrates, nostro quidem judicio omnium quos expert! sumus optimi & apprime sapientissimi, & justissiml. 
o Xenop. 1. 4. de dictis Socratis ad finem, talis fuit Socrates quern omnium optimum & fcelicissimura 
Btatuam. f Lib. 25. Platonis Convivio. 



Democritus to the Reader. 19 



Qui genus hnmanum inrrenio siipei-avit, et omnes 
Perstriiixit Stellas eiorta:> at setlierius sol. 



V/hose wit excell'd the wits of men as far. 
As the sun rising doth obscure a star, 
Or that so much renowned Empedocles. 
* Ut vix Immana videatur stirpe creatus. 



All those of whom we read such ^ hyperbolical eiilogiiims, as of Aristotle, 
that he was wisdom itself in the abstract, "^a miracle of nature, breathing 
libraries, as Eunapius of Longinus, lights of nature, giants for wit, quint- 
essence of wit, divine spirits, eagles in the clouds, fallen from heaven, gods, 
spirits, lamps of the world, dictators. Nulla fer ant talem secla futura virum: 
monarchs, miracles, superintendents of wit and learning, oceanus, phoenix, 
atlas, monstrum, portentuni hominis, orhis universi musceum, ultimus humanoi 
naturae conatus, 7iaturce maritus. 



-merito cni doctior orbis 



Submissis defert fascibus imperium. 

As ^lian writ of Protagoras and Gorgias, we may say of them all, tantum a 
sapientibus abfuerunt, quantum a viris pueri, they were children in respect, 
infants, not eagles, but kites; novices, illiterate, Eunuchi sapienticE. And 
although they were the wisest, and most admired in their age, as he censured 
Alexander, I do them, there were 10,000 in his army as worthy captains (had 
they been in place of command), as valiant as himself; there were myriads of 
men wiser in those days, and yet all short of what they ought to be. ' Lac- 
tantius, in his book of wisdom, proves them to be dizzards, fools, asses, mad- 
men, so full of absurd and ridiculous tenets, and brain-sick positions, that to 
his thinking never any old woman or sick person doted worse. ^ Democritus 
took all from Leucippus, and left saith he, " the inheritance of his folly to 
Epicurus," ^insanienti dum sapienticE, &c. The like he holds of Plato, 
Aristippus, and the rest, making no difference, " "betwixt them and beasts, 
saving that they could speak." ^Theodoret in his tract, De cur. grec. affect. 
manifestly evinces as much of Socrates, whom though that Oracle of Apollo 
confirmed to be the wisest man then living, and saved him from plague, 
whom 2000 years have admired, of whom some will as soon speak evil as of 
Christ, yet r ever a, he was an illiterate idiot, as ^Aristophanes calls him, 
irrisor et amhitiosus, as his master Aristotle terms him, scurra Atticus, as 
Zeno, an ''enemy to all arts and sciences, as Athteneus, to philosophers and 
travellers, an opinionative ass, a caviller, a kind of pedant; for his manners, as 
Theod. Cyrensis describes him, a t sodomite, an atheist, (so convict by Anytus) 
iracundus et ehrius, dicax, &;c. a pot-companion, by Plato's own confession, a 
sturdy drinker; and that of all others he was most sottish, a very madman 
in his actions and opinions. Pythagoras was part philosopher, part magician, 
or part witch. If you desire to hear more of Apollonius, a great wise man, 
sometime paralleled by Julian the apostate to Christ, I refer you to that 
learned tract of Eusebius agamst Hierocles, and for them all to Lucian's 
Piscator, Icaromenippus, Necyomantia: their actions, opinions in general 
w^ere so prodigious, absurd, ridiculous, which they broached and maintained, 
their books and elaborate treatises were full of dotage, which Tully ad A tticum 
long since observed, delirant pleruniq ; scriptores in libris suis, their lives being 
opposite to their words, they commended poverty to others, and were most 
covetous themselves, extolled love and peace, and yet persecuted one another 
with virulent hate and malice. They could give precepts for verse and prose, 

* Lucretius. p Anaxagoras dim mens dictus ab antiquis. i Regnla naturie, naturas miraculum, ipsa 
cruditio, damonium hominis, sol scientiarum, mare, sophia, antist^s literarura & sapientiiB, ut Scioppius 
dim de Seal. & Heinsius. Aquila in nubibus. Imperator literatorum, columen literarura, abyssus eruditionis, 
ocellus Europgs, Scaliger. ^Lib. 3. de sap. c. 17. & 20. omnes Philosophi, aut stulti, aut insani; nulla anus, 
nullus seger ineptius deliravit. « Democritus a Leucippo doctus, luereditatem stultitife reliquit Epic. 

' Mor. car. lib. 1. od. 34. 1. epicur. " Nihil interest inter hos & bestias nisi quod loquantur. de sa. 1. 26. c. 8. 
' Gap. de virt. yNeb. & Ranis. ^Omnium disciplinarum ignarus. f Piilchrorum adolescentma 

causa fi-equenter gymnasium obibat, &c. 



20 ^ Democritus to the Reader. 

but not a man of them (as * Seneca tells them home) could moderate his 
affections. Their music did show us Jiebiles tnodos, (he. how to rise and fall, 
but they could not so contain themselves as in adversity not to make a lament- 
able tone. They will measure ground by geometry, set down limits, divide 
and subdivide, but cannot yet prescribe quantum homini satis, or keep within 
compass of reason and discretion. They can square circles, but understand 
not the state of their own souls, describe right lines and crooked, &c. but 
know not what is right in this life, quid in vita rectum sit, ignorant; so that 
as he said, Nescio an Anticyram ratio illis destinet omnem. I think all the 
Anticyrse will not restore them to their wits, ''if these men now, that held 
^Xenodotus heart. Crates liver, Epictetus lanthorn, were so sottish, and had 
no more brains than so many beetles, what shall we think of the commonalty 1 
what of the rest? 

Yea, but will you infer, that is trr.e of heathens, if they be conferred with 
christians, 1 Cor. iii. 19. '• The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, 
earthly and devilish," as James calls it, iii. 15. "They were vain in their 
imaginations, and their foolish heart was full of darkness," Rom. i. 21, 22. 
" When they professed themselves wise, became fools." Their witty works 
are admired here on earth, whilst their souls are tormented in hell fire. In 
some sense, Christiani Crassiani, Christians are Crassians, and if compared to 
that wisdom, no better than fools. Quis est sapiens 2 Solus Deus, t Pythagoras 
replies, " God is only wise," Rom. xvi. Paul determines " only good," as 
Austin well contends, ''and no man living can be justified in his sight." 
" God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if any did 
understand," Psalm liii. 2, 3. but all are corrupt, err. Rom. iii. 12, " iSTone 
doth good, no not one." Job aggravates this, iv. 18, "Behold lie found no 
stedfastness in his servants, and laid folly upon his angels," 19. "How much 
more on them that dwell in houses of clay ? " In this sense we are all fools, 
and the ''Scripture alone is arx MinervcE, we and our writings are shallow and 
imperfect. But I do not so mean ; even in our ordinary dealings we are no 
better than fools. "All our actions," as "^ Pliny told Trajan, "upbraid us of 
folly," our whole course of life is but matter of laughter : we are not soberly 
wise; and the world itself, which ought at least to be wise by reason of his 
antiquity, as ®Hugo de Prato Florido will have it, sem2^er stuUizat, is every day 
more foolish than other ; the more it is whipped, the worse it is, and as a child 
will still be crowned with roses and flowers," We are apish in it, asini hipedes, 
and every place is full inversorum Apuleiorum, of metamorphosed and two- 
legged asses, inversorum Silenorum. oXuVd^i^h, p)U6fi instar himuli, tremuld patris 
dormientis in ulna. Jovianus Pontanus, Antonio Dial, brings in some laughing 
at an old man, that by reason of his age was a little fond, but as he admonishetli 
there, Ne mireris ini hospes de hoe sene, marvel not at him only, for tota hcec 
civitas delirat, all our town dotes in like sort, ^we are a company of fools. 
Ask not with him in the poet, ^Larvce hunc intemperim insaniccque agitant 
senem? What madness ghosts this old man, but what madness ghosts us all? 
For we are ad unur.i omnes, all mad, semel insanivimus omnes, not once, but 
always so, et semel, et siniul, et semper, ever and altogether as bad as he ; and 
not senex bispuer, delira anus, but say it of us all, semper pueri, young and old, 
all dote, as Lactantius proves out of Seneca; and no difference betwixt us and 
children, saving that, majora ladimus, et grandioribus pupis, they play with 
babies of clouts and such toys, we sport with greater baubles. We cannot 



* Seneca. Scis rotunda metiri, sed non taum animum. » Ab uberibus sapientia lactati csscutire non 

possunt. iiCor Xenodoti & jecur Cratetis. t^-'ib- da nat. boni. « Hie profundissimaj Sophia fodinaB. 
d Panegyr. Trajano omnes actiones exprobrare stultitiam videntur. « Ser. 4. in domi Pal. Mundus qui 

ob anttquitatem deberet esse sapiens, semper stultizat, et nuliis f.agellis alteratur, sed ut puer vult robis et 
floribus coronari. *insaaum te omncj pueii, ckuuautque puellse, Uor, e Plautus Aubulav. 



► 



Democritus to the Header. 21 

accuse or condemn one another, being faulty ourselves, deliramenta loqueris, 
you talk idly, or as ^ Mitio upbraided Demea, insanis, auferte, for we are as 
mad our own selves, and it is hard to say which is the worst. Nay, 'tis uni- 
versally so, ' Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia. 

When ^ Socrates had taken great pains to find out a wise man, and to that 
purpose had consulted with philosophers, poets, artificers, he concludes all men 
were fools; and though it procured him both anger and much envy, yet in all 
companies he would openly profess it. When ^Supputius in Pontanus had 
travelled all over Europe to confer with a wise man, he returned at last without 
his errand, and could find none. "" Cardan concurs with him, "Few there are 
(for aught I can perceive) well in their wits." So doth "Tully, " I see every- 
thing to be done foolishly and unadvisedly." 

Ille siiiistrorsum, hie dexti'orsum, unus uti-ique I One reels to this, another to that wall; 
Error, sed yariis illudit partibas omnes. | 'Tis the same error that deludes them all. 

** They dote all, but not alike, Man'a yap Ttajiv cfji,oci, not in the sp.me kind, 
" One is covetous, a second lascivious, a third ambitious, a fourth envious," 
&c. as Damasippus the Stoic hath well illustrated in the poet, 

P DcsiDiunt omnes £eau" ac tu I ^^^ *^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^°^ ^'^^^' ^'^^^ ^^^^^^ ^'^™ 

'Tis an inbred malady in every one of us, there is seminarium stultiticB, a 
seminary of folly, " which if it be stirred up, or get ahead, will run in infi- 
nitum, and infinitely varies, as we ourselves are severally addicted," saith 
^ Balthazar Castillo : and cannot so easily be rooted out, it takes such fast 
hold, as Tully holds, alt(B radices stultiti<s, ''so we are bred, and so we con- 
tinue. Some say there be two main defects of wit, error, and ignorance, to 
which all others are reduced; by ignorance we know not things necessary, by 
error we know them falsely. Ignorance is a privation, error a j^ositive act. 
Irom ignorance comes vice, from error, heresy, &c. But make how many 
kinds you will, divide and subdivide, few men are free, or that do not impinge 
on some one kind or other. ^Sic plerumque agitat stuUos inscitia, as he that 
• examines his ov/n and other men's actions shall find. 

- * Charon in Lucian, as he wittily feigns, was conducted by Mercury to such 
a place, where he might see all the world at once ; after he had sufficiently 
viewed, and looked about. Mercury would needs know of him what he had 
observed : He told him that he saw a vast multitude and a promiscuous, their 
habitations like molehills, the men as emmets, "he could discern cities like so 
many hives of bees, wherein every bee had a sting, and they did nought else 
but sting one another, some domineering like hornets bigger than the rest, 
some like filching wasps, others as drones." Over their heads were hovering 
a confused company of perturbations, hope, fear, anger, avarice, ignorance, 
&c., and a multitude of diseases hanging, which they still pulled on their pates. 
Some were brawling, some fighting, riding, running, soUicite amhientes, callide 
litigantes, for toys and trifles, and such momentary things. Their towns and 
provinces mere factions, rich against poor, poor against rich, nobles against 
artificers, they against nobles, and so the rest. In conclusion, he condemned 
them all for madmen, fools, idiots, asses, stidti, qucBnam Jkbg est amentia ? 
O fools, O madmen, he exclaims, insana studia, insani lahoi^, d'c. Mad 
endeavours, mad actions, mad, mad, mad, * seclum insipiens <£■ infacetum, 
a giddy-headed age. Heraclitus the philosopher, out of a serious meditation 

h Adelph. act. 5. seen. 8. ' Tully Tusc. 5. fortune, not wisdom, governs our lives. ^ ^ Plato Apologia 
Socratis. lAnt. dial. "Lib. 3. de sap. pauci ut video sante mentis sunt. " Stulte & incaute omnia 
agi video. <> Insania non omnibus eadem, Erasm. chil. 3. cent. 10. nemo mortalium qui non aliqua in re 
desipit, licet alius alio morbo laboret, hie libidinis, ille avaritiaj, ambitionis, invidite. p Hor. 1. 2. sat. 3. 

« Lib. i. de aulico. Est in unoquoq; nostrum seminarium aliquod stultitia;, quod si quando excitetui", in 
infinitum facile excrescit. >" rrimaLiue lux vitai prima erroris erat. ^ Tibtillus, stuiti pretfereimt dies, 
theii- wits are a wool-gathering, bo tools commonly dote. * Dial, contemplantes, Tom. 2. ' Catullus. 



22 Democritus to the Reader. 

of men's lives, fell a weeping, and with continual tears bewailed tlieir misery, 
madness, and folly. Democritus on the other side, burst out a laughing, their 
whole life seemed to him so ridiculous, and he was so far carried with this 
ironical passion, that the citizens of Abdera took him to be mad, and sent 
therefore ambassadors to Hippocrates, t?he physician, that he would exercise 
his skill upon him. But the story is set down at large by Hippocrates, in his 
epistle to Damogetus, which because it is not impertinent to this discourse, I 
will insert verbatim almost as it is delivered by Hij)pocrates himself, with all 
the circumstances belonging unto it. 

\ When Hippocrates was now come to Abdera, the people of the city came 
flocking about him, some weeping, some entreating of him, that he would do 
his best. After some little repast, he went to see Democritus, the people fol- 
lowing him, whom he found (as before) in his garden in the suburbs all alone, 
" "sitting upon a stone under a plane tree, without hose or shoes, with a book 
on his knees, cutting up several beasts, and busy at his study." The multi- 
tude stood gazing round about to see the congress. Hippocrates, after a little 
pause, saluted him by his name, whom he resaluted, ashamed almost that he 
could not call him likewise by his, or that he had forgot it. Hippocrates 
demanded of him what he was doing: he told him that he was "''busy in 
cutting up several beasts, to find out the cause of madness and melancholy." 
Hippocrates commended his work, admiring his happiness and leisure. And 
why, quoth Democritus, have not you that leisure? Because, replied Hippo- 
crates, domestic affairs hinder, necessary to be done for ourselves, neighbours, 
friends; expenses, diseases, frailties and mortalities which happen; wife, 
children, servants, and such businesses which deprive us of our time. At this 
speech Democritus profusely laughed (his friends and the people standing by, 
weeping in the meantime, and lamenting his madness). Hippocrates asked 
the reason why he laughed. He told him, at the vanities and the fopperies of 
the time, to see men so empty of all virtuous actions, to hunt so far after gold, 
having no end of ambition; to take such infinite pains for a little glory, and to 
be favoured of men ; to make such deep mines into the earth for gold, and 
many times to find nothing, with loss of their lives and fortunes. Some to 
love dogs, others horses, some to desire to be obeyed in many provinces,^ and 
yet themselves will know no obedience. * Some to love their wives dearly at 
first, and after a while to forsake and hate them; begetting children, with 
much care and cost for their education, yet when they grow to man's estate, 
*to despise, neglect, and leave them naked to the world's mercy. ^Do not 
these behaviours express their intolerable folly ? When men live in peace, 
they covet war, detesting quietness, ''deposing kings, and advancing others in 
their stead, murdering some men to beget children of their wives. How many 
strange humours are in men ! When they are poor and needy, they seek 
riches, and when they have them, they do not enjoy them, but hide them 
under ground, or else wastefuUy spend them. O wise Hippocrates, I laugh at 
such things being done, but much more when no good comes of them, and 
when they are done to so ill purpose. There is no truth or justice found 
amongst them, for they daily plead one against another, "^ the son against the 
father and the mother, brother against brother, kindred and friends of the 
same quality ; and all this for riches, whereof after death they cannot be pos- 
sessors. And yet notwithstanding they will defame and kill one another, 

« Sub ramosa platano seflentem, solum, discalceatum, super lapidem, vaWepalliSum acmacilentuni,proiftissa 
barba, librum super genibus habentem. ^De furore, mania, melancholia scrlbo, ut sciam quo pacto ift 

hominibus gignatur, fiat, crescat, cumuletur, minuatur ; hsec inquit animalia quae vides propterea seco, non 
Dei opera perosus, sed fellis bilisq; naturam disquirens. y Aust. 1. 1. in Gen. Jumenti & servi tui obse- 
quium rigide postulas, & tu nullum praistas aliis, nee ipsi Deo. == Uxores ducunt, mox foras ejiciunt, 

"Puerosamant, mox fastidiunt. b Quid hoe ab insania deest? « Eeges eligunt, deponunt. «i Contra 
pareutes, fratres, cives perpetao rixantur, & inimicitias agunt. 



Democriius to the Header. 23 

commit all unlawful actions, contemning God and men, friends and country. 
They make great account of many senseles3i|migs, esteeming them as a great 
part of their treasure, statues, pictures, and^jgi like movables, dear bought, 
and so cunningly wrought, as nothing but sp^h wanteth in them, ® and yet 
they hate living persons speaking to them.* Others affect difficult things ; 
if they dwell on firm land they will remove to ^island, and thence to land 
again, being no way constant to their desires, ^ey commend courage and 
strength in wars, and let themselves be conquerei^by lust and avarice; they 
are, in brief, as disordered in their minds, as Thers^es was in his body. And 
now, methinks, O most worthy Hippocrates, you should not reprehend my 
laughing, perceiving so many fooleries in men; ^f(5r no man will mock his 
own folly, but that which he seeth in a second, and so they justly mock one 
another. The drunkard calls him a glutton whom ^e knows to be sober. 
Many men love the sea, others husbandry; briefly, thej^- cannot agree in their 
own trades and professions, much less in their lives anc^^ctions. 

When Hippocrates heard these words so readily utteredj- without premedi- 
tation, to declare the world's vanity, fullof ridiculous contrariety, he made 
answer, that necessity compelled men to many such actions, and divers wills 
ensuing from divine permission, that we might not be idle,»beiDg nothing is 
so odious to them as sloth and ne^li f^ence. Besides, men cannot foresee future 
events, in this uncertainty of human affairs; they would not so marry, if they 
could foretel the causes of their dislike and separation ; or parents, if they 
knew the hour of their children's death, so tenderly provide for them ; or an 
husbandman sow, if he thought there would be no increase ; or a merchant 
adventure to sea, if he foresaw shipwreck ; or be a magistrate, if presently to 
be deposed. Alas, worthy Democritus, every man hopes the best, and to that end 
he doth it, and therefore no such cause, or ridiculous occasion of laughter. 

Democritus hearing this poor excuse, laughed again aloud, perceiving he 
wholly mistook him, and did not well understand what he had said concerning 
perturbations and tranquillity of the mind. Insomuch, that if men would 
govern their actions by discretion and providence, they would not declare 
themselves fools as now they do, and he should have no cause of la,ughter; but 
(quoth he) they swell in this life as if they were immortal, and demigods, for 
want of understanding. It were enough to make them wise, if they would but 
consider the mutability of this world, and how it wheels about, nothing being 
firm and sure. He that is now above, to-morrow is beneath; he that sate on 
this side to-day, to-morrow is hurled on the other i and not considering these 
matters, they tall into many inconveniences and troubles, coveting things of no 
profit, and thii*sting after them, tumbliug headlong into many calamities. So 
that if men would attempt no more than what they can bear, they should lead 
contented lives, and learning to know themselves, would limit their ambition, 
^ they would perceive then that nature hath enough without seeldug such 
superfluities, and unprofitable things, which bring nothing with them but 
grief and molestation. As a fat body is more subject to diseases, so are 
rich men to absurdities and fooleries, to ma^ny casualties and cross incon- 
veniences. There are many that take no heed what happeneth to others 
by bad conversation, and therefore overthrow themselves in the same 
manner through their own fault, not foreseeing dangers manifest. These 
are things (O more than mad, quoth he) that give me matter of laughter, 
by suffering the pains of your impieties, as your avarice, envy, malice, 
enormous villanies, mutinies, unsatiable desires, conspiracies, and other 



«Idola inanimata amant, animata odio habent, sic pontificii. * Credo equidem vivos ducent e marmore 
vultus. 'Saam stultitiam pevspicit nemo, sed alter alterum deridet. sDenique sit finis querendi, 

cumque habeas plus, pauperiem metuas minus, & finire laborcra incipias, partis quod avebas, utere. Hoi*. 



24 Democrit'us to the Reader. 

incurable vices ; besides your ^ dissimulation and hypocrisy, bearing deadly 
hatred one to the other, and yet shadowing it with a good face, flying out into 
all filthy lusts, and transgressions of all laws, both of nature and civility. 
Many things which they have left off, after a while they fall to again, hus- 
bandry, navigation; and leave again, fickle and inconstant as they are. 
When they are young, they would be old ; and old, young. ^ Princes commend 
a private life ; private men itch after honour : a magistrate commends a quiet 
life ; a quiet man would be in his office, and obeyed as he is : and what is the 
cause of all this, but that they know not themselves? Some delight to destroy, 
•" one to build, another to spoil one country to enrich another and himself. 
^In all these things they are like children, in whom is no judgment or counsel, 
and resemble beasts, saving that beasts are better than they, as being con- 
tented with nature. ^ When shall you see a lion hide gold in the ground, or a 
bull contend for better pasture? When a boar is thirsty, he drinks what will 
serve him, and no more ; and when his belly is full, ceaseth to eat : but men 
are immoderate inboth,as in lust — they covet carnal copulation at set times; men 
always, ruinating thereby the health of their bodies. And doth it not de- 
serve laughter to see an amorous fool torment himself for a wench; weep, howl 
for a mis-shapen slut, a dowdy sometimes, that might have Ms choice of the 
finest beauties? Is there any remedy for this in physic? I do anatomise and cut 
tip these poor beasts, "to see these distempers, vanities, and follies, yet such 
proof were better made on man's body, if my kind nature would endure it : 
•"who from the hour of his birth is most miserable, weak, and sickly; when he 
sucks he is guided by others, when he is grown great practiseth unhappiness 
''and is sturdy, and when old, a child again, and repenteth him of his life 
past. And here being interrupted by one that brought books, he fell to it ' 
again, that all were mad, careless, stupid. To prove my former speeches, 
look into courts, or private houses, p Judges give judgment according to their 
own advantage, doing manifest wrong to poor innocents to please othei-s. 
Notaries alter sentences, and for money lose their deeds. Some make false 
monies; others counterfeit false weights. Some abuse their parents, yea cor- 
rupt their own sisters; others make long libels and pasquils, defaming men 
of good life, and extol such as are lewd and vicious. Some rob one, some 
another: ''magistrates make laws against thieves, and are the veriest thieves 
themselves. Some kill themselves, others despair, not obtaining their desires. 
Some dance, sing, laugh, feast and banquet, whilst others sigh, languish, 
mourn and lament, having neither meat, drink, nor clothes. ''Some prank up 
their bodies, and have their minds full of execrable vices. [ Some trot about 
*to bear false witness, and say anything for money; and though judges know 
of it, yet for a bribe they wink at it, and suffer false contracts to prevail 
against equitya Women are all day a dressing, to pleasure other men abroad, 
and go like sliits at home, not caring to please their own husbands whom 
they should. Seeing men are so fickle, so sottish, so intemperate, why should 
not I laugh at those to whom *folly seems wisdom, will not be cured, and 
perceive it not? j 

It grew late : Hippocrates left him ; and no sooner was he come away, but 

t Astutam vapido servas sub pectore vulpem. Et cum vulpe positus pariter vulpinarier. Cretizandum 
ciim Crete. ' Qui fit Mecsenas ut nemo quam sibi sortem, Seu ratio dederit, seu sors objecerit, ilia eon- 

tentus vivat, &c., Hor. J Diruit, sedificat, mutat quadrata rotundis. Trajanus pontem struxit super Danu- 
bium, quem successor ejus Adrianus statim demolivit. ^ Q^g^ q^id in re ab infantibus differunt, quibus 

mens & sensus sine ratione inest, quicquid sese his oifert volupe est? 'Idem Plut. '"Ut insani« causam 
disquiram bruta macto <fc seco, cum hoc potius in hominibus investigandtim esset. "Totus a nativitate 

morbus est. ° In vigore furibundus, quum decrescit insanabilis. p Cyprian, ad Donatum. Qui sedjt 
crimina judicaturus, &c. iTu pessimus omnium latro es, as a thief told Alexander in Curtius. Damnat 
fbras judex, quod intus operatur, Cyprian. >■ Vultas magna cura, magna animi incuria. Am. Marcel. 

8 Horrenda res est, vix duo verba sine mendacio proferuntur : & quaravis solenniter homines ad veritatem 
dicendam invitentur, pejerare tamen non dubitant, ut ex decern testibus vix uuus verum dicat. Calv. in 
8 Johu, Serra. 1. «■ tapientiam insaniam esse dicunt. 



JDemocritus to the Reader. 25 

all the citizens came about flocking, to know how he liked him. He told them 
iu brief, that notwithstanding those small neglects of his attire, body, diet, 
"the world had not a wiser, a more learned, a more honest man, and they 
were much deceived to say that he was mad. 

Thus Democritus esteemed of the world in his time, and this was the cause 
of his laughter: and good cause he had. 

T Glim jure quidem, nunc plus Deraocrite ride; 
Quin rides ? vita haec nunc mage ridicula est. 
i Democritus did well to laugh of old, 
\ Good cause he had, hut now much more ; 
j This life of ours is more ridiculous 
' \ Than that of his, or long before. 

iN'ever so ranch cause of laughter as now, never so many fools and madmen. 
'Tis not one ^Democritus will serve turn to laugh in these days; we have now 
need of a " Democritus to laugh at Democritus;" one jester to flout at another, 
one fool to flare at another : a great stentorian Democritus, as big as that 
Rhodian Colossus, For now, as ^Salisburiensis said in his time, totus viun- 
dus histrionem agit, the whole world plays the fool ; we have a new theatre, a 
new scene, a'Siew comedy of errors, a new company of personate actors, 
volupice sacra (as Calcagninus v/illingly feigns in his Apologues) are celebrated 'S. 
all the world over,* where all the actors were madmen and fools, and every 
hour changed habits, or took that which came next. He that was a mariner 
to-day, is a,n apothecary to-moiTow; a smith one while, a philosopher another, 
in his volupice ludis; a king nov/ with his crown, robes, sceptre, attendants, 
by and by drove a loaded ass before him like a carter, &c. If Democritus 
were alive now, he should see strange alterations, a new company of counterfeit 
vizards, whifllers. Cum an e asses, maskers, mummers, painted puppets, outsides, 
fantastic shadows, gulls, m'onsters, giddy-heads, butterflies. And so many" 
of them are indeed (^if all be true that I have read). For when Jupiter and 
Juno's wedding was solemnized of old, the gods were all invited to the feast, 
and many noble men besides : Amongst the rest came Crysalus, a Persian 
prince, bravely attended, rich in golden attires, in gay robes, with a majestical 
presence, but otherwise an ass. The gods seeing him come in such pomp and 
state, rose up to give hiai place, ex hahitu hominem metientes; ^but Jupiter 
perceiving what he was, a light, fantastic, idle fellow, turned him and his 
proud followers into butterflies : and so they continue still (for aught I know 
to the contrary) roving about in pied coats, and are called chrysalides by the 
wiser sort of men: that is, golden outsides, drones, flies, and things of no 
worth. Multitudes of such, &;c. 

" uhlque invenies 

Stultos avaros, sycophantas prodigos."t 

Many additions, much increase of madness, folly, vanity, should Democritus 
observe, were he now to travel, or could get leave of Pluto to come see fashions, 
as Charon did in Lucian to visit our cities of Moronia Pia, and Moronia Foelix : 
sure I think he would break the rim of his belly with laugliiiig. ^Si/oret in 
terris rideret Democritus, seu, &c. 

A satirical Poman in his time, thought all vice, folly, and madness were all 
at full sea, ^Omne in prcecipiti vitium stetit. 

° Siquidem sapic-ntijc suce admiratirne me corrplevit, offendi sapientissimum viriim, qui salvos potest 
omnes homines reddere. ^ E Grsec. epig. ^' Plures Democriti nunc non sufficiunt, opus Democrito qui 
Democritum rideat. Eras. Sloria. ^ Polycrat. lib. 3. cap. 8 e Petron. * Uhi omnes delirabant, omnes 
insani, &c. hodie nauta, eras philosophus ; hodie faber, eras pharmacopola ; hie modo regem agebat multo 
satellitio, tiara, & sceptro ornatus, nunc vili amictus centiculo, asinum clitellarium impellit. y Calcag- 

ninus Apol. Crysalus e cseteris auro dives, manicato poplo & tiara oonspicuus, levis alioquin & nullius 
cons'lii, &c. mag-no fastu ingredient! assurgunt dii, &c. ^ Sed hominis levitatem Jupiter perspiciens, at 
tu (inquit) esto bombilio, &c. protinusq; vestis ilia manicata in alas versa est, & mortales inde Chrysalides 
vocant hujusmodi homines. f You will meet covetous fools and prodigal sycophants everyvi'tere. 

0^ Juven. b Juven. 



26 Democritus to the Reader, 

* Josephus the historian taxeth his countrymen Jews for bragging of their 
vices, publishing their follies, and that they did contend amongst themselves 
who should be most notorious in villanies; but we flow higher in madness, 
far beyond them, 

" « Mox daturi progeniem vitiosiorem," 
And yet with crimes to us unlcnown, 
Our sons sliall mark tlie coming age their o-vvn, 

and the latter end (you know whose oracle it is) is like to be worse. *Tis not 
to be denied, the world alters every day, Ruunt urhes, regiia transferuntur, doc. 
vai-iantur habitus, leges innovantur, as "^Petrarch observes, we change language, 
habits, laws, customs, manners, but not vices, not diseases, not the symptoms 
of folly and madness, they are still the same. And as a river, we see, keeps 
the like name and place, but not water, and yet ever runs, fLahitur et lahetur 
in omne volubilis cevum; our times and persons alter, vices are the same, and 
ever will be; look how nightingales sang of old, cocks crowed, kine lowed, 
sheep bleated, sparrows chirped, dogs barked, so they do still i we keep our 
madness still, play the fools still, nee dumfinitus Orestes; we are of the same 
humours and inclinations as our predecessors were ; you shall find us all alike, 
much at one, we and our sons, et nati natorum, et qui nascuntur ah illis. And 
so shall our posterity continue to the last. But to speak of times present. 

If Democritus were alive now, and should but see the superstition of our 
age, our * religious madness, as * Meteran calls it, Religiosam insaniam, so many 
professed Christians, yet so few imitators of Christ; so much talk of religion, so 
much science, so little conscience ; so much knowledge, so many preachers, so 
little practice; such variety of sects, such have and hold of all sides,:|: 
obvia signis Signa, &c., such absurd and ridiculous traditions and cere- 
monies: If he should meet a ^Capuchin, a Fran*ciscan, a Pharisaical Jesuit, 
a man-serpent, a shave-crowned Monk in his robes, a begging Friar, or see 
their three-crowned Sovereign Lord the Pope, poor Peter's successor, servua 
servorum Dei, to depose kings with his foot, to tread on emperors' necks, make 
them stand barefoot and bare-legged at his gates, hold his bridle and stirrup, 
&c. (O that Peter and Paul were alive to see this!) If he should observe 
a ^Prince creep so devoutly to kiss his toe, and those Ked-cap Cardinals, 
poor parish priests of old, now Princes' companions; what would he say? 
Coelum ijysurn petitur stultitia. Had he met some of our devout pilgTims 
going barefoot to Jerusalem, our lady of Lauretto, Pome, S. lago, S. Thomas' 
Shrine, to creep to those counterfeit and maggot-eaten reliques; had he been 
present at a mass, and seen such kissing of Paxes, crucifixes, cringes, duck- 
ings, their several attires and ceremonies, pictures of saints, indulgences, 
pardons, vigils, fasting, feasts, crossing, knocking, kneeling at Ave-Marias, 
bells, with many such; -jucunda rudi spectacula plehis, Spraying in gib- 
berish, and mumbling of beads. Had he heard an old woman say her prayers 
in Latin, their sprinkling of holy water, and going a procession, 

"§ :.-incGdiint monachorum agminamille; 

Quid ijiemorein. vexilla, cruces, idolaque culta, &c." 

Their breviaries, bulls, hallowed beans, exorcisms, pictures, curious crosses, 
fables, and baubles. Had he read the Golden Legend, the Turks' Alcoran, or 
Jews' Talmud, the Pabbins' Comments, what would he have thought j? How 

* De bello Jud. 1. 8. c. 11. Iniquitates vestras neminem latent, inque dies singulos certamen habetis quis 
pejor sit. «Hor. <i Lib. 5. Epist. 8. f Hor. e Superstitio est insanus error. f Lib. 8. hist. 

Belg. $ Lucan. 6 Father Angelo, the Dulte of Joyeux, going barefoot over the Alps to Rome, &c. 

^ Si cui intueri vacet quaa patiuntur superstitiosi, invenies tarn indecora honestis, tam indigna liberis, tarn 
dissimilia sanis, \\t nemo fuerit dubitaturus furere eos, si cum paucioribus farerent. Senec. ' Quid dicam 
de eorum indulgentiis, oblationibus, votis, solutionibus, jejuniis, cosnobiis, somniis, horis, organis, canti- 
lenis, campanis, simulachris, missis, purgatoriis, mitris, breviariis, bullis, lustralibus, aquis, rasuris, 
unctionibus, candelis, calicibus, crucibus, jnappis, cereis, thuribulis, incantationibus, exorcismis, sputis, 
legendis, &c. Baleus de actis Rom. Pont. ^ Pleasing spectacles to the ignorant poor. § Th. Neageor, 



Democritus to tlie Reader. 27 

dost thou think he might have been affected'? Had he more particularly 
examined a Jesuit's life amongst the rest, he should have seen an hypocrite 
profess poverty, ^and yet possess more goods and lands than many princes, to 
have infinite treasures and revenues ; teach others to fast, and play the gluttons 
themselves ; like the watermen that row one way and look another. ™ Vow vir- 
ginity, talk of holiness, and yet indeed a notorious bawd, and famous fornicator, 
lascivum pecus, a very goat. Monks by profession," such as give over the 
world and the vanities of it, and yet a Machiavelian rout "interested in all 
manner of state: holy men, peace makers, and yet composed of envy, lust 
ambition, hatred, and malice; fire-brands, adulta patrice pestis, traitors, as- 
sassinats, hdc itur ad astra, and this is to snpererogate, and merit heaven for 
themselves and others. Had he seen on the adverse side, some of our nice 
and curious schismatics in another extreme, abhor all ceremonies, and rather 
lose their lives and livings, than do or admit anything Papists have formerly 
used, though in things indifferent, (they alone are the true Church, sal terrce, 
cum sint omnium insiolsissim,i). Formalists, out of fear and base flattery, like so 
many weather- cocks turn round, a rout of temporisers, ready to embrace and 
maintain all that is or shall be proposed in hope of preferment : another 
Epicurean company, lying at lurch like so many vidtures, watching for a 
prey of Church goods, and ready to rise by the downfal of any : as ^ Lucian 
said in like case, what dost thou think Democritus would have done, had he 
been spectator of these things? 

Or had he but observed the common people follow like so many sheep one 
of their fellows drawn by the horns over the gap, some for zeal, some lor fear, 
quo se cunque rapit tempestas, to credit all, examine nothing, and yet ready 
to die before they will adjure any of those ceremonies to which they have 
been accustomed? others out of hypocrisy frequent sermons, knock their breasts, 
turn up their eyes, pretend zeal, desire reformation, and yet professed usurers, 
gripers, monsters of men, harpies, devils in their lives, to express nothing less. 

What would he have said to see, hear, and read so many bloody battles, so 
many thousands slain at once, such streams of blood able to t\irn mills : unius 
oh noxam furiasque, or to make sport for princes, without any just cause, 
" * for vain titles (saith Austin), precedency, some wench, or such like toy, or 
out of desire of domineering, vain glory, malice, revenge, folly, madness," 
(goodly causes all, oh quas universus orhis hellis et ccedihus misceatur,) whilst 
statesmen themselves in the mean time are secure at home, pampered with all 
delights and pleasures, take their ease, and follow their lusts, not considering 
what intolerable misery poor soldiers endure, their often wounds, hunger, 
thirst, &c., the lamentable cares, torments, calamities, and oppressions that 
accompany such proceedings, they feel not, take no notice of it. So wars 
are begim, by the persuasion of a few debauched, hair-brain, poor, dissolute, 
hungry captains, parasitical fawners, unquiet Hotspiirs, restless innovators, 
green heads, to satisfy one man's private spleen, lust, ambition, avarice, &c. ; 
tales rainunt scelerata in proslia causce. Flos hominum, proper men, well 
proportioned, carefully brought up, able both in body and mind, sound, led 
/ like so many "^ beasts to the slaughter in the flower of their years, pride, and 
' full strength, without all remorse and pity, sacrificed to Pluto, killed up as 
so many sheep, for devils' food, 40,000 at once. At once, said I, that were 
tolerable, but these wars last always, and for many ages; nothing so familiar 

J Dum simnlantspemere, acqnisiverimt sibi 30 annorum spatio bis centena millia libranim annua. Arnold. 
•"Et quum interdiu de virtute loquuti sunt, sero in latibulis clunes agitant labore nocturno, Agrj-ppa. 
" 1 Tim. iii. 13. But they shall prevail no longer, their madness shall be known to all men. » Benignitatis 
sinus solebat esse, nunc litium officiua curia Rom ana. Budajus. p Quid tibi videtur facturus Democritus, 
si horam spectator contigisset? *0b inanes ditionum titulos, ob prereptura locum, ob interceptara 

mulierculam, vel quod e stultitia natum, vel e malitia, quod cupido domiuaadi, libido nocendi, &c. i Bel- 
luin rem plane belluae nam vocat Moras. Utop. lib. 2. 



28 Demoointiis to the Reader. 

as this hacking and hewing, massacres, murders, desolations — ignoto cmlum 
clangor e remugit, thej care not what mischief they procure, so that they may 
enrich themselves for the present; they will so long blow the coals of con- 
tention, till all the world be consumed with fire. The ^ siege of Troy lasted 
ten years, eight months, there died 870,000 Grecians, 670,000 Trojans, at the 
taking of the city, and after were slain 276,000 men, women, and children 
of all sorts. Caesar killed a million, "■ Mahomet the second Turk, 300,000 
persons; Sicinius Dentatus fought in a hundred battles, eight times in single 
combat he overcame, had forty wounds before, was rewarded with 140 crowns, 
triumphed nine times for his good service. M. Sergius had 32 wounds; 
Scseva, the Centurion, I know not how many; every nation had their 
Hectors, Scipios, Csesars, and Alexanders! Our ^Edward the Fourth was in 
26 battles afoot : and as they do all, he glories in it, 'tis related to his honour. 
At the siege of Hierusalem, 1,100,000 died with sword and famine. At the 
battle of Cannas, 70,000 men were slain, as *Polybius records, and as many 
at Battle Abbey with us ; and 'tis no news to fight from sun to sun, as they 
did, as Constantine and Licinius, &c. At the siege of Ostend (the devil's 
academy) a poor town in respect, a small fort, but a great grave,, 120,000 
men lost their lives, besides whole towns, dorpes, and hospitals full of maimed 
soldiers; there were engines, fire-works, and whatsoever the devil coiild 
invent to do mischief with 2,500,000 iron bullets shot of 40 pounds weight, 
three or four millions of gold consumed. "*Who (saith mine author) can 
be sufficiently amazed at their flinty hearts, obstinacy, fury, blindness, who 
without any likelihood of good success, hazard poor soldiers, and lead them 
without pity to the slaughter, which may justly be called the rage of furious 
beasts, that run without reason upon their own deaths:" fquis malus genius, 
quce faria, quce 2^^stis, d'c. ; what plague, what fury brought so devilish, so 
brutish a thing as war first into men's minds'? Who made so soft and peace- 
able a creature, born to love, mercy, meekness, so to rave, rage like beasts, 
and run on to their own destruction % how may nature expostulate v/ith man- 
kind. Ego ie divinum animal finxi, djc. ? I made thee an harmless, quiet, a 
divine creature : how may God expostulate, and all good men 1 yet, horum 
facta (as J one condoles) tantum admirantur, et heroum numero hdbent: these 
are the brave spirits, the gallants of the world, these admired alone, triumph 
alone, have statues, crowns, pyramids, obelisks to their eternal fame, that im- 
mortal genius attends on them, hdc itur ad astra. When Rhodes was besieged, 
^fossce urbis cadaveribus repletoe sunt, the ditches were full of dead carcasses : 
and as when the said Solyman, great Turk, beleaguered Vienna, they lay 
level with the top of the walls. This they make a sport of, and will do it 
to their friends and confederates, against oaths, vows, promises, by treachery 

or otherwise; '^ dolus an virtus? quis in hoste requirat ? leagues and 

laws of arms, (J silent leges inter arrna^ for their advantage, omnia jura, divina, 
humana, proculcata plerumque sunt; God's and men's laws are trampled 
under foot, the sword alone determines all; to satisfy their lust and spleen, 
they care not what they attempt, say, or do, ^liara fides, probitasque viris qui 
castra sequuntur. Nothing so common as to have " * father fight against the 
son, brother against brother, kinsman against kinsman, kingdom against king- 
dom, province against ]3rovince, christians against christians:" a quibus neo 
unquam cogitatione fuerunt Icesi, of whom they never had ofi:ence in thought, 



QMunster. Cosmog. 1. 5, c. 3, E. Diet. Cretens. "" Jovius vit. ejus. 'Comineus. * Lib. 3. 

t Hist, of the siege of Ostend, fol. 23. t Erasmus de bello. Ut placidum illud animal benevolentiae 

natura tam ferina vecordia in mutuam rueret perniciem. % llich. Dinoth. pi-jefat. Belli civilis Gal. 

"Jovius. * Dolus, asperitas, in justitia propria belloi-um negotia. Tertul. y Tully. ^Lucan. "Pater 
in filiura, aifinis in affinem, amicus in amicum, &c. Regio cum regione, regnum I'eguo colliditur. Populus 
populo in mutuam perniciem, belluarum iustar sanguiuoleutc ruentium. 



Democritus to the Header. 29 

word or deed. Infinite treasures consumed, towns burned, flourisliing cities 
sacked and ruinated, quodque a7iimus meminisse horret, goodly countries 
depopulated and left desolate, old inhabitants expelled, trade and traffic 
decayed, maids deflowered, Virgines nondum thalamis jugatcB, et comis nondum 
2:>ositis ephcBbi; chaste matrons cry out with Andromache, '^ Concubitum max 
cogar pati ejus, qui interemit Ilectorem, they shall be compelled perad venture 
to lie with them that erst killed their husbands : to see rich, poor, sick, sound, 
lords, servants, eodem omyies incommodo macti, consumed all or maimed, &c. 
Et quicquid gaudens scelere animus audet, et 'perversa mens, saith Cyprian, and 
whatsoever torment, misery, mischief, hell itself, the devil, ^fury and rage 
can invent to their own ruin and destruction; so abominable a thing is ''war, 
as Gerbelius concludes, adeofceda et abominanda res est bellum, ex quo hominum 
cmdesj vastationes, &c., the scourge of God, cause, effect, fruit and punishment 
of sin, and not tonsura humani generis, as Tertullian calls it, but ruina. Had 
Democritus been present at the late civil wars in France, those abominable 
wars bellaque matribus detestata, " ^ where, in less than ten years, ten thou- 
sand men were consumed, saith CoUignius, 20 thousand churches overthrown; 
nay, the whole kingdom subverted (as ^ Richard Dinoth adds). So many 
myriads of the commons were butchered up, with sword, famine, war, tanto 
odio utrinque ut barbari ad abhorrendam lanienam obstupescerent, with such 
feral hatred, the world was amazed at it : or at our late Ph'arsalian fields in 
the time of Henry the Sixth, betwixt the houses of Lancaster and York, a hun- 
dred thousand men slain, tone writes; ^another, ten thousand families were 
rooted out, " That no man can but marvel, saith Comineus, at that barbarous 
immanity, feral madness, committed betwixt men of the same nation, lan- 
guage, and religion." ^ Quis furor, cives? "Why do the (rentiles so furi- 
ously rage," saith the Prophet David, Psal. ii. 1. But we may ask, why do 
the Christians so furiously rage? "^Arma volunt, quare poscunt, rapiunt- 
que juventus?'' Unfit for Gentiles, much less for us so to tyrannize, as the 
Spaniard in the West Indies, that killed up in 42 years (if we may believe 
^ Bartholomseus k Casa, their own bishop) 12 millions of men, with stupend and 
exquisite torments ; neither should I lie (said he) if I said 50 millions. I omit 
those Prench massacres, Sicilian evensongs, 'the Duke of Alva's tyrannies, 
our gunpowder machinations, and that fourth fury, as '^one calls it, the Spanish 

inquisition, which quite obscures those ten persecutions, ^ scevit toto Mars 

impius orbe. Is not this ""^mundus furiosus, a mad world, as he terms it, 
insanum bellum? are not these mad men, as §Scaliger concludes, qui in 
prcelio acerbd morte, insanice suce memoriam pro perpetuo teste relinquunt 
posteritati; which leave so frequent battles, as perpetual memorials of their 
madness to all succeeding ages? Would this, think you, have enforced our 
Democritus to laughter, or rather made him turn his tune, alter his tone, and 
weep with ° Heraclitus, or rather howl, °roar, and tear his hair in commisera- 
tion, stand amazed ; or as the poets feign, that Niobe was for grief quite 
stupified, and turned to a stone? I have not yet said the worst, that which 
is more absurd and ^mad, in their tumults, seditions, civil and unjust wars, 
^ quod stulte suscipitur, impie geritur, miser e finitur. Such v/ars I mean ; for 



* Libanii declam, ^ Ira enim et furor Bellonse consultores, &c., dementes sacerdotes sunt. « Bellum 
qnasi bellua et ad omnia scelera furor immissus. dGallorum decies centum millia ceciderunt., Ecclesiarum 
20 millia fundamentis excisa. « Belli eivilis Gal. 1. 1 hoc ferali bello et ca^dibus omnia vepleverunt, et 

regnum amplissimum a fundamentis pene everterunt, plebis tot myriades gladio, bello, fame miserabiliter 
perierunt. t Pont. Hut erus. f Comineus. Ut nullus non execretur et admiretur ci-udelitatem, et bar- 
baraminsaniam, quse inter homines eodem sub coelo natos, ejusdem linguae, sanguinis, religionis, exercebatur. 
eLucan. J Virg. t Bishop of Cuseo, an eye-witness. ' Eead Meteran of his stupend cruelties. 

^ Heusius Austriaco. i Virg. Georg. " Impious war rages throughout the whole world." "> Jansenius 
Gallobelgicus 1596. Mundus furiosus, inscriptio iibri. § Exercitat. 250. serm. 4. ° Fleat Ileraclitus an 
rideat Democritus. oCuraj leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent. p Anna amens capio, nee sat rationis iu 
. armia. u Erasmus. 



30 Democritus to the Reader. 

all are not to be condemned, as those fantastical anabaptists vainly conceive. 
Our Christian tactics are all out as necessary as the Roman acies, or Grecian 
phalanx; to be a soldier is a most noble and honourable profession (as the 
world is), not to be spared, they are our best walls and bulwarks, and I do 
therefore acknowledge that of '^ TuUy to be most true, " All our civil affairs, 
all our studies, all our pleading, industry, and commendation lies under the 
protection of warlike virtues, and whensoever there is any suspicion of tumult, 
all our arts cease;" wars are most behoveful, et hellatores agricoUs civitati sunt 
utiliores, as tTyrius defends: and valour is much to be commended in a wise 
man; but they mistake most part, auferre,trucidare, rapere,falsis nominihus 
virtutem vocant, &c, ('Twas Galgacus observation in Tacitus) they term theft, 
murder, and rapine, virtue, by a wrong name, rapes, slaughters, massacres, 
&c. jocus et ludus, are pretty pastimes, as Ludovicus Vives notes. "*They 
commonly call the most hair-brain blood-suckers, strongest thieves, the most 
desperate villains, treacherous rogues, inhuman murderers, rash, cruel and 
dissolute caitiffs, courageous and generous spirits, heroical and worthy cap- 
tains, ^ brave men at arms, valiant and renowned soldiers, possessed with a 
brute persuasion of false honour," as Pontus Huter in his Burgundian history 
complains. By means of which it comes to pass that daily so many volunta- 
ries offer themselves, leaving their sweet wives, children, friends, for sixpence 
(if they can get it) a day, prostitute their lives and limbs, desire to enter upon 
breaches, lie sentinel, perdue, give the first onset, stand in the fore front of the 
battle, marching bravely on, with a cheerful noise of drums and trumpets, such 
vigour and alacrity, so many banners streaming in the air, glittering armours, 
motions of plumes, woods of pikes, and swords, variety of colours, cost and 
magnificence, as if they went in triumph, now victors to the Capitol, and with 
such pomp, as when Darius' army marched to meet Alexander at Issus. Yoid 
of all fear they run into imminent dangers, cannon's mouth, &c., ut vulnerihus 
suisferrum hostium 7i(s6e^e;2^, saith^'Barletius, to get a name of valour, honour 
and applause, which lasts not neither, for it is but a mere flash this fame, and 
like a rose, intra diem unuin extinguitur, 'tis gone in an instant. Of 15,000 
proletaries slain in a battle, scarce fifteen are recorded in history, or one alone, 
the General perhaps, and after a while his and their names are likewise blot- 
ted out, the whole battle itself is forgotten. Those Grecian orators, summa vi 
ingenii et eloquenticB, set out the renowned overthrows at Thereinopylce, Sola- 
inis, Maratho7i, Micale, Mantinea, CheroncBa, Platcea. The Romans record 
their battle at Cannas, and Pharsalian fields, but they do but record, and we 
scarce hear of them. And yet this supposed honour, popular applause, desire 
of immortality by this means, pride and vain-glory spur them on many times 
rashly and unadvisedly, to make away themselves and multitudes of others. 
Alexander was sorry, because there were no more worlds for him to conquer, 
he is admired by some for it, animosa vox videtur, et regia, 'twas spoken like a 
Prince; but as wise "^ Seneca censures him, 'twas vox iniquissima et stuUissima, 
'twas spoken like a Bedlam fool; and that sentence which the same ^Seneca 
appropriates to his father Philip and him, I apply to them all, JVon minores 
faere pestes mortalium quam inundatio, quam conflagratio, quibus, &c. they did 
as much mischief to mortal men as fire and water, those merciless element:? 
when they rage. ^ Which is yet more to be lamented, they persuade them thitJ 

* Pro Murena. Omnes urbanse res, omnia stndia, omnis forensis laus et industria latet in tutela et praesidio 
bellicaB virtutis, et simul atque increpuit suspicio tumiiltus artes illico nostra conticescunt. f Ser. 13. 

a Crudelissimos ssevissimosque latrones, fortissimos liaberi propugnatores, fidisslmos duces habent, bruta 
persuasions donati. ''Eobanus Hessus. Quibus omnis in armis vita placet, non ulla juvat nisi morte, 

nee ullam esse putant vitam, quaa non assueverit armis. «Lib. 10. vit. Scanperbeg. ^ Nulli beatiores 
habiti, quam qui in proeliis cecidissent. Brisonius de rep. Persarum. 1. 3. fol. 3. 44. Idem Lactantius de 
Romanis et Grsecis. Idem Ammianus, lib. 23. de Parthis. Judicatur is solus beatus apud eos, qui in proelio 
fuderit animam. De Benef. lib. 2. c. 1. « Nat. quajst. lib. 3. ffioterus Amphitridion. Busbequius Turc. 

hist. Per oasdes et sanguinem parare hominibus ascensum in coelum putant, Lactan. de falsa relig. 1 1. cap. 8. 



Democritus to the Reader. 31 

liellish course of life is holy, they promise heaven to such as venture their 
lives hello sacro, and that by these bloody wars, as Persians, Greeks, and Romans 
of old, as modern Turks do now their commons, to encourage them to fight, ut 
cadant infdiciter. " If they die in the field, they go directly to heaven, and 
shall be canonized for saints." (0 diabolical invention !) put in the Chroni- 
cles, in perpetuam rei menioriam, to their eternal memory : when as in truth, as 
^some hold, it were much better (since wars are the scourge of God for sin, 
by which he punisheth mortal men s peevishness and folly) such brutish stories 
were suppressed, because ad morum instituiionem nihil habent, they conduce not 
at all to manners, or good life. But they will have it thus nevertheless, and 
so they put note of "^divinity upon the most cruel and pernicious plague of 
human kind," adore such men with grand titles, degrees, statues, images, 
^honour, applaud, and highly roA^ard them for their good service, no greater 
glory than to die in the field. So Africanus is extolled by Ennius : Mars, and 
^Hercules, and I know not how many besides of old, were deified; went this 
way to heaven, that were indeed bloody butchers, wicked destroyers, and 
troublers of the world, prodigious monsters, hell-hounds, feral plagues, devour^ 
ers, common executioners of human kind, as Lactantius truly proves, and 
Cyprian to Donat, such as were desperate in wars, and precipitately made away 
themselves, (like those Celtes in Damascen, with ridiculous valour, ut dedecoro- 
sum putarent muro ruenti se subducere, a disgrace to run away for a rotten 
wall, now ready to fall on their heads,) such as will not rush on a sword's point, 
or seek to shun a cannon's shot, are base cowards, and no valiant men. By 
which means, Madet orhis mutuo sanguine, the earth wallows in her own blood, 
^ Scevit amorferri et scelei'ati insania belli ; and for that, which if it be done in 
private, a man shall be rigorously executed, "^and which is no less than mur- 
der itself; if the same fact be done in public in wars, it is called manhood, and 

the party is honoured for it." -^'^ Prosperum etfoelix scelus, virtus vacatur. 

We measure all as Turks do, by the event, and most part, as Cyprian notes, 
in all ages, countries, places, scevitice magnitudo impunitatem sceleris acquirit, 
the foulness of the fact vindicates the offender. ^ One is crowned for that 
for which another is tormented: Ille crucem sceleris pretiumtulit, hie diadema; 
made a knight, a lord, an earl, a great duke, (as ® A.grippa notes) for which 
another should have hiuig in gibbets, as a terror to the rest, 

• " f et tamen alter, 



Si fecisset idem, caderet sub judice morum." 

A poor sheep-stealer is hanged for stealing of victuals, compelled peradven- 
ture by necessity of that intolerable cold, hunger, and thirst, to save himself 
from starving : but a ^ great man in office may securely rob whole provinces, 
undo thousands, pill and poll, oppress ad libitum, flea, grind, tyrannise, enrich 
himself by spoils of the commons, be uncontrollable in his actions, and after 
all, be recompensed with turgent titles, honoured for his good service, and 
no man dare find fault, or ^ mutter at it. 

How would our Democritus have been affected to see a wicked caitiff, or 
" ' fool, a very idiot, a funge, a golden ass, a monster of men, to have many 
good men, wise men, learned men to attend upon him with all submission, as 



e Quoniam bella acerbissima Dei -flagella sunt quibus hominum pertinaciam punit, ea perpetua oblivione 
sepelienda potius quam memoriss mandauda plerique judicant. Rich. Dinoth. prsf. hist. Gall. ^ Cru- 

entam humani generis pestem et pernieiem, divinitatis nota insigniunt. * Et quod dolendum, applausum 
habent et occui'sum viri tales. ^Herculi eadem porta ad coelum patuit qui magnam generis humani 

parteni perdidit. "Virg. ^Eneid. 7. bHomicidium quum coinmittunt singuli, crimen est, quura 

publice geritur, virtus vocatur. Cyprianus. <= Seneca. Successful vice is called virtue. <* Juven. 

c De vanit. sclent, de priucip. nobilitatis. <■ Juven. Sat. 4. ePausa rapit, quod Natta reliquit. Tu 

pessimus omnium latro es, as Demetrius the Pirate told Alexander in Curtius. ^ Non ausi mutire, &c. 

.iEsop. 'Improbum et stultum, si divitem multos bonos viros in servitutem habentem, ob id duntaxat 

quod ei contingat aureorum numismatum cumulus, ut appendices, et additamenta numismatum. Morus, 
Utopia. 



32 Dsmo^ritus to the Reader. 

an appendix to liis riclies, for tliat respect alone, because lie hath more wealth 'y^ 
and money, ^ and to honour him with divine titles, and bombast epithets," to 
smother him with fumes and eulogies, whom they know to be a dizzard, a fool, 
a covetous wretch, a beast, &c., "because he is rich'^' To see sub exuviis 
leonis onagrum, a filthy loathsome carcase, a Gorgon's head puffed up by para- 
sites, assume this unto himself, glorious titles, in worth an infant, a Cuman 
ass, a painted sepulchre, an Egyptian temple ? To see a withered face, a 
diseased, deformed, cankered complexion, a rotten carcass, a viperous mind, 
and Epicurean soul set out with orient pearls, jewels, diadems, perfumes, 
curious elaborate works, as proud of his clothes as a child of his new coats; 
and a goodly person, of an angel-like divine countenance, a saint, an humble 
mind, a meek spirit clothed in rags, beg, and now ready to be starved ? To 
see a silly contemptible sloven in apparel, ragged in his coat, polite in speech, 
of a divine spirit, wise? another neat in clothes, spruce, full of courtesy, 
empty of grace, wit, talk nonsense ? 

To see so many lawyers, advocates, so many tribunals, so little justice ; so 
many magistrates, so little care of common good ; so many laws, yet never 
more disorders; Tribunal litium segetem, the Tribunal a labyrinth, so many 
thousand suits in one court sometimes, so violently followed? To see injus- 
tissimum scBpe juri prcesidentem, impimn religioni, imperitissimum eruditioni, 
otiosissimum labori, monstrosum humanitati ? to see a lamb ^ executed, a wolf 
pronounce sentence, latro arraigned, and fur sit on the bench, the judge 
severely punish others, and do worse hiva^Q]^,^ eundeonfartwnfacereetpunire, 
"^rajnnajn plectere, quum sit ipse raptor? Laws altered, misconstrued, inter- 
preted pro and con, as the ** Judge is made by friends, bribed, or otherwise 
affected as a nose of wax, good to-day, none to-morrow; or firm in his opinion, - 
cast in his? Sentence prolonged, changed, ad arbitrium judicis, still the same 
case, " P one thrust out of his inheritance, another falsely put in by favour, 
false forged deeds or wills." InciscB leges negliguntur, laws are made and not 
kept; or if put in execution, ^ they be some silly ones that are punished. As 
put case it be fornication, the father will disinherit or abdicate his child, quite 
cashier him (out, villain, begone, come no more in my sight); a poor man 
is raiserably tormented with loss of his estate perhaps, goods, fortunes, good 
name, for ever disgraced, forsaken, and must do penance to the utmost ; a 
mortal sin, and yet make the worst of it, nunquid aliud fecit, saith Tranio in 
the ""poet, nisi quodfaxiunt summis nati generibus ? he hath done no more than 
what gentlemen usually do. ^ Neque novnm, neque mirum, neque secus quam 
alii Solent. For in a great person, right worshipful Sir, a right honourable 
Grandy, 'tis not a venial sin, no, not a jjeccadillo, 'tis no offence at all, a com- 
mon and ordinary thing, no man takes notice of it; he justifies it in public, 
and perad venture brags of it, 

"t Nam quod turpe bonis, Titio, Seioque, decebat 

Crispinum" 

For-what would be base in good men, Titius, and Seiixs, became Crispinus. 

""Many poor men, younger brothers, &c., by reason of bad policy and idle 
education (for they are likely brought up in no calling), are compelled to beg 
or steal, and then hanged for theft; than which, what can be more ignominious, 
nan minus enim turpe principi multa supplicia, quam medico midta funera, 'tis 



kEorumq; detestantur Utopienses insaniam, qui divinos honores iis impertiunt, quos sordidos et avaros 
agnoscunt; non alio respectu honorantes quam quod dites sint. Idem. lib. 2. ' Cyp. 2. ad 

Donat. ep. Ut reus innocens pereat, sit nocens. Judex damnat foras, quod intus operatur. ""Sidonius 

Apo. " Salvianus 1. 3. de providen. ° Ergo judicium nihil est nisi publica merces. Petronius. Quid 
faciant leges ubi sola pecunia regnat ? Idem, p Hie arcentur hsereditatibus liberi, hie donatur bonis alienis, 
falsum consulit, alter testam en turn corrumpit, &c. Idem. qVexat censura columbas. ""Plaut. mostel. 
*Idem. ' Juven. Sat. 4. "Quod tot sint fnres et mendici, magistratuum culpa fit, qui malos imitantur 
praBceptores, qui discipulos libentius verberant quam docent. Morus, Utop. lib. 1. 



Democritus to the Reader. 33 

the governor's fault. Lihentius verberant qubnn docent, as schoolmasters do 
rather correct their pupils, than teach them when they do amiss. "^They 
had more need provide there should be no more thieves and beggars, as they 
ought with good policy, and take away the occasions, than let them run on, as 
they do to their own destruction : root out lil^ewise those causes of wrangling, a 
multitude of lawj^ers, and compose controversies, lites lusti'oles et sectdares, by 
some more compendious means." Whereas now for every toy and trifle they go 
to law, ^mugit litihus insanum forum, et scevit invicein discordantium rabies^ 
they are ready to pull out one another's throats ; and for commodity " ^ to 
squeeze blood," saith Hierom, "out of their brother's heart," defame, lie, 
disgrace, backbite, rail, bear false witness, swear, forswear, fight and wrangle, 
sjDend their goods, lives, fortunes, friends, undo one another, to enrich an 
harpy advocate, that preys upon them both, and cries Eia Socrates, Eia 
Xantippe; or some corrupt Judge, that like the ^Kite in ^sop, while the 
mouse and frog fought, carried both away. Generally they prey one upon 
another as so many ravenous birds, brute beasts, devouring fishes, no medium, 
^omnes Jiic aut captantur aut captant; aut cadavera quce lacerantur, aut corvi 
qui lacerant, either deceive or be deceived ; tear others or be torn in pieces 
themselves ; like so many buckets in a well, as one riseth another falleth, one's 
empty, another's full; his ruin is a ladder to the third ; such are our ordinary 
proceedings. What's the market "? A place, according to ''Anacharsis, wherein 
they cozen one another, a trap; nay, what's the world itself? "^A vast chaos, 
a confusion of manners, as fickle as the air, domiciliwiii insanorum, a turbulent 
troop full of impurities, a mart of walking spirits, goblins, the theatre of hypo- 
crisy, a shop of knavery, flattery, a nursery of villany, the scene of babbling, 
the school of giddiness, the academy of vice ; a warfare, uhi velis nolispugnan- 
dum, aut vincas aut succumbas, in which kill or be killed ; wherein every man 
is for himself, his private ends, and stands upon his own guard, l^o charity, 
®love, friendship, fear of God, alliance, affinity, consanguinity, Christianity, can 
contain them, but if they be any ways ofiended, or that string of commodity be 
touched, they fall foul. Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for 
toys and small offences, and they that erst were willing to do all mutual offices 
of love and kindness, now revile and persecute one another to death, with more 
than Yatinian hatred, and will not be reconciled. So long as they are behoveful, 
they love, or may bestead each other, but when there is no more good to be 
expected, as they do by an old dog, hang him up or cashier him : which ^Cato 
counts a great indecorum, to use men like old shoes or broken glasses, which 
are flung to the dunghill ; he could not find in his heart to sell an old ox, much 
less to turn away an old servant : but they instead of recompense, revile him, 
and when they have made him an instrument of their villany, as ^Bajazet the 
second Emperor of the Turks did by Acomethes Bassa, make him away, or 
instead of ^reward, hate him to death, as Silius was served by Tiberius. In a 
word every man for his o^vn ends. Our summum bonum is commodity, and 
the goddess we adore Dea inoneta, Queen money, to whom we daily ofi'er 
sacrifice, which steers our hearts, hands, 'affections, all ; that most powerful 
goddess, by whom we are reared, depressed, elevated, '^esteemed the sole 
commandress of our actions, for which we pray, run, ride, go, come, labour, 

5^ Dccemuntur furi gravia et horrenda supplicia, quum potius providendum nmlto foret ne fares sint, na 
cuiquam tarn dira furandi aut pereimdi sit necessitas. Idem. JBotenis de angmeut. urb. lib. 3. cap. 3. 
» E fraterno corde sanguinem eliciunt. » Milvus rapit ac deglubit. ^ Petronius de Crotone civit. 

« Quid forum? locus quo alius alium circumvenit. ^Viistum chaos, larvarum emporium, theatrum 

hypocrisies, &c. « Nemo coelum, nemo jusjurandum, nemo Jovem pluris facit, sed omnes apertis oculis 

bona sua computant. Petron. ^Plutarch, vit. ejus. Indecorum animatis ut calceis uti autvitris, quJE ubi 
fracta abjicimus, nam ut de meipso dicam, nee bovem senem vendideram, nedum hominem natu grandem 
laboris socium. s Jovius. Cum innumera illius beneficia rependere non posset aliter, interfici jussit. 

^ Beneficia eo usque lasta sunt dum videntur solvi posse, ubi multum antevenei'e pro gratia odium redditui'. 
Tac. 'Paucis charior est fides qiiam pecunia. Salust. ■ '' Prima fere vota et cunctis, &c. 

D 



34 Democritus to the Reader. 

and contend as fishes do for a crumb tliat falleth into tlie water. It's not worth, 
virtue, (that's honum theatrale,) wisdom, valour, learning, honesty, religion, or 
any sufficiency for which we are respected, but ^ money, greatness, office, 
honour, authority; honesty is accounted folly ; knavery, policy ; ™ men admired 
out of opinion, not as they are, but as they seem to be : such shifting, lying, 
cogging, plotting, counterplotting, temporizing, flattering, cozening, dissem- 
bling, " "that of necessity one must highly offend God if he be conformable to 
the world," Cretizare cum Crete, "or else live in contempt, disgrace and 
misery." One takes upon him temperance, holiness, another austerity, a third 
an affected kind of simplicity, when as indeed he, and he, and he, and the rest 
are '' "hypocrites, ambidexters," out-sides, so many turning pictures, a lion on 
the one side, a lamb on the other.P How v/ould Democritus have been affected 
to see these things ! 

To see a man turn himself into all shapes like a camelion, or as Proteus, 
omnia transformans sese in mii'acula rerum, to act twenty parts and persons at 
once, for his advantage, to temporize and vary like Mercury the Planet, good 
with good ; bad with bad ; having a several face, garb, and character for every 
one he meets; of all religions, humours, inclinations; to fawn like a spaniel, 
mentitis et mimicis obsequiis, rage like a lion, bark like a cur, fight like a dragon, 
sting like a serpent, as meek as a lamb, and yet again grin like a tiger, weep 
like a crocodile, insult over some, and jet others domineer over him, here 
command, there crouch, tyrannize in one place, be baffled in another, a wise 
man at home, a fool abroad to make others merry. 

To see so much difierence betwixt words and deeds, so many parasangs 
betwixt tongue and heart, men like stage-players act variety of parts, '^give 
good precepts to others, soar aloft, whilst they themselves grovel on the ground. 

To see a man protest friendship, kiss his hand, ^quem mallet truncatum 
videre, ^ smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen him whom he salutes, 
^magnify his friend unworthy with hyperbolical eulogiums; his enemy albeit 
a good man, to vilify and disgrace him, yea all his actions, with the utmost 
that livor and malice can invent. 

To see a *servant able to buy out his master, him that carries the mace more 
worth than the magistrate, which Plato, lib, 1 1, de leg., absolutely forbids, 
Epictetus abhors. A horse that tills the "land fed with chaff, aa idle jade 
have provender in abundance ; him that makes shoes go barefoot himself, him 
that sells meat almost pined; a toiling drudge starve, a drone flourish. 

To see men buy smoke for wares, castles built with fools' heads, men 
like apes follow the fashions in tires, gestures, actions : if the king laugh, 
all laugh; 

"'Eides? majore cliachinno 

Concutitur, llet si lachrymas coiispexit amici." 

'^Alexander stooped, so did his courtiers; Alphonsus turned his head, and so 
did his parasites. ^Sabina Poppea, Nero's wife, wore amber-coloured hair, 
so did all the Poman ladies in an instant, her fashion was theirs. 

To see men wholly led by affection, admired and censured out of opinion 
without judgment : an inconsiderate multitude, like so many dogs in a village, 

1 Et genus et formara regina pecunia donat. Quantum quisque sua nummorum servat in area, tantum 
liabet et fidei. "Non a peritia sed ab ornatu et vulgi vocibus liabemur excellentes. Cardan. 1.2. de 

cons. » Perjurata suo po.stponit numina lucro, Mercator. Ut necessarium sit vel Deo displicere, vel ab 

hominibus contemni, vexari, negligi. ° Qui Curios simulant et Bacchanalia vivunt. p Tragelaplio 

similes vel centauris, sursum homines, deorsum equi. qProeceptis suis coelum promittunt, ipsi interim 

pulveris terreni vilia mancipia. r^Eneas Silv. ^ An-idere homines ut sa^viant, blandiri ut fallant. 

Cyp. ad Donatum. * Love and hate are like the two ends of a perspective glass, the one multiplies, the 

other makes less. tjyjinistri locupletiores iis quibiis ministratur, servus majores opes habens quam 

patronus. " Qui terram colunt equi paleis pascuntur, qui otiantur caballi avena saginantur, discalceatus 
discuvrit qui calces aliis facit. "^ Juven. Do you laugh ? he is shaken by still greater laughter : he weeps 
also when he has beheld the tears of his friend. ^ Bodin, lib. 4. de repub, cap. 6. ^ Plinius 1. 37. cap. 3. 
caplllos habuit succiueos, exiude factum ut omnes puellas llomaiiEe colorem ilium affectarent. 



Democritus to the Eeader. 35 

if one bark all bark without a cause : as fortune's fan turns, if a man be in 
favour, or commanded by some great one, all the world applauds him; ^if in 
disgrace, in an instant all hate him, and as a.t the sun when he is eclipsed, 
that erst took no notice, now gaze and stare upon him. 

To see a man ""wear his brains in his belly, his guts in his head, an 
hundred oaks on his back, to devour a hundred oxen at a meal, nay more, 
to devour houses and towns, or as those anthropophagi, '^to eat one 
another. 

To see a man roll himself up like a snowball, from base beggary to right 
worshipful and right honourable titles, unj iistly to screw himself into honours 
and offices; another to starve his genius, damn his soul to gather wealth, 
which he shall not enjoy, which his prodigal son melts and consumes in an 
instant.'^ 

To see the xaxc^/ix/av of our times, a man bend all his forces, means, 
time, fortunes, to be a favourite's favourite's favourite, &c., a parasite's parasite's 
parasite, that may scorn the servile world as having enough already. 

To see an hirsute beggar's brat, that lately fed on scraps, crept and whined, 
crying to all, and for an old jerkin ran of errands, now ruffle in silk and satin, 
bravely mounted, jovial and polite, now scorn his old friends and familiars, 
neglect his kindred, insult over his betters, domineer over all. 

To see a scholar crouch and creep to an illiterate peasant for a meal's meat; 
a scrivener better paid for an obligation ; a falconer receive greater wages than 
a student ; a lawyer get more in a day than a philosopher in a year, better 
reward for an hour, than a scholar for a twelvemonth's study; him that can 
* paint Thais, play on a fiddle, curl hair, &c,, sooner get preferment than a 
philologer or a poet. 

To see a fond mother, like ^sop's ape, hug her child to death, a ''wittol 
wink at his wife's honesty, and too perspicuous in all other affairs; one stumble 
at a straw, and leap over a block; rob Peter, and pay Paul; scrape unjust 
sums wdth one hand, purchase great manors by corruption, fraud and cozen- 
age, and liberally to distribute to the poor with the other, give a remnant 
to pious uses, &c. Penny wise, pound foolish; blind men judge of colours ; 
wise men silent, fools talk; "^find fiiult with others, and do worse themselves; 
+ denounce that in public which he doth in secret ; and which Aurelius Victor 
gives out of Augustus, severely censure that in a third, of which he is most 
guilty himself 

To see a poor fellow, or an hired servant venture his life for his new master 
that will scarce give him his Avages at year's end; A country colone toil and 
moil, till and drudge for a prodigal idle drone, that devours all the gain, or 
lasciviously consumes with phantastical expences ; A noble man in a bravado to 
encounter death, and for a small flash of honor to cast away himself; A world- 
ling tremble at an executor, and yet not fear hell-fire; To wish and hope for 
immortality, desire to be happy, and yet by all means avoid death, a necessary 
passage to bring him to it. 

To see a fool-hardy fellow like those old Danes, qui decoUari malunt quam 
verherari, die rather than be punished, in a sottish humour embrace death with 
alacrity, yet ® scorn to lament his own sins and miseries, or his dearest friends' 
departures. 

y edit dainiiatos. Juv. ■= Agrippa ep. 28. 1. 7. Quoruni cerebrum est in ventre, ingenitim in patinis. 

« Psal. They eat up my people as bread. ^ Absumit hceres ciecuba dignior servata centum clavibus, et 

mero distingaet pavimentis superbo, pontificum potiore ccenis. Hor. * Qui Thaidem pingere, inflare 

tibiam, crispare crines. « Doctus spectare lacunar. <i Tullius. Est enim proprium stultitijs aliorum 

cernere vitia, oblivisci suorura. Idem Aristippus Charidemo apud Lucianura. Omnino stultitise cujusdam esse 
puto, &c. t Execrari publics quod occulte agat. Salvianus lib. de pro. acres ulciscendis vitiis quibus ipsi 
vehementer indulgent. <= Adamus eccl. hist. cap. 212. Siquis damnatus fuerit, Isetus esse gloria est; nam 
lachrymas et planctum casteraque compunctionum genera qu33 nos salubria ceusemus, ita abominantur Dani, 
ut nee pro peccatis nee pro defauctis amicis ulli flere liceat. 



36 Democritus to the Reader. 

To see wise men degraded^ fools preferred, one govern towns and cities, and ye b 
a silly woman overrules him at home; * Command a province, and yet his own 
servants or children prescribe laws to him, as Themistocles' son did in Greece; 
" ^ What I will (said he) my mother will, and what my mother will, my father 
doth." To see horses ride in a coach, men draw it ; dogs devour their 
masters; towers build masons; children rule; old men go to school; women 
wear the breeches; ^sheep demolish towns, devour men, &c. And in a word, 
the world turned upside downward. viveret Democritus / 

^ To insist in every particular were one of Hercules' labours, there's so 
many ridiculous instances, as motes in the sun. Quantum est in rebus inane ! 
(How much vanity there is in thiugs !) And who can speak of all? Crimine 
ab uno disce oiiines, take this for a taste. 

But these are obvious to sense, trivial and well known, easy to be discerned. 
How would Democritus have been moved, had he seen t the secrets of their 
hearts? If every man had a window in his breast, which Momus would have 
had in Vulcan s man, or that which Tully so mnch wished it were written in 
every man's forehead. Quid quisque de reintblica sentiret, what he thought ; or 
that it could be effected in an instant, which Mercury did by Charon in Lucian, 
by touching of his eyes, to make him discern semel et simul rumores et susurros. 

**Spes hominum cnscas, morbos, votiimque labores, I " Blind hopes and wishes, their thoughts and affairs, 
Et passim toto volitantes ojthere curas." | Whispers and rumours, and those flying cares." 

That he could cubiculorum obductas foras recludere et seer eta cordium ijenetrarc, 
which * Cyprian desired, open doors and locks, shoot bolts, as Lucian's Galliis 
did with a feather of his tail: or Gyges' invisible ring, or some rare perspec- 
tive glass, or Otacousticon, which would so multiply species, that a man might 
hear and see all at once (as ''Martianus Capella's Jupiter did in a spear which 
he held in his hand, which did present unto him all that was daily done upon 
the face of the earth), observe cuckolds' horns, forgeries of alchemists, the 
philosopher's stone, new projectors, &c., and all those works of darkness, 
foolish vows, hopes, fears and wishes, what a deal of laughter would it have 
afforded? He should have seen windmills in one man's head, an hornet's nest 
in another. Or had he been present with Icaromenippus in Lucian at Jupiter's 
whispering place, 'and heard one pray for rain, another for fair weather; one 
for his wife's, another for his father's death, &c. ; " to ask that at God's hand 
which they are abashed any man should hear:" How would he have been 
confounded? Would he, think you, or any man else, say that these men were 
well in their wits? Hcec sani esse hominis quis sanus juret Orestes? Can all 
the hellebore in the Anticyree cure these men? ISTo sure, ":|:an acre of helle- 
bore will not do it." 

That which is more to be lamented, they are mad like Seneca's blind woman, 
and will not acknowledge, or ™seek for any cure of it, for ^jiawcii vident morbum 
sicum, omnes amant. If our leg or arm offend us, we covet by all means pos- 
sible to redress it ; °and if we labour of a bodily disease, we send for a physician ; 
but for the diseases of the mind we take no notice of them :° Lust harrows us 
on the one side; envy, anger, ambition on the other. We are torn in pieces by 



* Orbi dat leges foras, vix famulum regit sine strepitu domi. fQuicquid ego volo hoc viilt mater mea, 
et quod mater vult, facit pater, e Oves, olim mite pecus, nunc tam indomitum et edax ut homines devorent, 
&c. Morus Utop. lib. 1. »' Diversos variis tribuit natura furores. fDemocrit. ep. prajd. Hos dejerantes 
et potantes deprehendet, hos vomentes, illos litigantes, insidias molientes, suffragantes, venena miscentes, m 
amicorum accusationeTn subscribentes, hos gloria, illos ambitione, cupiditate, niente captos, &c. 'Ad 

Donat. ep. 2. 1. 1. si posses in specula sublimi constitutus, &c. ^ Lib. 1. de nup. Philol. m qua quid 
singuli nationum populi quotidianis motibus agitavent, relucebat. ' Jupiter contingat mihi aurum na;re- 
ditas, &c. Mullos da, Jupiter, annos, Dementia quanta est hominum, turpissima vota diis insusurrant, si quis 
adnioverit aurem, conticescunt ; et qu id scire homines nolunt, Deo narrant. Senec. ep. 10. 1. 1. % Plautus 
Menech. non potest hajc res Ilellebori jugere obtinerier. '» Eoque gravior morbus quo ignotior periclitanti. 
•iQuoB laedunt ocalos, festinas demere; si quid est animum, differs curandi tempus in annum. Hor. ° Si 

caput, cms dolet, brachium, &c., medicum accersimus, recte et honeste, si par etiam industria in animi 
morbis poneretur. Joh. Pelenus Jesuita. lib. 2. dc hum. affec. morborumque cura. 



Democritus to the Header. 37 

our passions, as so many wild horses^ one in disposition, another in habit; one 
is melancholy, another mad ; ^and which of us all seeks for help, doth acknow- 
ledge his error, or knows he is sick ? As that stupid fellow put out the candle 
because the biting fleas should not find him; he shrouds himself in an unknown 
habit, borrowed titles, because nobody should discern him. Every man thinks 
with liimself, Egomet videor mihi sanus, I am well, I am wise, and laughs at 
others. And 'tis a general fault amongst them all, that '^ which our forefathers 
have approved, diet, apparel, opinions, humours, customs, manners, we deride 
and reject in our time as absurd. Old men account juniors all fools, when they 

are mere dizzards; and as to sailors, terrceque urbesque recedunt — — they 

move, the land stands still, the world hath much more wit, they dote them- 
selves. Turks deride us, we them; Italians, Frenchmen, accounting them light 
headed fellows ; the French scofi* again at Italians, and at their several customs; 
Greeks have condemned all the world but themselves of barbarism, the world 
as much vilifies them now ; we account Germans heavy, dull fellows, explode 
many of their fashions ; they as contemptibly think of us ; Spaniards laugh at 
all, and all again at them. So are we fools and ridiculous, absurd in our 
actions, carriages, diet, apparel, customs, and consultations ; we "^ scoff and 
point one at another, when as in conclusion all are fools, " * and they the 
veriest asses that hide their ears most." A private man if he be resolved with 
himself, or set on an opinion, accounts all idiots and asses that are not afiected 

as he is, * nil rectum, nisi quod placuit sibi, diccit, that are not so minded^ 

* {quodque volunt homines se bene mile putant,) all fools that think not as he 
doth : he will not say with Atticus, Suam qidsque sponsam, mihi ineani, let 
every man enjoy his own spouse; but his alone is fair, suus am,or, <Soc., and 
scorns all in respect of himself, "will imitate none, hear none ""but himself, as 
Pliny said, a law and example to himself And that which Hippocrates, in his 
epistle to Dionysius, reprehended of old, is verified in our times, Quisque in 
alio superjliium esse censet, ipse quod non hahet nee curat, that which he hath 
not himself, or doth not esteem, he accounts superfluity, an idle quality, a mere 
foppery in another : like Esop's fox, when he had lost his tail, would have all 
his fellow foxes cut off theirs. The Chinese say, that we Europeans have one 
eye, they themselves two, all the world else is blind: (though tScaliger 
accounts them brutes too, merum pecus.) so thou and thy sectaries are only 
wise, others indifferent, the rest beside themselves, mere idiots and asses. 
Thus not acknowledging our own errors and imperfections, we securely deride 
others, as if we alone were free, and spectators of the rest, accounting it an 
excellent thing, as indeed it is, Aliend optimum frui insanid, to make our- 
selves merry with other men's obliquities, when as he himself is more faulty 
than the rest, mutato nomine, de tefabula narratur, he may take himself by the 
nose for a fool; and which one calls maximum stidtitice specimen, to be 
ridiculous to others, and not to perceive or take notice of it, as JVIarsyas was 
when he contended with Apollo, non intelligens se deridiculo haberi, saith 
:|; Apuleius; 'tis his own cause, he is a convicted madman, as '^^ Austin well 
infers "in the eyes of wise men and angels he seems like one, that to our 
thinking walks with his heels upwards." So thou laughest at me, and I at thee, 
both at a third ; and he returns that of the poet upon us again, "^ Hei mih% 
insanire me aiunt, quum ipsi ultrb insaniant. We accuse others of madness, 



p Et qtiotusqxiisque tamen est qui contra tot pestes medicura reqiiirat vel jegrotare se agnoscat ? ebiillit 
ira, <fec. Et nos tamen Eegros esse negamus. Incolumes medicum recusant. Prgesens setas stultitiam priscis 
exprobrat. Bud. de affec. lit). 5. i Senes pro stultis habent juvenes. Balth. Cast. rClodius accusat 

niffichos. * Omnium stultissimi qui auriculas studiose tegunt. Sat. Menip. s Hor. Epist. 2. 

* Prosper. " Statim sapiunt, statim sciunt, neminem reverentur, neminem imitantur, ipsi sibi exemplo. 

Plin. epist. lib. 8. '^'Nulli alteri sapere concedit, ne desipere videatur. Agrip. fOmnis orbis persechio 

a Persis ad Lusitaniam. J 2 Florid. '*' August. Qualis in oculis homtiium qui inversis pedibus ambulat, 
talis in oculis sapientum et angelorum qui sibi placet, aut cui passiones dominantur. ^ Plautus Meneclami; 



38 Democritus to iJie Reader. 

of folly, and are tlie veriest dizzards ourselves. For it is a great sign and 
property of a fool (whicli Eccl. x. 3, points at) oat of pride and self-conceit 
to insult, vilify, condemn, censure, and call other men fools {^No7i videinus 
m,antic(B quod a tergo est) to tax that in others of which we are most faulty; 
teach that which we follow not ourselves : For an inconstant man to write of 
constancy; a profane liver prescribe rules of sanctity and piety; a dizzard him- 
self make a treatise of wisdom ; or with Sallust to rail downright at spoilers 
of countries, and yet in * office to be a most grievous poler himself This 
argues weakness, and is an evident sign of such parties' indiscretion. ^Peccat 
liter nostrum cruce dignius ? "Who is the fool now?" Or else perad venture 
in some places we are all mad for company, and so 'tis not seen, Satietas erroris 
et dementicB, pariter absurditatem et admirationem tollit, 'Tis with us, as it was 
of old (in '' Tully's censure at least) with C. Fimbria in Home, a bold, hair- 
brain, mad fellow, and so esteemed of all, such only excepted, that were as 
mad as himself: now in such a case there is * no notice taken of it. 

"Nimirum insanus paucis videatur ; eo quod I *' When all are mad, where all are like opprest 

Maxima pars hominuni morbo jactatur eodem." | Who can discern one mad man from the rest ?" 

But put case they do perceive it, and some one be manifestly convicted of 
madness, ^ he now takes notice of his folly, be it in action, gesture, speech, a 
vain humour he hath in building, bragging, jangling, spending, gaming, 
courting, scribbling, prating, for which he is ridiculous to others, "on which he 
dotes, he doth acknowledge as much : yet with all the rhetoric thou hast, thou 
canst not so recall him, but to the contrary notwithstanding, he will persevere 
in his dotage. 'Tis amabilis insania, et tnentis gratisswius error, so pleasing, 
so delicious, that he ^ cannot leave it. He knows his error, but will not seek 
to decline it, tell him what the event will be, beggary, sorrow, sickness, dis- 
grace, sliame, loss, madness, yet ® " an angry man will prefer vengeance, a 
lascivious his whore, a thief his booty, a glutton his belly, before his welfare." 
Tell an epicure, a covetous man, an ambitious man, of his irregular course, 
wean him from it a little, pol me occidistis amici, he cries anon, you have 
imdone him, and as ^a "dog to his vomit," he returns to it again; no per- 
suasion will take place, no counsel, say what thou canst, 

" Clames licet et mare coelo 
Confundas, sui'do narras," f 

demonstrate as Ulysses did to ^Elpenor and Gryllus, and the rest of his 
companions, " those swinish men," he is irrefragable in his humour, he will be 
a hog still; bray him in a mortar, he will be the same. If he be in an heresy, 
or some perverse opinion, settled as some of our ignorant Fapists are, convince 
his understanding, show him the several follies and absurd fopperies of that 
sect, force him to say, veris vincor, make it as clear as the sun, ^ he will err 
still, peevish and obstinate as he is ; and as he said ' si in hoc erro, liherder 
erro, nee hunc errorem auferri mihi volo ; I will do as I have done, as my 
predecessors have done, ^ and as my friends now do : I will dote for company. 
Say now, are these men ^mad or no, ^Heus age responded are they ridiculous? 
cedo quemvis arhitrum, are they sance mentis, sober, wise, and discreet 1 have 
they common sense ? " uter est insa7iior horum .? I am of Democritus' 



* Governor of Asnich by Csesar's appointment, s- Kunc sanitatis patrocinium est insanientinm turba. Sen, 
ePro Roseio Amerino, et quod inter omnes constat insanissimus, nisi inter eos, qui ipsi quoque insaniunt. 
«Necesse est cum insanientibus furere, nisi solus relinqueris. Petronius. ^ Quoniam non est genus unum. 
stultitlas qua me insanire putas. <^Stultum me fateor, liceat concedere verum, Atque etiam insanum. Hor. 
<J Odi nee possum cupiens nee esse quod odi. Ovid. Errore grato libenter omnes insanimus. ^ Araator 

Bcortum vit« prjBponit, iracundus vindictam ; fur pr^edam, parasitus gulam, ambitiosus honores, avarus 
opes, &c., odimus lifec et accersimus. Cardan. 1. 2. de conso. fProv. xxvi. 11. f Although you call 
out, and confound the sea and sky, you still address a deaf man. s Plutarch. Gryllo. suilli homines sic 

Clem. Alex. vo. i- Non persuadebis, etiarasi persuaseris. JTuUy. ^^Malo cum illis insanire, 

quam cum aliis bene sentire. ' Qui inter hos enutriuntur, non magis sapere possunt, quam qui in culina 
bene olere. Patron. » Perslus. •» Hor. 2. ser. which of these is the more mad. 



Democritus to the Eeader. 39 

opinion for my part, I hold them worthy to be laughed at ; a company of 
brain-sick dizzards, as mad as ° Orestes and Athamas, that they may go "ride 
the ass," and all sail along to the Anticyrss, in the " ship of fools " for com- 
pany together. I need not much labour to prove this which I say otherwise 
than thus, make any solemn protestation, or swear, I think you will believe 
me without an oath ; say at a word, are they fools 1 I refer it to you, though 
you be likewise fools and madmen yourselves, and I as mad to ask the ques- 
tion; for what said our comical Mercury? 

"1 Justum ab injustis petere insipientia est. 

I'll stand to yom* censure yet, what think you ?" 

But forasmuch as I undertook at first, that kingdoms, provinces, families, 
were melancholy as well as private men, I will examine them in particular, 
and that which I have hitherto dilated at random, in more general terms, I 
will particularly insist in, prove with more special and evident arguments, tes- 
timonies, illustrations, and that in brief. ^Nunc accipe quare desipiant omnes 
ceque ac tu. My first argument is borrowed from Solomon, an arrow drawn 
out of his sententious quiver, Pro. iii. 7, " Be not wise in thine own eyes." 
And xxvi. 12, " Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit ? more hope is of 
a fool than of him." Isaiah pronounceth a woe against such men, chap. v. 21, 
" that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight." For hence 
we may gather, that it is a great offence, and men are much deceived that 
think too well of themselves, an especial argument to convince them of folly. 
Many men (saith ^ Seneca) " had been without question wise, had they not 
had an o])inion that they had attained to perfection of knowledge already, even 
before they had gone half way," too forward, too ripe, prcepy^operi, too quick 
and ready, * cilo prudentes, cito pii, citb mariti, citb patres, citb sacerdotes, cit'6 
omnes officii capaces et curiosi, they had too good a conceit of themselves, and 
that marred all ; of their worth, valour, skill, art, learning, judgment, eloquence, 
their good parts ; all their geese are swans, and that manifestly proves them to 
be no better than fools. In former times they had but seven wise men, now 
you can scarce find so many fools. Tiiales sent the golden Tripos, which the 
fishermen found, and the oracle commanded to be * " given to the wisest, to 
Bias, Bias to Solon," &c. If such a thing were now found, we should all fight 
for it, as the three goddesses did for the golden ap])le, we are so wise : we have 
women politicians, children metaphysicians; every silly fellow can square a 
circle, make perpetual motions, find the philosopher's stone, interpret 
Apocalypses, make new Theories, a new system of the world, new logic, new 
Philosophy, &c. Nostra utique regio, saith " Petronius, " our country is so 
full of deified spirits, divine souls, that you may sooner find a god than a man 
amongst us," we think so well of ourselves, and that is an ample testimony 
of much folly. 

My second argument is grounded upon the like place of Scripture, which 
though before mentioned in effect, yet for some reasons is to be repeated 
(and by Plato's good leave, I may do it, ^ 5k to xaxov pnQsv olSiv ^AaTj-TSj) " Pools 
(saith David) by reason of their transgressions," &c. Psal. cvii. 17. Hence 
Musculus infers all transgressors must needs be fools. So we read Bom. ii. 
"Tribulation and anguish on the soul of every man that doeth evil;" but all 
do evil. And Isaiah, Ixv. 14, "My servants shall sing for joy, and "^ye shall 
cry for sorrow of heart, and vexation of mind." 'Tis ratified by the common 
consent of all philosophers. " Dishonesty (saith Cardan) is nothing else but 



o Vesanum exagitant pueri, innuptaaque puellce. iPlautus. J-Hor. 1. 2. sat. 2. Superham 

etultitiam Plinius vocat. 7. epist. 21. quod semel dixi, fixum ratumque sit. 'Multi sapientes proculdubio 
fuissent, si se non putassent ad sapientijE summum pervenisse. * Idem- * Plutarchus Solone. 

Detur sapieutiori. " Tam prsesentibus plena est numinibus, ut facilius possis deum quam hominem 

invenire. vpulchrum bis dicere non nocet. ^ jxaletactors. 



40 Democritus to the Reader. 

folly and madness. ^ Prohus quis nobiscum vivit ? Shew me an lionest man, 
Nemo malus qui non stuUus, 'tis Fabius' aphorism to the same end. If none 
honest, none wise, then all fools. And well may they be so accounted: for 
who will account him otherwise, Qui iter adornat in occidentem, quum 'pro- 
peraret in orientem 2 that goes backward all his life, westward, when he is 
bound to the east ? or hold him a wise man (saith ^Musculus) "that prefers 
momentary pleasures to eternity, that spends his master's goods in his absence, 
forthwith to be condemned for it '? " Nequicquam sapit qui sibi non sapit, 
who will say that a sick man is wise, that eats and drinks to overthrow the 
temperature of his body? Can you account him wise or discreet that would 
willingly have his health, and yet will do nothing that should procure or con- 
tinue it ? *" Theodoret, out of Plotinus the Platonist, " holds it a ridiculous 
thing for a man to live after his own laws, to do that which is oifensive to 
God, and yet to hope that he should save him : and when he voluntarily 
neglects his own safety, and contemns the means, to think to be delivered 
by another:" who will say these men are wise? 

A third argument may be derived from the precedent, ^ all men are carried 
away with passion, discontent, lust, pleasures, &c. ; they generally hate those 
virtues they should love, and love such vices they should hate. Therefore 
more than melancholy, quite mad, brute beasts, and void of reason, so Chry- 
sostom contends; ^'or rather dead and buried alive," as *'Philo Judeus 
concludes it for a certainty, " of all such that are carried away with passions, 
or labour of any disease of the mind." " Where is fear and sorrow," there 
^ Lactantius stiffly maintains, " wisdom cannot dwell. 

' qui cupiet, metuet quoque pon-o, 



Qui metuens vivit, liber milii non erit unquam.' " * 

Seneca and the rest of the stoics are of opinion, that where is any the least 
perturbation, wisdom may not be found. "What more ridiculous," as ® Lac- 
tantius urges, " than to hear how Xerxes whipped the Hellespont," threatened 
the Mountain Athos, and the like ? To speak ad rem, who is free from passion? 
^Mortalis 7iemo est quern non attingat dolor, morbusve, as ^Tully determines out 
of an old poem, no mortal men can avoid sorrow and sickness, and sorrow is an 
inseparable companion from melancholy. ^ Chrysostom pleads farther yet, 
that they are more than mad, very beasts, stupified, and void of common 
sense: "For how (saith he) shall I know thee to be a man, when thoukickest 
like an ass, neighest like a horse after women, ravest in lust like a bull, 
ravenest like a bear, stingest like a scorpion, rakest like a wolf, as subtle as a 
fox, as impudent as a dog ? Shall I say thou art a man, that hast all the 
symptoms of a beast? How shall I know thee to be a man ? by thy shape ? 
That affrights me more, when I see a beast in likeness of a man." 

'Seneca calls that of Epicurus, magnificam vocem, an heroical speech, "A fool 
still begins to live," and accounts it a tilthy lightness in men, every day to lay 
new foundations of their life, but who doth otherwise ? One travels, another 
builds; one for this, another for that business, and old folks are as far out as 



y Who can find a faithful man ? Prov. xx. 6. ^In Psal. xlix. Qui momentanea sempiternis, qui dila- 

pidat heri ahsentis bona, mox in jus vocandus et damnandus. aPerquam ridiculum est liomines ex animi 
sententia viveve, et quae diis ingrata sunt exequi, et tamen a solis diis velle salvos fieri, quum proprise salutis 
cm-am abjecerint. Tlieod. c. 6. de provid. lib. de curat, grsec. affect. ^ Sapiens sibi qui imperiosus, &c. 

Hor. 2. ser. 7. = Conclus. lib. de vie. offer, certum est animi morbis laborantes pro mortuis censendos. 

d Lib. de sap. Ubi timor adest, sapientia adesse nequit. * He who is desirous, is also fearful, and he 

who lives in fear never can be free. « Quid insanius Xerxe Hellespontum verberante ? &c. ^ Eccl. xxi. 12. 
Where is bitterness, there is no understanding. Prov. xii. 16. An angry man is a fool. 8 3 Tusc. Injuria 
in sapientem non cadit. •> Horn. 6. in 2 Epist. ad. Cor. Hominem te agnoscere nequeo, cum tanquam 

asinus recalcitres, lascivias ut taurus, hinnias ut equus post mulieres, ut ursus ventri indulgeas, quum rapias 
ut lupus, &c., at, inquis, formam hominis habeo, Id magis terret, quum ferani humana specie videre nie putein. 
'Epist. lib. 2. 13. Stultus semper incipit vivere, foeda homiuum levitas, nova quotidie fundamenia vitae 
poiiere, novas spes, &c. 



Democritus to the Reader. 4:1 

tlie rest; dementem senectutem, Tiilly exclaims. Therefore young, old, 
middle age, all are stupid, and dote. 

* ^neas Sylvius, amongst many other, sets down three special ways to find 
a fool by. He is a fool that seeks tliat he cannot find : he is a fool that seeks 
that, which being found will do him more harm than good : he is a fool, that 
having variety of ways to bring him to his journey's end, takes that which is 
worst. If so, methinks most men are fools; examine their courses, and you 
shall soon perceive what dizzards and mad men the major part are. 

Beroaldus will have drunkards, afternoon men, and such as more than ordi- 
narily delight in drink, to be mad. Tlie first pot quencheth thirst, so Panyasis 
the poet determines in Atlienceus, secunda graiiis, horis et Dyonisio : the 
second makes merry, the third for pleasure, quartet ad insmiiam, the fourth 
makes them mad. If this position be true, what a catalogue of mad men 
shall we have? what shall they be that drink four times four] Nonne sujora 
omnem farorem, supra omnein insaniam reddunt insanissimos? 1 am of his 
opinion, they are more than mad, much worse than mad. 

The ''Abderites condemned Democritus for a mad man, because he was 
sometimes sad, and sometimes again profusely merry. Ildc Fatrid (saith 
Hippocrates) oh risumfarere et insanire d'wunt, his countrymen hold him mad 
because he laughs; ^and therefore "he desires him to advise all his friends 
at Hhodes, that they do not laugh too much, or be over sad." Had those 
Abderites been conversant with us, and but seen what "'fleering and grinning 
there is in this age, they would certainly have concluded, we had been all out 
of our wits. 

Aristotle in his ethics holdi^fodix idemque sapiens, to be wise and happy, are 
reciprocal terms, bonus idemque sapiens honestus. 'Tis "Tully's paradox, 
" wise men are free, but fools are slaves," liberty is a power to live according 
to his own laws, as we will ourselves: who hath this liberty? who is free? 

-0 " sapiens sibique iniperiosus, 



Quem neque pauperis, neque mors, iieque vincula terrent, 
Responsare cupidinilius, contemnere lionores 
Fortis, et in seipso totus teres atque rotunclus." 
"He is wise that can command his own will, 
Valiant and constant to himself still. 
Whom poverty nor death, nor hands can fright, 
Checks his desires, scorns honours, just and right." 

But where shall such a man be found? If no where, then e diametro, we are 
all slaves, senseless, or worse. Nemo modus foelix. But no man is happy in 

this life, none good, therefore no man wise. fBari quippe honi For one 

virtue you shall find ten vices in the same party; pauci Promethei, multi 
Epimethei. We may peradventure usurp the name, or attribute it to others 
for favour, as Carolus Sapiens, Philippus Bonus, Lodovicus Pius, &c., and 
describe the properties of a wise man, as Tully doth an orator, Xenophon 
Cyrus, Castillo a courtier, Calen temperament, an aristocracy is described by 
politicians. But where shall such a man be found? 

" Vir bonus et sapiens, qualem vix repperit unum | " A wise, a good man in a million, 
Millibus e multis hominum consultus Apollo." | Apollo consulted could scarce find one." 

A man is a miracle of himself, but Trismegistus adds. Maximum miraculum 
homo sapiens, a wise man is a wonder : multi Thirsige^'i, pauci Bacchi. 

Alexander when he was presented with that rich and costly casket of king 
Darius, and every man advised him what to put in it, he reserved it to keep 



* De ctirial. miser. Stultus, qui quserit quod nequit invenire, stultus qui qujerit quod nocet inventura, 
stultus qui cum plures habet calles, deteriorem deligit. Mihi videntur omnes deliri, amentes, &c. "^ Ep. 

I'amageto. i Amicis nostris Hhodi dicito, ne nimium rideant, aut nimiura tristes sint. ™ Per multum 
risum poteris cognoscere stultum. Offic. 3. c. 9. " Sapieutes liberi, stulti servi, libertas est potestas, &c. 
<»iior. 2. ser. 7. t Juven. " Good people are scarce." 



42 Democritus to tlie Header. 

Homer's works, as the most precious jewel of human wit, and y§t °Scaliger 
upbraids Homer's muse, Nutricem insance sapientice, a nursery of madness, 
P impudent as a court lady, that bhishes at nothing. Jacobus MyciUus, Gil- 
bertus Cognatus, Erasmus, and ahnost a,ll posterity admire Lucian's hixuriant 
wit, yet Scah'ger rejects him in his censure, and calls him the Cerberus of the 
muses. Socrates, whom all the world so much magnified, is by Lactantius 
and Theodoret condemned for a fool. Plutarch extols Seneca's wit beyond 
all the Greeks, nulli secundus, yet "^ Seneca saith of himself, " when I would 
solace myself with a fool, I reflect upon myself, and there I have him." 
Cardan, in his Sixteenth Book of Subtilties, reckons up twelve super-eminent, 
acute philosophers, for worth, subtlety, and wisdom: Archimedes, Galen, 
Vitruvius, Architas Tarentinus, Euclid, Geber, that first inventor of Algebra, 
Alkindus the Mathematician, both Arabians, with others. But his triumviri 
terrarum far beyond the rest, are Ptolomseus, Piotinus, Hippocrates. Scaliger 
exercitat. 224, scofls at this censure of his, calls some of them carpenters and 
mechanicians, he makes Galen Jimhriam Hijjpocratis, a skirt of Hippocrates: 
and the said "Cardan himself elsewhere condemns both Galen and Hippocrates 
for tediousness, obscurity, cod fusion. Paracelsus will have them both mere 
idiots, infants in physic and philosophy. Scaliger and Cardan admire Suisset 
the Calculator, qui fene tnodum excessit humani ingenii, and yet "Lod. Vives 
calls them nugas Suisseticas : and Cardan, opposite to himself in another 
place, contemns those ancients in respect of times present, ^ Majoresque 
nostras ad po'esentes collatos juste pueros ap^^e^/ari. In conclusion, the said 
''Cardan and Saint Bernard will admit none into this catalogue of wise men, 
""but only prophets and apostles; how they esteem themselves, you have heard 
before. We are worldly-wise, admire ourselves, and seek for applause : but 
hear Saint '^Bernard, quantb magis foras es sapiens, tanto magis intus stultus 
efficeris, d'c. in omnibus es prudens, circa teipsum insipiens: the more wise 
thou art to others, the more fool to thyself I may not deny but that there is 
some folly approved, a divine fury, a holy madness, even a spiritual drunken- 
ness in the saints of God themselves; sanctam insaniam Bernard calls it 
(though not as blaspheming ^ Yorstius, would infer it as a passion incident to 
God himself, but), familiar to good men, as that of Paul, 2 Cor. " he was a 
fool," &c. and E.om. ix. he wisheth himself to be anathematized for them. 
Such is that drunkenness which Ficinus speaks of, when the soul is elevated 
and ravished with a divine taste of that heavenly nectar, which poets deci- 
phered by the sacrifice of Dionysius, and in this sense with the poet, ^insanire 
luhet, as Austin exhorts us, ad ebrietatem se quisque pai'et, let's all be mad and 
''drunk. But we commonly mistake, and go beyond our commission, we reel 
to the opposite part, *we are not capable of it, ^and as he said of the Greeks, 
Vos GrcBci semper pueri, vos Britanni, Galli, Germani, Itali, 6oc. you are a 
company of fools. 

Proceed now a, loartibus ad tofum, or from the whole to parts, and you shall 
find no other issue, the parts shall be sufiiciently dilated in this following 
Preface. The whole must needs follow by a sorites or induction. Every 
multitude is mad, ""hellua multorum capiium, (a many-headed beast,) precipi- 
tate and rash without judgment, stultum animal, a roaring rout. **E-oger 
Bacon proves it out of Aristotle, Vulgus dividi in oppositum contra sapientes, 

o Rypocrit. p Ut mulier aulica nnllius pirlcns. <J Epist. 33. QuancTo fatuo delectari volo, non est 

longe qutEi'endus, me video. "^Prirao contradicentium. « Lib. de caiisis corrupt, artium. * Actione 
ad subtil, in Seal. fol. 1226. » Lib. L de sap. ^ Vide miser homo, quia totum est vanitas, totura 

stultitia, totum dementia, quicqnid facis in hoc mundo, prseter hoc solum quod propter Deum facis. Ser. 
de miser, hom. -"'In 2 Platonis dial. 1. de justo. =<■ Dum iram et odium in Deo revera ponit. 

y Virg. 1. Eel. 3. ^Ps. inebriabuntur ab ubertate domus. » In Psal. civ. Austin. ^ in Platonis 

Tim. sacerdos ^gyptius. « Hor. vulgus insanum. ^ Patet ea divisio probabilis, &c. ex. Arist. Top. 

ib. 1. c. 8. Kog. Bac. Epist. de secret, art. et nat. c. 8. non est judicium in vulgo. 



Democritus to tJie Reader. 43 

quod vulgo videtur verum, fcdsum est; that which the commonalty accounts 
true, is most part false, they are still opposite to wise men, but all the world 
is of this humour {vidgus), and thou thyself art Jg vidgo, one of the commonalty; 
and he, and he, and so are all the rest; aiid therefore, as Phocion concludes, 
to be approved in nought you say or do, mere idiots and asses. Begin then 
where you will, go backward or forward, choose out of the whole pack, w^ink 
and choose, you shall find them all alike, " never a barrel better herring." 

Copernicus, Atlas his successor, is of opinion, the earth is a planet, moves 
and shines to others, as the moon doth to us. Digges, Gilbert, Kepleiiis, 
Origanus, and others, defend this hypothesis of his in sober sadness, and that 
the moon is inhabited : if it be so that the earth is a moon, then are we also 
giddy, vertiginous and lunatic within this sublunary maze. 

I could produce such arg-uments till dark night : if you should hear the 
rest, 

« A^*^ A-^^ «io-„<,^ «,^™■,^«-,o^+ ^„c-r>«« m-,.rv„,r> " i " ThroTigli sucli a train of ^rords if I should ran,. 
Ante diem clauso component vesper OljTnpo : | ^^^^ ^ - , ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^ V 

but according to my promise, I will descend to particulars. This melancholy 
extends itself not to men only, but even to vegetals and sensibles. I speak 
not of those creatiu-es which are saturnine, melancholy by nature, as lead, and 
such like minerals, or those plants, rue, cypress, &c. and hellebore itself, of 
w^hich ^Agrippa treats, fishes, birds, and beasts, hares, conies, dormice, <fec., 
owls, bats, nightbirds, but that artificial, which is perceived in them all. 
E-emove a plant, it will pine away, which is especially perceived in date trees, 
as you may read at large in Constantine's husbandry, that antipathy betwixt 
the vine and the cabbage, vine and oil. Put a bird in a cage, he will die for 
sullenness, or a beast in a pen, or take his young ones or companions from 
him, and see what efiect it will cause. But who perceives not these common 
passions of sensible creatures, fear, sorrow, &c. Of all other, dogs are most 
subject to this malady, insomuch some hold they dream as men do, and 
through violence of melancholy run mad ; I could relate many stories of dogs 
that have died for grief, and pined away for loss of theii* masters, but they 
are common in every ^author. 

Kingdoms, provinces, and politic bodies are likewise sensible and subject to 
this disease, as ° Boterus in his politics hath proved at large. '•' As in human 
bodies (saith he) there be divers alterations proceeding from humours, so there 
be many diseases in a commonwealth, w^hich do as diversely happen from 
several distempers," as you may easily perceive by their particular symptoms, 
i'or wdiere you shall see the people civil, obedient to God and princes, judicious, 
peaceable and quiet, rich, fortunate, ^ and flourish, to live in peace, in unity 
and concord, a country well tilled, many fair built and populous cities, uhi 
incolce nitent, as old ^ Cato said, the people are neat, polite and terse, id)i bene, 
heateqice vivunt, which our politicians make the chief end of a commonwealth; 
and which ^Aristotle Polit. lib. 3, cai^. 4, calls Commune honum, Polyhius 
lib. 6, optahilem et selectum sfaium, that country is free fi'om melancholy ; as 
it was in Italy in the time of Augustus, now in China, now in many other 
flourishing kingdoms of Europe. But whereas you shall see many discon- 
tents, common gTievances, complaints, poverty, barbarism, beggary, plagues, 
wars, rebellions, seditions, mutinies, contentions, idleness, riot, epicurism, the 
land lie untilled, waste, full of bogs, fens, deserts, &c., cities decayed, base 



eDe occnlt. Philosopli. 1. 1. c 25 et 19. ejtisd. 1. Lib. 10. cap. 4. f See Lipsius epist. ? De 

politia ill-astfium 111). 1. cap. 4. ut in humanis corporilius rariffi accidunt mutationes coi-poris, animique, sie 
in republica, &c. ^ ITbi reges pliilosophaatar, Plato. » Lib. de re rust. ^ Vel publicam utilitatem : 
.salus publica snprema lex esto. Beata civ-itas non ubi pauci beati, sed tota civitas beata, Plato qiuai-to de 
republica. 



44 Democritus to the Header. 

and poor towns, villages depopulated, the people squalid, ugly, uncivil ; that 
kingdom, that country, must needs be discontent, melancholy, hath a sick 
body, and had need to be reformed. 

Now that cannot well be effected, till the causes of these maladies be first 
removed, which commonly proceed from their own default, or some accidental 
inconvenience : as to be situated in a bad clime, too far north, sterile, in a 
barren place, as the desert of Lybia, deserts of Arabia, places void of waters, 
as those of Lop and Belgian in Asia, or in a bad air, as at Alexanchetta, 
Bantam, Fisa, Durazzo, S. John de Ulloa, (&c., or in danger of the sea's con- 
tinual inundations, as in many places of the Low Countries and elsewhere, 
or near some bad neighbours, as Hungarians to Turks, Podolians to Tartars, 
or almost any bordering countries, they live in fear still, and by reason of 
hostile incursions are oftentimes left desolate. So are cities, by reason ' of wars, 
fires, plagues, inundations, ""wild beasts, decay of trades, barred havens, the 
sea's violence, as Antwerp may witness of late, Syracuse of old, Brundusium 
in Italy, Eye and Dover v/ith us, and many that at this day suspect the sea's 
fury and rage, and labour against it as the Venetians to their inestimable 
charge. But the most frequent maladies are such as proceed from themselves, 
as first when religion and God's service is neglected, innovated or altered, 
"where they do not fear God, obey their prince, where atheism, epicurism, 
sacrilege, simony, (fee, and all such impieties are freely committed, that coun- 
try cannot prosper. When Abraham came to Gerar, and saw a bad land, he 
said, sure the fear of God was not in that place. ° Cyprian Echovius, a Spanish 
chorographer, above all other cities of Spain, commends " Borcino, in which 
there was no beggar, no man poor, &c., but all rich, and in good estate, and 
he gives the reason, because they were more religious than their neighbours:" 
why was Israel so often spoiled by their enemies, led into captivity, &c., but 
for their idolatry, neglect of God's word, for sacrilege, even for one Achan's 
fault? And what shall we expect that have such multitudes of Achans, 
church robbers, simoniacal patrons, (fee, how can they hope to flourish, that 
neglect divine duties, that live most part like Epicures? 

Other common grievances are generally noxious to a body politic; alteration, 
of laws and customs, breaking privileges, general oppressions, seditions, (fee, 
observed by "Aristotle, Bodtn, Boterus, Junius, Arniscus, (fee. I will only point 
at some of the chiefest. ^ Impotentia guhernandi, ataxia, confusion, ill-govern- 
ment, which proceeds from unskilful, slothfal, griping, covetous, unjust, rash, 
or tyrannizing magistrates, when they are fools, idiots, children, proud, wilful, 
partial, indiscreet, oppressors, giddy heads, tyrants, not able or unfit to manage 
such offices : ^^many noble cities and flourishing kingdoms by that means are 
desolate, the whole body groans under such heads, and all the members must 
needs be disaffected, as at this day those goodly provinces in Asia Minor, (fee. 
groan under the burden of a Turkish government ; and those vast kingdoms 
of Muscovia, Bussia, *" under a tyrannizing duke. Who ever heard of more 
civil and rich populous countries than those of " Greece, Asia Minor, abound- 
ing with all * wealth, multitudes of inhabitants, force, power, splendour and 
magnificence 1 " and that miracle of countries, * the Holy Land, that in so 
small a compass of ground could maintain so many towns, cities, produce so 
many fighting men 1 Egypt another paradise, now barbarous and desert, and 

1 Mantua vae miserje nimium vicina Cremonse. °> Interdum k feris, ut olim Mauritania, &c. " Deliciis 
Hispanise anno 1604. Nemo malus, nemo pauper, optimus quisque atque ditissimus. Pie sancteque vivebant, 
summaque cum veneratione et timoi'e, divino cultui, sacrisque rebus incumbebant. "Polit. 1. 5. c. 3. 

p Boterus Polit. lib. 1. c. 1. Cum nempe princeps rerura gerendarum imperitus, segnis, oscitans, suique 
muneris immemor, aut fatuus est. i Non viget respublica cujus caput infirmatur. Salisbui'iensis, c. 22. 
'See Dr. Fletcher's relation, and Alexander Gagninus' history. s Abundans omni divitiarum affluentia 

incolarum multitudine splendore ac potentia. * JS^ot above 200 miles in length, 60 in breadtli, according 
to Adi'icomius. 



Democritus to the Reader. 45 

almost waste, by tlie despotical government of an imperious Turk, ititolerahili 
servitutis jugo 2)T&initur ("one saith) not only fire and water, goods or lands, sed 
ipse spiritus ah insolentissimi victoris pendet mUic, sucli ia their slavery, their 
lives and souls depend upon his insolent will and command. A tyrant that 
spoils all wheresoever he comes, insomuch that an ^ historian complains, " if 
an old inhabitant should now see them, he would not know them, if a traveller, 
or stranger, it would grieve his heart to behold them," Whereas ^' Aristotle 
notes, N0VC8 exactiones, nova oner a imposita, new burdens and exactions daily 
come upon them, like those of which Zosimus, lib, 2, so grievous, ut viri 
uxores, p)atres filios jjrostituerent ut exactorihus e questu, d'c, they must needs 
be discontent, hinc civitatimi gemitus et ploratus, as ^ TuUy holds, hence come 
those complaints and tears of cities, '•' poor, miserable, rebellious, and des- 
perate subjects, as ^Hippolitus adds; and ""as a judicious countryman of ours 
observed not long since, in a survey of that great Duchy of Tuscany, the 
people lived much grieved and discontent, as appeared by their manifold and 
manifest complainings in that kind, " That the state was like a sick body 
which had lately taken physic, whose humours are not yet well settled, and 
weakened so much by purging, that nothing was left but melancholy. 

Whereas the princes and potentates are immoderate in lust, hypocrites, 
epicures, of no religion, but in shew: Quid hypocrisi fragilius? what so brittle 
and unsure 1 what sooner subverts their estates than wanderinor and raajini? 
lusts, on their subjects' wives, daughters'? to say no worse. That they should 
facem prceferre, lead the way to all virtuous actions, are the ringleaders often- 
times of all mischief and dissolute courses, and by that means their countries 
are plagued, " *" and they themselves often ruined, banished, or murdered by 
conspiracy of their subjects, as Sardanapalus was, Dionysius, junior, Helio- 
gabalus, Periander, Pisistratus, Tarquinius, Timocrates, Childericus, Appius 
Claudius, Andronicus, Galeacius Sforsia, Alexander Medices," &c. 

Whereas the princes or great men are malicious, envious, factious, ambitious, 
emulators, they tear a commonwealth asunder, as so many Guelfs and Gibe- 
lines disturb the quietness of it, "^ and with mutual murders let it bleed to 
death; our histories are too full of such barbarous inhumanities, and the 
miseries that issue from them. 

Whereas they be like so many horse-leeches, hungry, griping, corrupt, 
* covetous, avaritice tnancipia, ravenous as wolves, for as Tully writes : qui 
prceest p)rodest, et qui pecudibus p)rceest, debet eorum utilitati inservire : or such 
as prefer their private before the public good. Por as ^he said long since, res 
privates p)ublicis semper officere. Or whereas they be illiterate, ignorant, 
empirics in policy, uhi deest facultas ^virtus [Aristot. pol. 5, cap. 8,) et scientia, 
wise only by inheritance, and in authority by birth-right, favour, or for their 
wealth and titles ; there must needs be a fault, ^ a great defect : because as 
an ' old philosopher affirms, such men are not always fit. " Of an infinite 
number, few noble are senators, and of those few, fewer good, and of that 
small number of honest, good, and noble men, few that are learned, wise, 
discreet, and sufficient, able to discharge such places, it must needs turn to 
the confuyion of a state." 



"Romulus Amascus. ^ Sabellicus. Si quis incola vetus, non agnosceret, si quis peregrinus, ingemis- 
ceret. y Polit. 1. 5. c. 6. Cmdelitas principum, impunitas scelerum, violatio leguni, peculatus pecuniag 
public£e, etc. ^ Epist. ^Da increm. urb. cap. 20. subditi miseri, rebelles, desperati, &c. 

i>K. Darlington. 1596. concliisio libri. = Boterus 1. 9. c. 4. Polit. Qno fit ut aut rebus desperatis exulent, 
aut conjuratione subditovuni crudelissime tandem trucidentur. ^ Mutuis odiis et coedibus exliausti, &c. 
*Luci'a ex malis, sceleratisque causis. 'Sallust. sFor most part we mistake the name of Politi- 

cians, accounting such as read Machiavel and Tacitus, great statesmen, that can dispute of political 
precepts, supplant and overthrow their adversaries, enrich themselves, get honours, dissemble; but what is 
this to the bene esse, or preservation of a Commonwealth ? '> Imperium suapte sponte corruit. > Apul. 
Prim. Flor. £x innumerabilibus, pauci Seuatores genere nobiles, e consularibus pauci boni, e bonis adliuc 
pauci eruditi. 



46 Democritus to the Header. 

For as the "^ Princes are, so are the people ; Quails Rex, talis grex : and 
which ' Antigonus right well said of old, qui Macedonim regem erudit, omnes 
etiam suhditos erudit, he that teaches the king of Macedon, teaches all his 
subjects, is a true saying still. 

" For Princes are the glass, the school, the hook, 
Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look." 

"Velocius et citius nos 

Corrumpunt vitiorum exempla domestica, magnis 
Cum subeant animos auctoribus." * 

Their examples are soonest followed, vices entertained, if they be profane, 
irreligious, lascivious, riotous, epicures, factious, covetous, ambitious, illiterate, 
so will the commons most part be, idle, unthrifts, prone to lust, drunkards, 
and therefore poor and needy (^ ''■«'"«* <^Ta.(nv efxirotei tea] Hanovf-ytav, for poverty 
begets sedition and villany) upon all occasions ready to mutiny and rebel, 
discontent still, complaining, murmuring, grudging, apt to all outrages, thefts, 
treasons, murders, innovations, in debt, shifters, cozeners, outlaws, Profligatoe 
famce ac vitce. It was an old "" politician's aphorism, " They that are poor 
and bad envy rich, hate good men, abhor the present government, wish for a 
new, and would have all turned topsy turvy." When Catiline rebelled in 
Home, he got a company of such debauched rogues together, they were his 
familiars and coadjutors, and such have been your rebels most part in all 
ages. Jack Cade, Tom Straw, Kette, and his companions. 

Where they be generally riotous and contentious, where there be many 
discords, many laws, many lawsuits, many lawyers and many physicians, it is 
a manifest sign of a distempered, melancholy state, as ° Plato long since main- 
tained : for where such kind of men swarm, they will make more work for 
themselves, and that body politic diseased, which was otherv/ise sound. A 
general mischief in these our times, an insensible plague, and never so many 
of them : "which are now multiplied (saith Mat. Geraldus, °a lawyer himself,) 
as so many locusts, not the parents, but the plagues of the country, and for 
the most part a supercilious, bad, covetous, litigious generation of men. "^Cru- 
tnenimulga 7iatio, &c. A purse-milking nation, a clamorous company, gowned 
vultures, ^ qui ex injuria vivent et sanguine civium, thieves and seminaries of 
discord; worse than any polers by the highway side, auri accipitres, auri exte- 
rehronides, pecuniarum hamiolce, quadruplatores, curice harpagones, fori tinti- 
nabula, raonstra hominum, mangones, dsc, that take upon them to make peace, 
but are indeed the very disturbers of our peace, a company of irreligious 
harpies, scraping, griping catchpoles, (I mean our common hungry pettifoggers, 
^rabulas forenses, love and honour in the meantime all good laws, and wortliy 
la^vyers, that are so many 'oracles and pilots of a well-governed commonwealth.) 
Without art, without judgment, that do more harm, as * Livy said, quam 
hella externa, fames, niorbive, than sickness, wars, hunger, diseases; "and 
cause a most incredible destruction of a commonwealth," saith " Sesellius, a 
famous civilian sometimes in Paris, as ivy doth by an oak, embrace it so long, 
until it hath got the heart out of it, so do they by such places they inhabit; no 
counsel at all, no jusstice, no speech to be had, nisi eum premulseris, he must 
be fed still, or else he is as mute as a fish, better open an oyster without a 
knife. Experto crede (saith " Salisburiensis) in manus eorum millies incidi, et 

^ Non solum vltia concipiunt ipsi principes, sed etiam infundunt in civitatem, plusque exemplo quam 
peccato nocent. Cic. 1. de legibus. i Epist. ad Zen. Juven. Sat. 4. Paiipertas seditionem gignit et 

maleficium, Arist. Pol. 2. c. 7. * Vicious domestic examples operate more quickly upon us when 

suggested to our minds by high authorities. ™ Sallust. Semper in civitate quibus opes null^e sunt, 

bonis invident, vetei-a odere, nova exoptant, odio suarum rerum mutari omnia petunt. " De legibus. 

profligatse in repub. disciplinse est indicium jurisperitorum numerus, et medicorum copia. <> In prgef. stud, 
juris. Multiplicantur nunc in terris ut locustte non patriaa parentes, sed pestes, pessimi homines, majore ex 
parte superclliosi, contentiosi, &c., licitum latrocinium exercent. PDousa epid. loquieleia turba, vultures 
togati. qfiarc. Argen. ' Jurisconsulti domus oraculum civitatis. Tully. ^Lib. 3. tLib. 3. 

" Lib. I. de rep. Gallorum, incredibilem reipub. perniciem afferuut. * Polycrat. lib. 



Democriius to the Eecider. 47 

Charon immitis, qui nulli pepercit unquatn, his longh dementior est ; " I speak 
out of experience^ I have been a thousand times amongst them, and Charon 
himself is more gentle than they; ^he is contented with his single pay, but 
they multiply still, they are never satisfied," besides they have damnificas 
linguas, as he terms it, nisifanibus argenteis vi)icias,th.ey must be fed to say 
nothing, and *get more to hold their peace than we can to say our best. 
They will speak their clients fair, and invite them to their tables, but as he 
follows it, ''''.of all injustice there is none so pernicious as that of theirs, which 
when they deceive most, will seem to be honest men." They take upon them 
to be peacemakers, et fovere causas humilium, to help them to their right, 
patrocinantur qfflictis, * but all is for their own good, ut loculos pleniorum 
exhauriant, they plead for poor men gratis, but they are but as a stale to catch 
others. If there be no jar, '^ they can make a jar, out of the law itself find 
still some quirk or other, to set them at odds, and continue causes so long, 
lustra aliquot, I know not how many years before the cause is heard, and 
when 'tis judged and determined by reason of some tricks and errors, it is as 
fresh to begin, after twice seven years some times, as it was at first; and so 
they prolong time, delay suits till they have enriched themselves, and beggared 
their clients. And, as " Cato inveighed against Isocrates' scholars, we may 
justly tax our wrangling lawyers, they do consenescere in litibus,.a.re so litigious 
and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their client's causes here- 
after, some of them in hell. "^ Simlerus complains amongst the Suissers of the 
advocates in his time, that when they should make an end, they began con- 
troversies, and " protract their causes many years, persuading them their title 
is good, till their patrimonies be consumed, and that they have spent more in 
seeking than the thing is worth, or they shall get by the recovery." So that 
he that goes to law, as the proverb is, ® holds a wolf by the ears, or as a sheep 
in a storm runs for shelter to a brier, if he prosecute his cause he is consumed, 
if he surcease his suit he loseth all;^ what difference 1 They had wont hereto- 
fore, saith Austin, to end matters, per communes arhitros; and so in Switzer- 
land (we are informed by ^ Simlerus), "they had some common arbitrators or 
daysmen in every town, that made a friendly composition betwixt man and man, 
and he much wonders at their honest simplicity, that could keep peace so well, 
and end such great causes by that means. At ^Pez in Africa, they have neither 
lawyers nor advocates ; but if there be any controversies amongst them, both 
parties plaintift and defendant come to their Alfakins or chief judge, "and at 
once without any farther appeals or pitiful delays, the cause is heard and 
ended." Our forefathers, as 'a worthy chorographer of ours observes, had 
wont pauculis cruculis aureis, with a few golden crosses, and lines in verse, 
make all conveyances, assurances. And such was the candour and integrity 
of succeeding ages, that a deed (as I have often seen) to convey a whole manor, 
was imjolicite contained in some twenty lines or thereabouts ; like that scede or 
Sytala Laconica, so much renowned of old in all contracts, which ^ Tully so 
earnestly commends to Atticus, Plutarch in his Lysander, Aristotle polit.: 
Thucydides, lib. 1. ^Diodorus and Suidas approve and magnify, for that 
laconic brevity in this kind; and well they might, for, according to "Tertullian, 

y Is stipe contentus, et hi asses integros sibi multlplicari jubent. * Plus accipiunt taceve, qtiam nos loqni. 
«Totius injustitias nulla capitalior, quam eorum qui cum ra axime decipiunt, id agunt, ut boni viri esse videan tuv. 
"Nam quocnnque modo causa procedat, hoc semper agitur, ut locuii impleantur, etsi avaritia nequit 
satiari. ^ Camden in Norfolk : qui si nihil sit litium e juris apicibus lites tamen serere callent. « Plu- 
tarch, vit. Cat. causas apud inferos quas in suam fidem roceperunt, patrocinio suo tuebuntur. d Lib. 2. de 
Hehet. repub. non explicandis, sed raoliendis controversiis operam dant, ita ut lites in multrs annos extra- 
hantur summa cum molestia utrisque ; partis et dum- interea pati-iraonia exhaiiriantur. ^Lupum auribus 
tenent. ■ ^Hor. sLib. de Helvet. repub. Judices quocnnque pago coustituiint qui amica aliqua transac- 
tione, si fieri possit, lites tollant. Ego majorum nostrorum simplicitatem admii'or, qui sic causas gravissimas 
composuerint ; &c. i^Clenard 1. 1. ep. Si quas controversise utraque pars judicem adit, is semel et simul 
rem transigit, audit : nee quid sit appellatio, lachrymosseque morse ncscunt. > Camden. ^Lib. 10. 

epist. ad Atticum, epist. 11. iBiblioth. 1. 3. ^Lib. de Anim. 



48 Democritus to the Reader. 

certa sunt paucis, there is miicli more certainty in fewer words. And so was 
it of old tliroughoTit : but now many skins of parchment will scarce serve turn ; 
he that buys and sells a hoiise, must have a house full of writings, there be so 
many circumstances, so many words, such tautological repetitions of all par- 
ticulars, (to avoid cavillation they say ;) but we find by our woful experience, 
that to subtle wits it is a cause of much more contention and variance, and 
scarce any conveyance so accurately penned by one, which another will not find 
a crack in, or cavil at; if any one word be misplaced, any little error, all is 
disannulled. That which is a law to-day, is none to-morrow; that which is 
sound in one man's opinion, is most faulty to another; that in conclusion, here 
is nothing amongst us but contention and confusion, we bandy one against 
another. And that which long since ° Plutarch complained of them in Asia, 
may be verified in our times. " These men here assembled, come not to sacri- 
fice to their gods, to offer Jupiter their first-fruits, or merriments to Bacchus ; 
but an yearly disease, exasperating Asia, hath brought them hither, to make an 
end of their controversies and lawsuits." 'Tis onultitudo perdentium etpereun- 
tium, a destructive rout that seek one another's ruin. Such most part are our 
ordinary suitors, termers, clients, new stirs every day, mistak^js, errors, cavils, 
and at this present, as I have heard in some one court, I know not how many 
thousand causes : no person free, no title almost good, with such bitterness in 
following, so many slights, procrastinations, delays, forgery, such cost (for 
infinite sums are inconsiderately spent), violence and malice, I know not by 
whose fault, lawyers, clients, laws, both or all : but as Paul reprehended the 
** Corinthians long since, I may more positively infer now : " There is a fault 
amongst you, and I speak it to your shame. Is there not a p wise man amongst 
you, to judge between his brethren? but that a brother goes to law with a 
brother." And '^Christ's counsel concerning lawsuits, was never so fit to be 
inculcated as in this age: '"^ Agree with thine adversary quickly," (fee. 
Matth. V. 25. 

I could repeat many such particular grievances, which must disturb a body 
politic. To shut up all in brief, where good government is, prudent and wise 
princes, there all things thrive and prosper, peace and happiness is in that 
land : where it is otherwise, all things are ugly to behold, iucult, barbarous, 
uncivil, a paradise is turned to a wilderness. This island amongst the rest, 
our next neighbours the French and Germans, may be a sufficient witness, that 
in a short time by that prudent policy of the Pomans, was brought from bar- 
barism ; see but what Caesar reports of us, and Tacitus of those old Germans, 
they were once as uncivil as they in Virginia, yet by planting of colonies and 
good laws, they became from barbarous outlaws, 'to be full of rich and popu- 
lous cities, as now they are, and most flourishing kingdoms. Even so might 
Virginia, and those wild Irish have been civilized long since, if that order had 
been heretofore taken, which now begins, of planting colonies, &c. I have 
read a Miscourso, printed anno 1612. "Discovering the true causes why 
Ireland was never entirely subdued, or brought under obedience to the crown 
of England, until the beginning of his Majesty's happy reign." Yet if his 
reasons were thoroughly scanned by a judicious politician, I am afraid he 
would not altogether be approved, but that it would turn to the dishonour of 
our nation, to sufier it to lie so long waste. Yea, and if some travellers should 
see (to come nearer home) those rich, united provinces of Holland, Zealand &c., 

n Lib. major morb. coii). an animi. Hi non conveniunt ut dils more majorum sacra faciant, non ut Jo^•i 
primitias offerant, aut Baccho commessitiones, sed anniversarius morbus exasperans Asiam hue eos coegit, 
ut contentiones hie peragant. " 1 Cor. vi. 5, 6. p Stulti quando demum sapietis ? Ps. xlix. 8. 

* so intituled, and preached by our Regius Professor, D. f*rideaux; pi-inted at London by Foelix Kingston, 
1C21. q Of which Text read two learned Sermons. >• Sa3pius bona materia cessat sine artifice. 

Sabcllicus de Germania. Si quis videret Germaniam m'bibus hodie excultam, non diceret ut dim tristem 
cultu, asperam coelo, terrara informem. s By his Majesty's Attorney General there. 



Democritus to the Reader. 49 

over against us; those neat cities and populous towns, fall of most industrious 
artificers, *so much land recovered from the sea, and so painfully preserved by 
those artificial inventions, so wonderfully approved, as that of Bemster in 
Holland, ut nihil huic par aut simile invenias in toto orhe, saith Bertius the 
geographer, all the world cannot match it, "so many navigable channels from 
place to place, made by men's hands, &c. and on the other side so many 
thousand acres of our fens lie drowned, our cities thin, and those vile, poor, 
and ugly to behold in respect of theirs, our trades decayed, our still running 
rivers stopped, and that beneficial use of transportation, wholly neglected, so 
many havens void of ships and towns, so many parks and forests for pleasure, 
barren heaths, so many villages depopulated, &c. I think sure he would find 
some fault. 

I may not deny but that this nation of ours, doth hene audire apud exteros, 
is a most noble, a most flourishing kingdom, by common consent of all '^ geo- 
graphers, historians, politicians, 'tis ii7iica velut arx^^ and which Quintius in 
Livy said of the inhabitants of Peloponnesus, may be well applied to us, we 
are testudines testa sua inclusi, like so many tortoises in our shells, safely 
defended by an angry sea, as a wall on all sides. Our island hath many such 
honourable eulogiums ; and as a learned countryman of ours right well hath 
it, " "^Ever since the Normans first coming into England, this country both for 
military matters, and all other of civility, hath been paralleled with the most 
flourishing kingdoms of Europe and our Christian world," a blessed, a rich 
country, and one of the fortunate isles : and for some things ^preferred before 
other countries, for expert seamen, our laborious discoveries, art of navigation, 
true merchants, they carry the bell away from all other nations, even the 
Portugals and Hollanders themselves; "^without all fear," saith Boterus, 
" furrowing the ocean winter and summer, and two of their captains, with no 
less valour than fortune, have sailed round about the world." ''We have besides 
many particular blessings, which our neighbours want, the Gospel truly 
preached, church discipline established, long peace and quietness free from 
exactions, foreign fears, invasions, domestical seditions, well manured, ^forti- 
fied by art, and nature, and now most happy in that fortunate union of Eng- 
land and Scotland, which our forefathers have laboured to effect, and desired 
to see. But in which we excel all others, a wise, learned, religious king, 
another Numa, a second Augustus, a true Josiah; most worthy senators, a 
learned clergy, an obedient commonalty, &c. Yet amongst many roses, some 
thistles grow, some bad weeds and enormities, which much disturb the peace 
of this body politic, eclipse the honour and glory of it, fit to be rooted out, and 
with all speed to be reformed. 

The first is idleness, by reason of which we have many swarms of rogTies, 
and beggars, thieves, drunkards, and discontented persons (whom Lycurgus in 
Plutarch calls niorbos reipublicce, the boils of the commonwealth), many poor 
people in all our towns. Civitates ignohiles as ^Polydore calls them, base built 
cities, inglorious, poor, small, rare in sight, ruinous, and thin of inhabitants. 
Our land is fertile v/e may not deny, full of all good things, and why doth it not 
then abound with cities, as well as Italy, France, Germany, the Low-countries? 
because their policy hath been otherwise, and we are not so thrifty, circum- 
spect, industrious. Idleness is the malus genius of our nation. For as 
^Boterus justly argues, fertility of a country is not enough, except art and 

' As Zeipland, Bemster in Holland, &c. " From Gaunt to Since, from Bruges to the sea, ka. 

^ Ortelius, Boterus, Mercator, Meteranus, &c. * " The citadel par excellence." '•'■■ Jam inde non minus 
belli gloria, quam humanitatis cultu inter florentissimas orbis Christian! gentes imprimis floruit. Camden 
Brit, de Normannis. ^ Geog. Keeker. y Tam hieme quam testate intrepide sulcant Oceanum, et duo 

illorum duces non minore audacia quam fortuna totius orhem terrte circumnavigarunt. Amphitheatro 
Botei-us. z A fertile soil, good air, &c Tin, Lead, Wool, Saffron, &c. » Tota Britannia unica 

velut arx. Boter. i* Lib. 1. hist. « Increment, urb. L L c. 9. 

E 



50 Democritus to tlie Header. 

industry be joined unto it, according to Aristotle, riches are either natural or 
artificial; natural, are good land, fair mines, &c. artificial, are manufactures, 
coins, &c. Many kingdoms are fertile, but thin of inhabitants, as that 
Duchy of Piedmont in Italy, which Leander Albertus so much magnifies for 
corn, wine, fruits, &c., yet nothing near so populous as those which are more 
barren. " "^England," saith he, " London only excepted, hath never a popu- 
lous city, and yet a fruitful country." I find 46 cities and walled towns in 
Alsatia, a small province in Germany, 50 castles, an infinite number of vil- 
lages, no ground idle, no not rocky places, or tops of hills are untilled, aS 
^Munster informeth us. In ^Greichgea, a small territory on the Necker, 24 
Italian miles over, I read of 20 walled towns, innumerable villages, each one 
containing 150 houses most part, besides castles and noblemen's palaces. I 
observe in ^Taringe, in Diitchland (twelve miles over by their scale) 12 coun- 
ties, and in them 144 cities, 2000 villages, 144 towns, 250 castles. In 
^Bavaria, 34 cities, 46 towns, &c. '^ Portugallia interamnis, a small plot of 
ground, hath 1460 parishes, 130 monasteries, 200 bridges. Malta, a barren 
island, yields 20,000 inhabitants. But of all the rest, I admire Lues Guicciar- 
dine's relations of the Low-countries. Holland hath 26 cities, 400 great vil- 
lages. Zeland, 10 cities, 102 parishes. Brabant, 2Q cities, 102 parishes. 
Flanders, 28 cities, 90 towns, 1154 villages, besides abbeys, castles, &c. The 
Low-countries generally have three cities at least for one of ours, and those far 
more populous and rich : and what is the cause, but their industry and excel- 
lency in all manner of trades? Their commerce, which is maintained by a 
multitude of tradesmen, so many excellent channels made by art and oppor- 
tune havens, to which they build their cities; all which we have in like 
measure, at at least may have. But their chiefest loadstone which draws all 
manner of commerce and merchandise, which maintains their present estate, is 
not fertility of soil, but industry that enricheth them, the gold mines of Peru, 
or Nova Hispania may not compare with them. They have neither gold noi 
silver of their own, wine nor oil, or scarce any corn growing in those united 
provinces, little or no wood, tin, lead, iron, silk, wool, any stuff almost, or 
metal; and yet Hungary, Transylvania, that brag of their mines, fertile Eng- 
land cannot compare with them. I dare boldly say, that neither France, 
Tarentum, Apulia, Lombardy, or any part of Italy, Valentia in Spain, or that 
pleasant Andalusia, with their excellent fruits, wine and oil, two harvests, no 
not any part of Europe is so flourishing, so rich, so populous, so full of good 
ships, of well-built cities, so abounding with all things necessary for the use of 
man. 'Tis our Indies, an epitome of China, and all by reason of their indus- 
try, good policy, and commerce. Industry is a loadstone to draw all good 
things; that alone makes countries flourish, cities populous, J and will enforce 
by reason of much manure, which necessarily follows, a barren soil to be 
fertile and good, as sheep, saith ^Dion, mend a bad pasture. 

Tell me, politicians, why is that fruitful Palestina, noble Greece, Egypt, 
Asia Minor, so much decayed, and (mere carcases now) fallen from that they 
were? The ground is the same, but the government is altered, the people are 
grown slothful, idle, their good husbandry, policy, and industry is decayed. 
Nonfatigata aut efceta humus, as 'Columella well informs Sylvinus, sedjwstra 
fit inertia, &c. May a man believe that which Aristotle in his politics, Pau- 
sanias, Stephanus, Sophianus, Gerbelius relate of old Greece? I find hereto- 



d Angliae, excepto Londino, nulla est civitas memorabilis, licet ea natio rerum omnium copia abundet. 
eCosmog. Lib. 3. cop. 119. Villarum non est numerus, nulkis locus otiosus aut incultus. fChytreus 

orat. edit. Francof. 1583. s Magiiius Geog. ^ Ortelius e Vaseo et Pet. de Medina. • An 

hundred families in each. j Populi multitude diligente eultura faecundat solum. Boter. 1. 8 c. 3. 

k Orat. 85. Terra ubi oves stabulantur optima agricolis ob stercus. iJJe re rust. 1. 2. cap. 1. The soil 

is not tired or exhausted, but has become barren through our sloth. 



Democritus to the Reader. 51 

fore 70 cities in Epirus overtlirown by Paulus ^milius, a goodly province in 
times past, ™now left desolate of good towns and almost inhabitants. Q'2 cities 
in Macedonia in Strabo's time. I fiod 30 in Laconia, but now scarce so many 
villages, saith Gerbelius. If any man from Mount Taygetus should view the 
country round about, and see tot delicias, tot urhes per Feloponnesum dispersas, 
so many delicate and brave built cities with such cost and exquisite cunning, 
so neatly set out in Peloponnesus, ''he should perceive them now ruinous and 
overthrown, burnt, waste, desolate, and laid level with the ground, Incredihile 
dictu, &G. And as he laments, Quis taliafando Temper et a lachrymis? Quis 
tam durus autferreus? (so he prosecutes it.)* Who is he that can sufficiently 
condole and commiserate these ruins? Where are those 4000 cities of Egypt, 
those 100 cities in Crete? Are they now come to two? What saith Pliny 
and ^lian of old Italy? There were in former ages 1166 cities: Blondus 
and Machiavel, both grant them now nothing near so populous, and full of 
good towns as in the time of Augustus (for now Leander Albertus can find 
but 300 at most), and if we may give credit to °Livy, not then so strong 
and puissant as of old : " They mustered 70 Legions in former times, which 
now the known world will scarce yield. Alexander built 70 cities in a short 
space for his part, our Sultans and Turks demolish twice as many, and leave 
all desolate. Many will not believe but that our island of Great Britain is now 
more populous than ever it was; yet let them read Bede, Leland and others, 
they shall find it most flourished in the Saxton Heptarchy, and in the Conque- 
ror's time was far better inhabited than at this present. See that Domesday 
Book, and show me those thousands of parishes, which are now decayed, cities 
ruined, villages depopulated, &c. The lesser the territory is, commonly, the 
richer it is. Parvus sedh&iie cultus ager. As those Athenian, Lacedsemonian, 
Arcadian, Aelian, Sycionian, Messenian, ko,., commonwealths of Greece make 
ample proof, as those imperial cities and free states of Germany may witness, 
those Cantons of Switzers, Bheti, Grisous, Walloons, Territories of Tuscany, 
Luke and Senes of old. Piedmont, Mantua, Venice in Italy, Bagusa, &c. 

That prince therefore, as ^ Boterus adviseth, that will have a rich country, 
and fair cities, let him get good trades, privileges, painful inhabitants, arti- 
ficers, and sufler no rude matter un wrought, as tin, iron, wool, lead, &c., to be 
transported out of his country, — ''a thing in part seriously attempted amongst 
us, but not effected. And because industry of men, and multitude of trade so 
much avails to the ornament and enrichingr of a kinojdom; those ancient "Mas- 
silians would admit no man into their city that had not some trade. Selym 
the first Turkish emperor procured a thousand good artificers to be brought 
from Taurus to Constantinople. The Polanders indented with Henry Duke of 
Anjou, their new chosen king, to bring with him an hundred families of arti- 
ficers into Poland. James the First, in Scotland (as ^ Buchanan writes), sent 
for the best artificers he could get in Europe, and gave them great rewards to 
teach his subjects their several trades. Edward the Third, our most renowned 
king, to his eternal memory, brought clothing first into this island, transport- 
ing some families of artificers from Gaunt hither. How many goodly cities 
could I reckon up, that thrive wholly by trade, where thousands of inhabitants 
live singular well by their fingers' ends ! As Florence in Italy by makiug cloth 
of gold ; great Milan by silk, and all curious works ; Arras in Artois by those 
fair hangings; many cities in Spain, many in France, Germany, have none 

"> Hodie urbibus desolatur, et magna ex parte incolis destituitur. Gerbelius desc. Grseciae, lib. 6. nVidebit 
. eas fere omnes aut eversas, aut solo teqiiatas, aut in rudera foedissime dejectas. Gerbelius. 

* Not even the hardest of our foes could hear, 
Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear. 
"Lib. 7. Septuaginta olim legiones scriptse dicuntur; quas vires hodie, &c. PPolit. 1. 3. c. 8. "5 For 
dyeing of cloths, and dressing, &c. r Yaler. 1. 2. c. 1. 'Hist. Scot. Lib. 10. Magnis propositis 

prasraiis, ut Scoti ab lis edocerentur. 



■ 52 Doinocritus to the Header. 

other manitcnance, especially those withm the land. * Mecca in Arabia 
Petra^a, stands in a most unfruitful country, that wants water, amongst the 
rocks (as Yertomanus describes it), and yet it is a most elegant and pleasant 
city, by reason of the trallic of the east and west. Orinus in Persia is a most 
famous mart-toAvii, hath nought else but the opportunity of the haven to make 
it flourish. Corinth, a noble city (Lumen Gra^cioe, Tally calls it) the Eye of 
Greece, by reason of Cenchreas and Lecheus those excellent ports, drew all 
that traffic of the Ionian and ^gean seas to it; and yet the country about it 
was curva et sujyerciliosa, as " Strabo terms it, rugged and harsh. We may 
say the same of Athens, Actium, Thebes, Sparta, and most of those towns in 
Greece. Nuremberg in Germany is sited in a most barren soil, yet a noble 
imperial city, by the sole industry of artificers, and cunning trades, they draw 
the riches of most countries to them, so expert in manufactures, that as Sallust 
long since gave out of the like, Sedem animce in extremis digitis habent, their 
soul, or intellecttis agens, was jJaced in their fingers' end; and so we may say 
of Basil, Spire, Cambray, Frankfort, &c. It is almost incredible to speak 
what some write of Mexico and the cities adjoining to it, no place in the world 
at their first discovery more populous, "^ Mat. Iliccius, the Jesuit, and some 
others, relate of the industry of the Chinese most popidous countries, not a 
beggar or an idle person to be seen, and how by that means they prosper and 
flourish. We have the same means, able bodies, pliant wits, matter of all 
sorts, wool, flax, iron, tin, lead, wood, &c., many excellent subjects to work 
upon, only industry is wanting. We send our best commodities beyond the 
seas, which they make good use of to their necessities, set themselves a work 
about, and severally improve, sending the same to us back at dear rates, or 
else make toys and baubles of the tails of them, which they sell to us again, 
at as great a reckoning as the whole. In most of our cities, some few excepted, 
like ^Spanish loiterers, we live wholly by tippling-inns and ale-houses. Malt- 
ing are their best ])loughs, their greatest traffic to sell ale. "^ Meteran and 
some others object to us, that we are no v/hit so industrious as the Hol- 
landers : " Manual trades (saith he) which are more curious or troublesome, 
«re wholly exercised by strangers: they dwell in a sea full of fish, but they 
are so idle, they will not catch so much as shall serve their own turns, but 
buy it of their neighbours." Tush ''Mare liberum, they fish under our noses, 
and sell it to us when they have done, at their own prices. 



" Putlet h£EC opprobria nobis 



Et dici potuisse, et non potuissc refoUi." 

I am ashamed to hear this objected by strangers, and know not how to 
answer it. 

Amongst our towns, there is only ^ London that bears the face of a city, 
^ JiJpitome Brita7i7ii(B, a fajnous emporium, second to none beyond seas, a noble 
mart: hut sola crescit, decrescentibus cdiis ; and yet in my slender judgment, 
defective in many things. The rest (^some few excepted) are in mean estate, 
ruinous most part, poor, and full of beggars, by reason of their decayed trades, 
neglected or bad policy, idleness of their inhabitants, riot, which had rather 
beg or loiter, and be ready to starve, than work. 

I cannot deny but that something may be said in defence of our cities, *that 
they are not so fair built, (for the sole magnificence of this kingdom, conceru- 

tMunst. cosni. 1. 5. c. 74. Agro omnium rernm infcecundissimo, aqua indigente, inter saxeta, urbs 
tamen elegautissimu, ob Orientis ncgotiationcs et Occidentis. " Lib. 8. Ueogr : ob asperum situm. 

X Lib. Edit, a Nic. Tregant. Relg. A. 1(316. expedit. in Sinas. y Ubi nobiles probi loco habent 

artem aliquam profitevi. Cleonard. ep. 1. 1. == Lib. 13. Belg. Hist, non tam laboriosi ut Bclgie, sed ut 

liispani otiatores vitam ut plurimum otiosam agcntes; artes mauuarije quae phirimum luibent in se laborls 
et difficultatis, majoremq; requirunt industriam, aperegrinis et exterisexercentiu-; habitant in piscosissimo 
niari, interea tantuni non piscautur quantum insulaj sutfecerit, sed a vicinis emere coguutur. "Grotii 

Liber. ^ Urbs animis numeroque poteiis, et robore gentis. Scaliger. « Camden. '* York, Bristow, 

Isorwicli, Worcester, &,c. « M. Gainsfords Argument : Because gentlemen dwell with us in tUe country 



Democritus to ths Reader. 53 

ing buildings, hath been of old in those Norman castles and religious houses.) 
so rich, thick sited, populous, as in some otlier countries; besides the reason3 
Cardan gives, Suht'd. Lib. 11. we want wine and oil, their two harvests, we 
dwell in a colder air, and for tliat cause must a little more liberallj ^feed of 
flesh, as all northern countries do: our provisions will not therefore extend to 
the maintenance of so many ; yet notwithstanding we have matter of all sorts, 
an open sea for traffic, as well as the rest, goodly havens. And how can we 
excuse our negligence, our riot, drunkenness, &c., and such enormities that 
follow it? We have excellent laws enacted, you will say, severe statutes, 
houses of correction, &c., to small purpose it seems; it is not houses will 
serve, but cities of correction ; ^ our trades generally ought to be reformed, 
wants supplied. In other countries they have the same grievances, I confess, 
but that doth not excuse us, ^ wants, defects, enormities, idle drones, tumults, 
discords, contention, law-suits, many laws made against them to repress those 
innumerable brawls and law-suits, excess in apparel, diet, decay of tillage, 
depopulations,* especially against rogues, beggars, Egyptian vagabonds (so 
termed at least) which have 'swarmed all over Germany, France, Italy, Poland, 
as you may read in ^ Munster, Granzius, and Aventinus ; as those Tartars and 
Arabians at this day do in the eastern countries : yet such has been the 
iniquity of all ages, as it seems to small purpose. Nemo in nostra civitate 
mendicus esto,f saith Plato : he will have them purged from a ' commonwealth, 
"' " as a bad humour from the body," that are like so many ulcers and boils, 
and must be cured before the melancholy body can be eased. 

What Carolus Magnus, the Chinese, the Spaniards, the Duke of Saxony, 
and many other states have decreed in this case, resid Arniseus, cap. 19; 
Boterus, libra S, caj). 2; Osorius de Rebus gest. Eman. lib. 11. When a countrjr 
is overstocked with people, as a pasture is oft overlaid with cattle, they had 
wont in former times to disburden themselves, by sending out colonies, or by 
wars, as those old P.omans; or by employing them at home about some public 
buildings, as bridges, road-ways, for which those Romans were fa.mous in this 
island; as Augustus Csesardid in Pome, the Spaniards in their Indian mines, 
as at Potosi in Peru, where some 30,000 men are still at wort, 6000 furnaces 
ever boiling, &c. "aqueducts, bridges, havens, those stupend works of Trajan, 
Claudius, at ° Ostium, Dioclesiani Therma, Fucinus Lacus, that Pirseum in 
Athens, made by Themistocles, amphitheatnims of curious marble, as at Verona, 
Civitas Philippi, and Heraclea in Thrace, those Appian and Flaminian ways, 
prodigious works all may witness ; and rather than they should be p idle, as 
those "^ Egyptian Pharaohs, Maris, and Sesostris did, to task their subjects to 
build unnecessary pyramids, obelisks, labyrinths, channels, lakes, gigantic 
works all, to divert them from rebellion, riot, drunkenness, "" Quo scilicet 
alantur. et ne vagando laborare desuescant. 

Another eye- sore is that want of conduct and navigable rivers, a great 
blemish as ^Boterus, ^Plippolitus a Collibus, and other politicians hold, if it bo 

villages our cities are less, is nothing to the purpose; put three hundred or four hundred villages in a abiro, 
and every village yield a gentleman, what is four hundred families to increase one of our cities, or to con- 
tend with theirs, which stand thicker ? And whereas ours usually consist of seven thousand, theirs consist 
of f n'ty thousand inliahitants. ''Maxima pars victiis in carne consistit. Polyd. Lib. 1. Hist. sRefi'^e- 

nate monopolii licentiam, pauciores alantur otio, redintegretur agricolatio, lanificium instauretur, ut sit 
lionestum negotium quo se exerceat otiosa ilia turba. Nisi his malis medentui', frustra exercent justitiam. 
Mor. Utop. Lib. I. '' Mancipiis locuples cget seris Cappadocum rex. Hor. * Kegis dignitatis non est 

exercere imperium in mendicos sed in opulentos. Non est regni decus, sed carceris esse custos. Idem, 
i Colluvies hominum mirabiles excocti solo, immundi vestcs fcedi visu, furti imprimis acres, &c. ^ Cos- 
mog. lib. 3. cap. 5. f " Let no one in our city be a beggar." ' Seneca. Haud minus turpia principi 

multa supplicia, quam medico multa funera. "^ Ac pituitam et bilem a corpora (11 de legg.) omnes vult 

exterminari. » See Lipsius Admiranda. " De quo Suet, in Claudio, et Plinius, c. 36 p Ut egestati 

simul et ignavise occurratur, opificia condiscantur, teoues subleventur. Bodin. 1. 6. c. 2. num. 6, 7. 
<i Araasis iEgypti rex legem promulgavit, ut omnes subditi quotannis rationem redderent unde viverent 
"■ Bu.scoldus discursu polit. cap. 2. " whereby they are supported, and do not become vagrants by being less 
accustomed to labovu:." 'Lib. 1. de increm. Urb. cap. 6. t Cap. 5. de increm. urb Quas fiumen, lacus 
aut mare alluit. 



54 JDemocritus to the Header. 

neglected in a commonwealth. Admirable cost and charge is bestowed in the 
Low-countries on this behalf, in the duchy of Milan, territory of Padua, in 
" France, Italy, China, and so likewise about corrivations of water to moisten 
and refresh barren grounds, to drain fens, bogs, and moors. Massinissa made 
many inward parts of Barbary and Kumidia in Africa, before his time incult 
and horrid, fruitful and bartable by this means. Great industry is generally 
used all over the eastern countries in this kind, especially in Egypt, about 
Babylon and Damascus, as Yertomannus and ""Gotardiis Arthus relate; about 
Barcelona, Segovia, Murcia, and many other places of Spain, Milan in Italy ; 
by reason of which their soil is much impoverished, and infinite commodities 
arise to the inhabitants. 

The Turks of late attempted to cut that Isthmus betwixt Africa and Asia, 
which '' Sesostris and Darius, and some Pharaohs of Egypt liad formerly 
undertaken, but with ill success, as ^ Diodoriis Siculus records, and Pliny, for 
that Ped-sea being three * cubits higher than Egypt, would have drowned all 
the country, coepto destiterant, they left ofi"; yet as the same ''Diodoras writes, 
Ptolemy renewed the work many years after, and absolved it in a more oppor- 
tune place. 

That Isthmus of Corinth was likewise undertakea to be made navigable by 
Demetrius, by Julius Caesar, Nero, Domitian, Herodes Atticus, to make a 
speedy *= passage, and less dangerous, from the Ionian and ^gean seas; but 
because it could not be so well affected, thePeloponnesians built a wall like our 
Picts' wall about Schsenute, where Neptune's temple stood, and in the shortest 
cut over the Isthmus, of which Diodorus, lib, 11. Herodotus, lib. 8. Vran. Our 
latter writers call it Hexamilium, which Amurath the Turk demolished, the 
Venetians, anno 1453, repaired in 15 days with 30,000 men. Some, saith 
Acosta, would have a passage cut from Panama to Nombre de Dios in 
America; but Thuanus and Serres the French historians speak of a famous 
aqueduct in France, intended in Henry the Fourth's time, from the Loire to 
the Seine, and from Phodanus to the Loire. The like to which was formerly 
assayed by Domitian the emperor, ^ from Arar to Moselle, which Cornelius 
Tacitus speaks of in the 13th of his Annals, after by Charles the Great and 
others. Much cost hath in former times been bestowed in either new making 
or mending channels of rivers, and their passages, (as Aurclianus did by Tiber 
to make it navigable to Rome, to convey corn from Egypt to the city, vadum 
alvei tumeniis effodit saith Yopiscus, et Tiberis ripas extruxit, he cut fords, 
made banks, &c.) decayed havens, which Claudius the emperor, with infinite 
pains and charges, attempted at Ostia, as I have said, the Venetians at this 
day to preserve their city ; many excellent means to enrich their territories, 
havt been fostered, invented in most provinces of Europe, as planting some 
Indian plants amongst us, silk-worms, ^the very mulberry leaves in the plains 
of Granada yield 30,000 crowns per annum to the king of Spain's coffers, 
besides those many trades and artificers that are busied about them in the 
kingdom of Granada, Murcia, and all over Spain. In France a great benefit 
is raised by salt, &c., whether these things might not be as happily attempted 
with us, and with like success, it may be controverted, silk-worms (I mean), 
vines, fir trees, &c. Cardan exhorts Edward the Sixth to plant olives, and is 



1 1ncredibilem commoditatem, vectura mercium tres fluvli navigabiles, &c. Boterus de Gallia. * Hero- 
dotus. J Ind. Orient, cap. 2. Rotam in medio tiumine constituunt, cui ex pellibus animalium consutos 
uteres appendunt, lii dum rota movetur, aquam per canales, &c. ^ Centum pedes lata fossa, 30. alta. 
a Contrarj' to that of Archimedes, who holds the superficies of all waters even. ^ Lib. 1. cap. 3, 
'Dion. Pausanias, et Nic. Gerbelius. Munster. Cosm. Lib. 4. cap. 36. Ut brevior foret navigatio et minus 
periculosa. <i Charles the Great went about to make a channel from the Rhine to the Danube. Bil. Pir- 
kimerus descript. Ger. the ruins are yet seen about Wessenburg ft-om Rednich to Altimul. Ut navigabilia 
inter se Occidentis et Septentrionis littora fierent. e Maginus Geogr. Simlerus de rep. Helvet. 
lib. i. describit. 



Democritus to the Reader. 55 

fully persuaded they would prosper in this island. With us, navigable rivers 
are most part neglected ; our streams are not great, I confess, by reason of the 
narrowness of the island, yet they run smoothly and even, not headlong, swift, 
or amongst rocks and shelves, as foaming E,hodanus and Loire in France, 
Tigris in Mesopotamia, violent Durius in Spain, with cataracts and whirl- 
pools, as the Rhine, and Danubius, about Shaffausen, Lausenburgh, Linz, and 
Cremmes, to endanger navigators; or broad shallow, as Neckar in the Pala- 
tinate, Tibris in Italy ; but calm and fair as Arar in France, Hebrus in Mace- 
donia, Eurotas in Laconia, they gently glide along, and might as well be 
repaired many of them (I mean Wye, Trent, Ouse, Thamisis at Oxford, the 
defect of which we feel in the mean time) as the Kiver of Lee from Ware to 
London. B. Atwater of old, or as some will Henry I., ''made a channel from 
Trent to Lincoln, navigable ; which now, saith Mr. Camden, is decayed, and 
much mention is made of anchors, and such like monuments found about old 
* Verulamium, good ships have formerly come to Exeter, and many such places, 
whose channels, havens, ports, are now barred and rejected. We contemn this 
benefit of carriage by waters, and are therefore compelled in the inner parts of 
this island, because portage is so dear, to eat up our commodities ourselves, 
and live like so many boars in a sty, for want of vent and utterance. 

We have many excellent havens, royal havens, Falmouth, Portsmouth, Mil- 
ford, &c, equivalent if not to be preferred to that Indian Havanna, old Brun- 
dusium in Italy, Aulis in Greece, Ambracia in Acarnia, Suda in Crete, which 
have few ships in them, little or no traffic or trade, which have scarce a village 
on them, able to bear great cities, sed viderint poUtici. I could here justly tax 
many other neglects, abuses, errors, defects among us, and in other countries, 
depopulations, riot, dmnkenness, &c. and many such, quce nunc in aurem 
susurrare non libet. But I must take heed, ne quid gravius dicam, that I do 
not overshoot myself, Sus Minervam, I am forth of my element, as you perad- 
venture suppose ; and sometimes Veritas odium parit, as he said, " verj nice and 
oatmeal is good for a parrot." For as Lucian said of an historian, I say of a 
politician. He that will freely speak and write, must be for ever no subject, 
under no prince or law, but lay out the matter truly as it is, not caring what 
any can, will, like or dislike. 

We have good laws, I deny not, to rectify such enormities, and so in all 
other countries, but it seems not always to good purpose. We had need of 
some general visitor in our age, that should reform what is amiss; a just 
army of Posie-crosse men, for they will amend all matters (they say), religion, 
policy, manners, with arts, sciences, <fec. Another Attila, Tamerlane, Hercules, 
to strive with Achelous, Augece stahulum purgare, to subdue tyrants, as ^he 
did Diomedes and Busiris : to expel thieves, as he did Cacus and Lacinius : 
to vindicate poor captives, as he did Hesione : to pass the torrid zone, the 
deserts of Lybia, and purge the world of monsters and Centaurs : or another 
Theban Crates to reform our manners, to compose quarrels and controversies, 
as in his time he did, and was therefore adored for a god in Athens. "As 
Hercules ^ purged the world of monsters, and subdued them, so did he fight 
against envy, lust, anger, avarice, &c. and all those feral vices and monsters of 
the mind." It were to be wished we had some such visitor, or if wishing 
would serve, one had such a ling or rings, as Timolaus desired in 'Lucian, by 
virtue of which he should be as strong as 10,000 men, or an army of giants, 
go invisible, open gates and castle doors, have what treasure he would, trans- 

f Camden in Lincolnshire. Fossedike. *ISrear S. Albans, "which must not now be whispered in 

the ear." sLisius Girald. Nat. comes. *» Apuleius, lib. 4. Flor. Lar. familiaris inter homines a^tatis 

sii£e cultus est, litium omnium et jurgiorum inter propinquos arbiter et disceptator. Adversus iracundiara, 
invidiam, avaritiam, libidinem, ceteraq; animi humani vitia et monstra philosophus iste Hercules fuit. 
Pestea eas mentibus exegit omnes, &.c. ' Votis navig. 



5Q Democritus to the Reader. 

port liimself in an instant to what place he desired, alter affections, cure all 
manner of diseases, that he might range over the world, and reform all dis- 
tressed states and persons, as he would liimself. He might reduce those 
wandering Tartars in order, that infest China on the one side, Muscovy, Poland, 
on the other ; and tame the vagabond Arabians that rob and spoil those eastern 
countries, that they should never use more caravans, or janizaries to conduct 
them. He might root out barbarism out of America, and fully discover Teii'a 
Australis Incognita, find out the north-east and north-west passages, drain 
those mighty Meeotian fens, cut down those vast Hircinian woods, irrigate those 
barren Arabian deserts, &c. cure us of our epidemical diseases, soorhutmn, 
plica, morhus NeapolitOjnus, d'c. end all our idle controversies, cut off our tumul- 
tuous desires, inordinate lusts, root out atheism, impiety, heresy, schism, and 
superstition, which now so crucify the world, catechise gross ignorance, purge 
Italy of luxury and riot, Spain of superstition and jealousy, Germany of drunk- 
enness, all our northern country of gluttony and intemperance, castigate our 
hard-hearted parents, masters, tutors; lash disobedient children, negligent 
servants, correct these spendthrifts and prodigal sons, enforce idle persons to 
work, drive drunkards off the alehouse, repress thieves, visit corrupt and tyran- 
nizing magistrates, &c. But as L. Licinius taxed Timolaus, you may us. 
These are vain, absurd and ridiculous wishes not to be hoped : all must be as 
it is, '^Bocchalinus may cite commonwealths to come before Apollo, and seek 
to reform the world itself by commissioners, but there is no remedy, it may 
not be redressed, desinent homines turn demum stultescere quando esse desinent, 
so long as they can wag their beards, they will play the knaves and fools. 

Because, therefore, it is a thing so difficult, impossible, and far beyond Her- 
cules' labours to be performed ; let them be rude, stupid, ignorant, incult, lapis 
super lapidem sedeat, and as the ^apologist will, resfx tussi, et graveolentia, 
laboret, mundus vitio, let them be barbarous as they are, let them "tyrannize, 
epicurize, oppress, luxuriate, consume themselves with factions, superstitions, 
lawsuits, wars and contentions, live in riot, poverty, want, misery; rebel, 
wallow as so many swine in their own dung, with Ulysses' companions, stuUos 
jubeo esse lihenter. I will yet, to satisfy and please myself, make an Utopia 
of mine own, a new Atlantis, a poetical commonwealth of mine own, in which 
I will freely domineer, build cities, make laws, statutes, as I list myself. And 

why may I not? * Fictorihus atque poetis, &g. You know what liberty 

poets ever had, and besides, my predecessor Democritus was a politician, a 
recorder of Abdera, a law maker as some say; and why may not I presume so 
much as he did? Howsoever I will adventure. For the site, if you will 
needs urge me to it, I am not fully resolved, it may be in Terra Australi 
Incognita, there is room enough (for of my knowledge neither that hungry 
Spaniard,t nor Mercurius Britannicus, have yet discovered half of it) or else 
one of those floating islands in Mare del Zur, which like the Cyanian isles in 
the Euxine sea, alter their place, and are accessible only at set times, and to 
some few persons ; or one of the Fortunate isles, for who knows yet where, or 
which they are? there is room enough in the inner parts of America, and 
northern coasts of Asia. But I will choose a site, whose latitude shall be 45 
degrees (I respect not minutes) in the midst of the temperate zone, or perhaps 
under the equator, that J paradise of the world, uhi semper virens laurus, &g. 
where is a perpetual spring : the longitude for some reasons I will conceal. 
Yet " be it known to all men by these presents," that if any honest gentle- 
man will send in so much money, as Cardan allows an astrologer for casting 
a nativity, he shall be a sharer, I will acquaint him with my project, or if any 

ic Raggnalios, part 2, cap. 2, et part 3, c. 17. i Vclent. Andreas Apolog. manlp. 604. *" Qui 

sordidus est, sordescat adhuc. * Hor. f Ferdinando Quir. 1612. J Vide Acosta et Laiet. 



Detnocrltus to the Reader. 57 

•worthy man will stand for any temporal or spiritual ofB.ce or dignity, (for as 
he said of his archbishopric of Utopia, 'tis sanctus ambitus, and not amiss to 
be sought after,) it shall be freely given without all intercessions, bribes, 
letters, &c. his own worth shall be the best spokesman ; and because we shall 
admit of no deputies or advowsons, if he be sufficiently qualified, and as able 
as willing to execute the place himself, he shall have present possession. It 
shall be divided into 12 or 13 provinces, and those by hills, rivers, road- ways, 
or some more eminent limits exactly bounded. Each province shall have a 
metropolis, which shall be so placed as a centre almost in a circumference, and 
the rest at equal distances, some 12 Italian miles asunder, or thereabout, and 
in them shall be sold all things necessary for the use of man ; statis horis et 
diehus, no market tov/ns, markets or fairs, for they do but beggar cities (no 
village shall stand above 6, 7, or 8 miles from a city) except those emporiums 
which are by the sea side, general staples, marts, as Antwerp, Venice, Bergen 
of old, London, &c. cities most part shall be situated upon navigable rivers or 
lakes, creeks, havens ; and for their form, regular, round, square, or long square, 
" with fair, broad, and straight ° streets, houses uniform, built of brick and stone, 
like Bruges, Brussels, Bhegiuna Lepidi, Berne in Switzerland, Milan, Mantua, 
Crema, Cambalu in Tartary, described by M. Polus, or that Venetian palma. I 
will admit very few or no suburbs, and those of baser building, walls only to keep 
out man and horse, except it be in some frontier towns, or by the sea side, and 
those to be fortified ^after the latest manner of fortification, and situated upon 
convenient havens, or opportune places. In every so built city, I will have 
convenient churches, and separate places to bury the dead in, not in church- 
yards; a citadella (in some, not all) to command it, prisons for offenders, oppor- 
tune market places of all sorts, for corn, meat, cattle, fuel, fish, commodious 
courts of justice, public halls for all societies, bourses, meeting places, armouries, 
Pin which shall be kept engines for quenching of fire, artillery gardens, public 
walks, theatres, and spacious fields allotted for all gymnastic sports, and honest 
recreations, hospitals of all kinds, for children, orphans, old folks, sick men, 
mad men, soldiers, pest houses, &c. not built precarid, or by gouty benefactors, 
who, when by fraud and rapine they have extorted all their lives, oppressed 
whole provinces, societies, &c. give something to pious uses, build a satisfactory 
alms-house, school or bridge, &c. at their last end or before perhaps, which is 
no otherwise than to steal a goose, and stick down a feather, rob a thousand 
to relieve ten; and those hospitals so built and maintained, not by collections, 
benevolences, donaries, for a set number, (as in ours,) just so many and no 
more at such a rate, but for all those who stand in need, be they more or less, 
and that ex publico cerario, and so still maintained, non nobis solum nati 
sumus, (ho. I will have conduits of sweet and good water, aptly disposed in 
each town, common "^granaries, as at Dresden in Misnia, Stetein in Pomer- 
land, Noremberg, &c. Colleges of mathematicians, musicians, and actors, as 
of old at Labedum in Ionia, ''alchymists, physicians, artists, and philosophers : 
that all arts and sciences may sooner be perfected and better learned ; and 
public historiographers, as amongst those ancient ^Persians, qui in commen- 
tarios referebant quce menioratu digna gerebantur, informed and appointed by 
the state to register all famous acts, and not by each insufS,cieut scribbler, 
partial or parasitical pedant, as in our times. I will provide pablic schools of 
all kinds, singing, dancing, fencing, &c. especially of grammar and languages, 
not to be taught by those tedious precepts ordinarily used, but by use, example, 

m Vide Patritium, lib. 8. tit. 10. de Instit. Reipub. " Sic olim Hippodamus Jlilesitis Aiist. polit. cap. 

11. et Vitruvius 1. 1. c. ult. « With walls of eartli, &c. p De his Plin. epist. 42. lib. 2. et Tacit. 

Annal. 13. lib. q Vide Brisonium de regno Perse lib. 3. de his et Vegetinm, lib. 2. cap. 3. de Annoiia. 

rNot to make gold, but for matters of physic. sBresonius Joscphus, lib. 21. antiquit. Jud. cap. 6. 

Herod, lib. 3. 



5S Democritus to the Reader. 

conversation/ as travellers learn abroad, and nurses teach their children : as 
I will have all such places, so will I ordain "public governors, fit officers to 
each place, treasurers, eediles, questors, overseers of pupils, widows' goods, 
and all public houses, &c. and those once a year to make strict accounts of all 
receipts, expenses, to avoid confusion, et sicjiet ut non absumant (as Pliny to 
Trajan,) quodpudeat dicen^e. They shall be subordinate to those higher officers 
and governors of each city, which shall not be poor tradesmen, and mean 
artificers, but noblemen and gentlemen, which shall be tied to residence in 
those towns they dwell next, at such set times and seasons: for I see no 
reason (which ''Hippolitus complains of) "that it should be more dishonour- 
able for noblemen to govern the city than the country, or unseemly to dwell 
there now, than of old," ^I will have no bogs, fens, marshes, vast woods, 
deserts, heaths, commons, but all inclosed; (yet nat depopulated, and there- 
fore take heed you mistake me not) for that which is common, and every 
man's, is no man's; the richest countries are still inclosed, as Essex, Kent, 
with us, &c. Spain, Italy ; and where inclosures are least in quantity, they are 
best ''husbanded, as about Florence in Italy, Damascus in Syria, &c. which 
are liker gardens than fields. I will not have a barren acre in all my terri- 
tories, not so much as the tops of mountains : where nature fails, it shall be 
supplied by art : "" lakes and rivers shall not be left desolate. All common 
highways, bridges, banks, corrivations of waters, aqueducts, channels, public 
works, building, &c. out of a *" common stock, curiously maintained and kept 
in repaii' ; no depopulations, engrossings, alterations of wood, arable, but by the 
consent of some supervisors that shall be appointed for that purpose, to see 
what reformation ought to be had in all places, what is amiss, how to help it, 
et quid qvceque ferat reyio, et quid quceque recuset, what ground is aptest for 
wood, what for corn, what for cattle, gardens, orchards, fishponds, &c. with a 
charitable division in every village, (not one domineering house greedily to 
swallow up all, which is too common with us) what for lords, ''what for 
tenants ; and because they shall be better encouraged to improve such lands 
they hold, manure, plant trees, drain, fence, &c., they shall have long leases, a 
known rent, and known fine to free them from those intolerable exactions of 
tyrannizing landlords. These supervisors shall likewise appoint what quantity 
of land in each manor is fit for the lord's demesnes, ^what for holding of 
tenants, how it ought to be husbanded, ut^onagnetisequis, Minyce gens cognita 
remis, how to be manured, tilled, rectified, '^hic segetes veniunt, illic foelicius 
uvce, arborei foetus alibi, atque injussa virescunt Grainina, and what proportion 
is fit for all callings, because private professors are many times idiots, ill 
husbands, oppressors, covetous, and know not how to improve their own, or 
else wholly respect their own, and not public good. 

Utopian parity is a kind of government, to be wished for, ^rather than 
efiected, Respub. Christianopolitana, Campanella's city of the Sun, and that 
new Atlantis, witty fictions, but mere chimeras and Plato's community in many 

tSo Lod. Vives thinks best, Commineus, and otliers; ° Plato 3. de legg. jEdiles creari vult, qui fora, fontes, 
vias, portus, plateas, et id genus alia procurent. Vide Isaacum Pontanum de civ. Amstel. hiec omnia, &c. 
Gotardum et alios. ^ De Increm. urb. cap. 13. Ingenue fateor me non intelligere cur ignobilius sit urbes 
bene munitas colere nunc quam olira, aut casse rusticse proeesse quam urbi. Idem Ubertus Foliot., de Neapoli. 
y Ne tantillum quidem soli incultum relinquitur, ut vevura sit ne pollicem quidem agri in his regionibus sterilem 
aut infoecundum reperiri. Marcus Hemingius Augustanus de regno Chinas, 1. 1. c. 3. ^ M. Carew, in his 
survey of Cornwall, saith that before that countiy was inclosed, the husbandmen drank water, did eat little 
or no bread, fol. 66. lib. 1. their apparel was coarse, they went bare-legged, their dwelling was correspond, 
ent; but since inclosure, they live decently, and have money to spend (fol. 23); when their fields were 
common, their wool was coarse, Cornish hair; but since inclosure, it is almost as good as Cotswol, and 
their soil much mended. Tusser, cap. 52. of his husbandry, is of his opinion, one acre inclosed, is wortli 
three common. The country inclosed I praise; the other delighteth not me, for nothing of wealth it doth 
raise, &c. * Incredibilis navigiorum copia, nihilo pauciores in aquis, quam in continenti commorantur. 

M. Ricceus expedit. in Sinas, 1. 1. c. 3. ^ To this purpose, Arist. polit. 2. c. 6. allows a third part of 

their revenues, Hippodamus half. •= Ita lex Agraria olim RomaB. ^ Hie segetes, illic veniunt foelicius ^ 

uvae, Arborei foetus alibi, atq; injussa virescunt Gramina. Virg. 1. Georg. « Lucanus, 1. 6. * Virg. 

f Joh. Valent. Andreas, Lord Verulam. 



Democritus to tlie Reader. 59 

things is impious, absurd and ridiculous, it takes away all splendour and mag- 
nificence. I will have several orders, degrees of no])ility, and those hereditary, 
not rejecting younger brothers in the mean time, for they shall be sufficiently 
provided for by pensions, or so qualified, brought up in some honest calling, 
they shall be able to live of themselves. I will have such a proportion of 
ground belonging to every barony, he that buys the land shall buy the 
barony, he that by riot consumes his patrimony, and ancient demesnes, shall 
forfeit his honours.^ As some dignities shall be hereditary, so some again by 
election, or by gift (besides free offices, pensions, annuities,) like our bishop- 
rics, prebends, the Basso's palaces in Turkey, the ^procurator's houses and 
offices in Venice, which, like the golden apple, shall be given to the worthiest, 
and best deserving both in war and peace, as a reward of their worth and good 
service, as so many goals for all to aim at, (Jionos edit artes) and encourage- 
ments to others. For T hate these severe, unnatural, harsh, German, French, 
and Venetian decrees, which exclude plebeians from honours, be they never so 
wise, rich, virtuous, valiant, and well qualified, they must not be patricians, 
but keep their own rank, this is naturce helium inferre, odious to God and men, 
I abhor it. My form of government shall be monarchical. 



■ nunqnam libertas gratior extat, 



Quam sul) Rege pio," &c. 

Few laws, but those severely kept, plainly put down, and in the mother tongue, 
that every man may understand. Every city shall have a peculiar trade or 
privilege, by which it shall be chiefly maintained : 'and parents shall teach their 
children one of three at least, bring up and instruct them in the mysteries 
of their own trade. In each town these several tradesmen shall be so aptly 
disposed, as they shall free the rest from danger or offence : fire-trades, as 
smiths, forge-men, brewers, bakers, metal-men, &c., shall dwell apart by them- 
selves: dyers, tanners, felmongers, and such as use water in convenient places 
by themselves: noisome or fulsome for bad smells, as butchers' slaughter- 
houses, chandlers, curriers, in remote places, and some back lanes. Frater- 
nities and companies, I approve of, as merchants' bourses, colleges of druggists, 
physicians, musicians, &c., but all trades to be rated in the sale of wares, as 
our clerks of the market do bakers and bi-ewers ; corn itself, what scarcity 
soever shall come, not to exceed such a price. Of such wares as are trans- 
ported or brought in, '"if they be necessary, commodious, and such as nearly 
concern man's life, as corn, wood, coal, &c., and such provision we cannot 
want, I will have little or no custom paid, no taxes; but for such things as are 
for pleasure, delight, or ornament, as wine, spice, tobacco, silk, velvet, cloth of 
gold, lace, jewels, &c., a greater impost. I will have certain ships sent out for 
new discoveries every year, 'and some discreet men appointed to travel into all 
neighbouring kingdoms by land, which shall observe what artificial inventions 
and good laws are in other countries, customs, alterations, or aught else, 
concerning war or peace, which may tend to the common good. Ecclesiastical 
discipline, jjfg^zes Episcopos, subordinate as the other. No impropriations, no lay 
patrons of church livings, or one private man, but common societies, corpora- 
tions, &c., and those rectors of benefices to be chosen out of the Universities, 
examined and approved, as the literati in China. No parish to contain above 
a thousand auditors. If it were possible, I would have such priests as should 



B So is it in the kingdom of Naples and France. ^ See Contarenus and Osorius de rebus gestis Eraa- 

nuelis. *Claudian 1. 7. "Liberty never is more gratifying than iinder a pious king." 'Herodotus 

Erato lib. 6. Cum ^Egyptiis Lacedemonii in hoc congruunt, quod eormn prajcones, tibicines, coqui, et reliqui 
artifices, in paterno artificio succedunt, et coquus a coquo gignitur, et paterno opere perseverat. Idem 
Marcus Polus de Quinzay. Idem Osorius de Emanuele rege Lusitano. Riccius de Sinis. ^ Hippol. a 

collibus de increra. urb. c. 20. Plato idem 7. de legibus, qute ad vitam necessaria, et quibus carere non 
possumus, nullum depend! vectigal, etc. i Plato 12 de legibus, 40 annos natos vult, ut si quid memorabile 
viderent apud exteros, hoc ipsum iu rempub. recipiatur. 



GO Democritus to the Reader. 

imitate Christ, cliaritable lawyers should love their neighbours as themselves, 
temperate and modest physicians^ politicians contemn the world, philosophers 
should know themselves, noblemen live honestly, tradesmen leave lying and 
cozening, magistrates, corruption, &c., but this is impossible, I must get such 
as I may. I will therefore have "^of lawyers, judges, advocates, physicians, 
chirurgeons, &c., a set number, "and every man, if it be possible, to plead his 
own cause, to tell that tale to the judge which he doth to his advocate, as at 
Fez in Africa, Bantam, Aleppo, Ragusa, suam quisque causam dicere tenetur. 
Those advocates, chirurgeons, and ° physicians, which are allowed to be main- 
tained out of the P common treasury, no fees to be given or taken upon pain of 
losing their places; or if they do, very small fees, and when the ^ cause is fully 
ended. '"He that sues any man shall put in a pledge, which if it be proved he. 
hath wrongfully sued his adversary, rashly or maliciously, he shall forfeit, and 
lose. Or else before any suit begin, the plaintiff shall have his complaint 
approved by a set delegacy to that purpose ; if it be of moment he shall be 
suffered as before, to proceed, if otherwise, they shall determine it. All causes 
shall be pleaded suppresso nomine, the parties' names concealed, if some circum- 
stances do not otherwise require. Judges and other officers shall be aptly 
disposed in each province, villages, cities, as common arbitrators to hear causes, 
and end all controversies, and those not single, but three at least on the bench 
at once, to determine or give sentence, and those again to sit by turns or lots, 
and not to continue still in the same office. No controversy to depend above a 
year, but without all delays and further appeals to be speedily dispatched, and 
finally concluded in that time allotted. These and all other inferior magis- 
trates to be chosen ^as the literati in China, or by those exact suffrages of the 
* Venetians, and such again not to be eligible, or capable of magistracies, 
honours, offices^ except they be sufficiently " qualified for learning, manners, and 
that by the strict approbation of reputed examiners: ^first scholars to take 
place, then soldiers ; for I am of Yigetius his opinion, a scholar deserves better 
than a soldier, because Unius cetatis sunt quae fortiter fiunt, qum vero pro 
utilitate Reipub. scribuntur, ceterna: a soldier's work lasts for an age, a 
scholar's for ever. If they ^misbehave themselves, they shall be deposed, and 
accordingly punished, and whether their offices be annual ^or otherwise, once a 
year they shall be called in question, and give an account; for men are partial, 
and passionate, merciless, covetous, corrupt, subject to love, hate, fear, favour, 
&c., omme sub regno graviore regnuni.: like Solon's Areopagites, or those Koman 
Censors, some shall visit others, and ^be visited inmcem themselves, ''they shall 
oversee that no prowling officer, under colour of authority, shall insult over his 
inferiors, as so many wild beasts, oppress, domineer, flea, grind, or trample on, 
be partial or corrupt, but that there be cequab He jus, justice equally done, live 
as friends and brethren together; and which ° Sesellius would have and so much 
desires in his kingdom of France, " a diapason and sweet harmony of kings, 



m Simlerus in Helvelia. ° Utopienses causidicos excludimt, qui causas callide et vafre tractent et 

disputent. Iniquissimum censent hominem ullis ot)li2,ari legibus, quss aut numerosiores sunt, quam ut perlegi 
queant, aut obscuriores quam ut a quovis possint intelligi. Volunt ut suam quisque causam agat, eamq; 
referat Judici quam narraturus fuerat patrono ; sic minus erit ambagum, et Veritas facilius elicietur. Mor. 
Utop. 1. 2. o Medici ex publico victum sumunt. Boter. 1. I.e. 5. de ^gyptiis. p De his lege Patrit. 

1. 3. tit. 8. de reip. Instit. i Nihil h clientibus patroni accipiant, priusquam lis finita est. Barcl. Argen,. 

nb. 3. ■■ It is so in most free cities in Germany. s Mat. Riccius exped. in Sinas, 1. 1. c. 5. de exami- 

natione electionum copiose agit, &c. tContar. de repub. Venet. 1. 1. "Osor. 1. 11. de reb. gest. 

Eman. Qui in Uteris maximos progressus fecerint maximis honoribus afficiuntur, secundus honoris gradus 
militibus assig-natm\ postremi ordinis mechanicis, doctorum hominum judiciis in altiorem locum quisq; 
pr^fertur, et qui a plurimis approbatur, ampliores in rep. dignitates consequitur. Qui in hoc examine 
primas habet, insigni per totam vitam dignitate insignitur, marchioni similis, aut duci apud nos. ^ Cedant 
arma togse.. y As in Berne, Lucerne, Friburge in Switzerland, a vicious liver is uncapable of any oflSce; 

if a Senator, instantly deposed. Simlerus. '^ Not above three years, Arist. polit. 5. c. 8. » Nam 

quis custodiet ipsos custodes ? ^ Cytreus in Greisgeia. Qui non ex sublimi despiciant inferiores, nee ut 

bestias conculcent sibi subditos, auctoritatis nomini conflsi, &c. <= Sesellius de rep. Gallorum, lib. 

1&2. 



Democritus to the Reader. 61 

princef3, nobles, and plebeians so mutually tied and involved in love, as well as 
laws and authority, as that they never disagree, insult or encroach one upon 
another." If any man deserve well in his office he shall be rewarded. 

" quis enim virhitem amplectitur ipsam, 

Prcemia si tollas ? " — -■ — -* 

He that invents anything for public good in any art or science, writes a treatise, 
^ or performs any noble exploit, at home or abroad, " shall be accordingly 
enriched, ^ honoured, and preferred. I say with Haiinib?ol in Ennius, Ilosteni 
quiferiet erit mihi Carthaginiensis, let him be of what condition he will, in all 
offices, actions, he that deserves best shall have best. 

Tilianus in Philonius, out of a charitable mind no doubt, wished all his books 
were gold and silver, jewels and precious stones, tto redeem captives, set free 
prisoners, and relieve all poor distressed souls that wanted means; religiously 
done, I deny not, but to what purpose? Suppose this were so well done, within 
a little after, though a man had Croesus' wealth to bestow, there would be as 
many more. Wherefore I will suffer no ^beggars, rogues, vagabonds, or idle 
persons at all, that cannot give an account of their lives how they ^ maintain 
themselves. If they be impotent, lame, blind, and single, they shall be suffi- 
ciently maintained in several hospitals, built for that purpose ; if married and 
inSrm, past work, or by inevitable loss, or some such like misfortune cast 
behind, by distribution of ' corn, house-rent free, annua-l pensions or money, 
they shall be relieved, and highly rewarded for their good service they have 
formerly done; if able, they shall be enforced to work. '"^For I see no reason 
(as ^ he said) why an epicure or idle drone, a rich glutton, a usurer, should live 
at ease and do nothing, live in honour, in all manner of pleasures, and oppress 
others, when as in the meantime a poor labourer, a smith, a carpenter, an 
husbandman that hath spent his time in continual labour, as an ass to carry 
burdens to do the commonwealth good, and without whom we cannot live, shall 
be left in his old age to beg or starve, and lead a miserable life worse than a 
jument." As ""all conditions shall be tied to their task, so none shall be over- 
tired, but have their set times of recreations and holidays, indulgere gsnio, 
feasts and merry meetings, even to the meanest artificer, or basest servant, 
once a week to sing or dance, (though not all at once) or do whatsoever he 
shall please; like ° that Saccarum festwn amongst the Persians, those Saturnals 
in Rome, as well as his master. ° If any be drunk, he shall drink no more wine 
or strong drink in a twelvemonth after. A bankrupt shall be ^ Gatademiatus 
in AQnpliitheatro, publicly shamed, and he that cannot pay his debts, if by riot or 
negligence, he have been impoverished, shall be for a twelvemonth imprisoned, 
if in that space his creditors be not satisfied, "^he shall be hanged. He ''that 



* " For who would culth'ate virtue itself, if you were to take away the reward ? " ^ si quis egregium 

aut bello aut pace perfecerit. Sesel. 1. 1. e ^d regendam rempuh. soli literati admittuntur, nee 

ad earn rem gratia raagistratuum aut regis indigent, omnia explorata cujusq; scientia et virtute pendent. 
Riccius lib. 1. cap. 5. fin defuncti locum eum jussit subrogari, qui inter majores virtute reliquis 

prajiret; non fuit apud mortales uUum excellentius certamen, aut cujus victoria magis esset expetenda, nou 
enim inter celeres celerrimo, non inter robustos robustissimo, &c. f Nullum videres vel in 

hac vel in vicinis regionibus pauperem, nullum obseratum, &c. g NuUus mendicus apud Sinas, 

nemini sano, quamvis oculis turbatus sit, mendicare permittitur, omnes pro viribus laborare coguntur, 
cseci molis trusatilibus versandis addicuntur, soli hospitiis gaudent, qui ad labores sunt inepti. Osor. 1. 11. 
de reb. gest. Eman. Heraing. de reg. Chin. 1. 1. c. 3. Gotard. Arth. Orient. Ind. descr. '^ Alex, ab 

Alex. 3. c. 12. • Sic olim Romgg Isaac. Pontan. de his optime. Amstel. 1. 2. c. 9. ^idem Aristot. 

pol. 5. c.8. Vitiosum quura soli pauperum liberi educantur ad labores, nobilium et divitum in voluptatibus 
et deliciis. 'Quee htec injustitia ut nobilis quispiam, aut foenerator qui nihil agat, laatam et splendidam 
vitam agat, otio et deliciis, quum interim auriga, faber, agricola, quo respub. carere non potest, vitam adeo 
iniseram ducat, ut pejor quam jumentorum sit ejus conditio ? Iniqua resp. quas dat pai-asitis, adulatoribus, 
inanium voluptatum artiflcibus generosis et otiosis tanta munera prodigit, at contra agricolis, carbonariis, 
aurigis, fabris, &c. nihil prospicit, sed eorum abusa labore fiorentis tetatis, fame penset et terumnis, Mor. 
Utop. 1.2. 11 In Segovia nemo otiosus, nemo mendicus nisi per setatem aut morbum opus facere 

non potest : nulli deest unde victum quasrat, aat quo se exerceat. Cypr. Echovius Delit. Hispan. Nullus 
Genevse otiosus, ne septennis puer. Paulus Heuzner Itiner. " Athenajus, 1. 12. o simlerus de 

repub. Helvet. p Spartian. olim Kom« sic. q He that provides not for his family, is worse thau 

a thief. Paul. ' Alfred! lex: utraq; inanus et lingua prsecidatur, nisi earn capite redem erit. 



02 Democritus to the Reader. 

commits sacrilege sliall lose his hands ; he that bears false witness, or is of 
perjury convicted, shall have his tongue cut out, except he redeem it with his 
head. Murder, ^ adultery, shall be punished by death, * but not theft, except 
it be some more grievous offence, or notorious offenders : otherwise they shall 
be condemned to the galleys, mines, be his slaves whom they have offended, 
during their lives. I hate all hereditary slaves, and that duram Persarum 
legem as "^ Brisonius calls it; or as "^ Ammianus, impendio formidatas et abo- 
minandas leges, per quas oh noxam unius, omnis propinquitas perit, hard law 
that wife and children, friends and allies, should suffer for the father's offence. 

No man shall marry until he ^be 25, no woman till she be 20, ^nisi aliter 
dispensatum fuerit. If one * die, the other party shall not marry till six 
months after; and because many families are compelled to live niggardly, 
exhaust and undone by great dowers, ^ none shall be given at all, or very 
little, and that by supervisors rated, they that are foul shall have a greater 
portion; if fair, none at all, or very little: ** howsoever not to exceed such a 
rate as those supervisors shall think fit. And when once they come to those 
years, poverty shall hinder no man from marriage, or any other respect, * but 
all shall be rather enforced than hindered, ® except they be ^ dismembered, or 
grievously deformed, infirm, or visited with some enormous hereditary disease, 
in body or mind; in such cases upon a great pain, or mulct, ^man or woman 
shall not marry, other order shall be taken for them to their content. If 
people overabound, they shall be eased by ^ colonies. 

' JNTo man shall wear weapons in any city. The same attire shall be kept, 
and that proper to several callings, by which they shall be distinguished. 
^ Luxus funerum shall be taken away, that intempestive expense moderated, 
and many others. Brokers, takers of pawns, biting usurers, I will not admit; 
yet because hic cum hominihus non cum diis agitur, we converse here with 
men, not with gods, and for the hardness of men's hearts, I will tolerate some 
kind of usury .^ If we were honest, I confess, si probi essemus, we should 
have no use of it, but being as it is, we must necessarily admit it. Howsoever 
most divines contradict it, diciraus inficias, sed vox ea sola reperta est, it must 
be winked at by politicians. And yet some great doctors approve of it, Calvin, 
Bucer, Zanchius, P. Martyr, because by so many grand lawyers, decrees of 
emperors, princes' statutes, customs of commonwealths, churches' approbations, 
it is permitted, &c. I will therefore allow it. But to no private persons, nor 
to every man that will, to orphans only, maids, widows, or such as by reason of 
their age, sex, education, ignorance of trading, know not otherwise how to 
employ it; and those so approved, not to let it out apart, but to bring their 
money to a ™ common bank which shall be allowed in every city, as in Genoa, 
Geneva,* Nuremberg, Venice, at ° 5, 6, 7, not above 8 per centum, as the 



s Si quis ntiptam stupvarit, virga virilis ei prsecidatur ; si mulier, nasus et auricula prpecidantur, Alfredi 
lex. En leges ipsi Veneri Mavtiq; timendas. t Pauperes non peccant, quum extrema necessitate coacti, 

rem alienam capiunt. Maldonat. suramula qusest. 8. art. 3. Kgo cum illis sentio qui licere putant a 
divite clam accipere, qui tenetur pauperi subvenire. Emmanuel Sa. Aphor. confess. " Lib. 2. 

de reg. Persarum. ^lAh. 24. y Aliter Aristoteles, a man at 25, a woman at 20. polit. 

* Lex. olim Licurgi, hodie Chinensium ; vide Plutarchum, Riccium, Hemmingium, Arniseum, Nevisanum, 
et alios de liac quisstione. » Alfredus. ^ Apud Lacones olim virgines sine dote nubebant. 

Boter. 1. 3. c. 3. <=Lege cautum non ita pridem apud Venetos, ne quis Patritius dotem excederet 

1500 coron. ^ Bux. Synag. Jud. Sic Judsei. i.eo Afer Africte descript. ne sint aliter incontinentes 

ob reipub. bonum. Ut August. Csesar. orat. ad cielibes Romanos olim edocuit. oMorbo laboi-ans, 

qui in prolem facile diffunditur, ne genus humanum foeda contagione Isedatur, juventute castratur, mulieres 
tales procul a consortio virorum ablegantur, &c. Hector Boetliius hist. lib. 1. de vet. Scotorum moribus. 
*■ Speciosissimi juvenes liberis dabunt operam. Plato 5. de legibus. eThe Saxons exclude dumb, 

blind, leprous, and such like persons from all inheritance, as we do fools. •> Ut olim Romani, 

Hispani hodie, &c. iRiccius lib. 11. cap. 5. de Sinarum expedit. sic Hispani cogunt Mauros arma 

deponere. • So it is in most Italian cities. k idem Plato 12. de legibus, it hath ever been immoderate, 

vide Guil. Stuckium antiq. convival. lib. 1. cap. 26. ' Plato 9. de legibus. •" As those 

Lombards beyond Seas, though with some reformation, mons pietatis, or bank of charity, as Malines terms 
it, cap. 33. Lex mercat. part 2. that lend money upon easy pawns, or take money upon adventure for men's 
lives. n That proportion will make merchandise increase, land dearer, and better improved, as he hatU 

judicially proved in his tract of usury, exhibited to tlie Parliament anno 1621. - • 



Democritus to the Reader. 63 

supervisors, or cerarii prcefecti shall think fit. "And as it shall not be lawful 
for each man to be an usurer that will, so shall it not be lawful for all to take 
up money at use, not to prodigals and spendthrifts, but to merchants, young 
tradesmen, such as stand in need, or know honestly how to employ it, whose 
necessity, cause and condition the said supervisors shall approve of. 

I will have no private monopolies, to enrich one man, and beggar a multi- 
tude, ^multiplicity of offices, of supplying by deputies, weights and measures, 
the same throughout, and those rectified by the Primum mobile, and sun's 
motion, threescore miles to a degree according to observation, 1000 geometri- 
cal paces to a mile, five foot to a pace, twelve inches to a foot, &c. and from 
measures known it is an easy matter to rectify weights, &c. to cast up all, and 
resolve bodies by algebra, stereometry. I hate wars if they be not ad populi 
salutem, upon urgent occasion, " * odimus accipitrem, quia semper vivit in armis,'^ 
^oflensive wars, except the cause be very just, I will not allow of. For I do 
highly magnify that saying of Hannibal to Scipio, in " Livy, " It had been a 
blessed thing for you and us, if God had given that mind to our predecessors, 
that you had been content with Italy, we with Africa. Tor neither Sicily nor 
Sardinia are worth such cost and pains, so many fleets and armies, or so many 
famous Captains' lives." Omnia prius tentanda, fair means shall first be 
tried. ^ Peragit tranquilla potestas, Quod violenta nequit. I will have them 
proceed with all moderation : but hear you, Eabius my general, not Minutius, 
nam t qui Consilio nititur plus hostibus nocet, quofm qui sine animi ratione, 
viribus: And in such wars to abstain as much as is possible from * depopula- 
tions, burning of towns, massacring of infants, &c. For defensive wars, I 
will have forces still ready at a small warning, by land and sea, a prepared 
navy, soldiers in procinctu, et quam % Bonfinius apud Hungaros suos vult, 
virgam ferream, and money, which is nervus belli, still in a readiness, and a 
sufficient revenue, a third part as in old '^Home and Egypt, reserved for the 
commonwealth; to avoid those heavy taxes and impositions, as well to defray 
this charge of wars, as also all other public defalcations, expenses, fees, pen- 
sions, reparations, chaste sports, feasts, donaries, rewards, and entertainments. 
All things in this nature especially I will have maturely done, and with great 
^deliberation: ne quid^temere, ne quid remisse ac timidefiat; Sed qubferor 
hospes ? To prosecute the rest would require a volume. Manum de tabella, 
I have been over tedious in this subject ; I could have here willingly ranged, 
but these straits wherein I am included will not permit. 

From commonwealths and cities, I will descend to families, which have as 
many corsives and molestations, as frequent discontents as the rest. Great 
affinity there is betwixt a political and economical body; they differ only in 
magnitude and proportion of business (so Scaliger ''writes) as they have both 
likely the same period, as ^ Bodin and ^ Peucer hold, out of Plato, six or seven 
hundred years, so many times they have the same means of their vexation and 
overthrows; as namely, riot, a common ruin of both, riot in building, riot in 
profuse spending, riot in apparel, &c. be it in what kind soever, it produceth 
the same effects. A ° corographer of ours speaking obiter of ancient families, 



«Hoc fere Zanchius com. in 4 cap. ad Ephes. sequissimam vocat usurara, et charitati Christians con- 
sentaneam, modo non exigant, &c. nee omnes dent ad foenus, sed 11 qui in pecuniis bona liabent, et ob 
setatera, sexum, artis alicujus ignorantiam, non possunt utl. Nee omnibus sed mercatoribus et lis qui honeste 
impendent, &c. p Idem apud Persas ollm, lege Brlsonlum. * " We hate the hawk, because 

he always lives in battle." <i Idem Plato de legibus. 'Lib. 30. Optimum quldem fuerat earn 

patrlbus nostris mentem a dlls datam esse, ut vos Italige, nos Afrlcse imperlo contentl essemus. Neque enlm 
Sicilla aut Sardinia satis digna precio sunt pro tot classlbus, &c. » Claudlan. f Thucldides. 

tA depopulatlone, agrorum incendlis, et ejusmodi factls immanlbus. Plato. $ Hungar. dec. 1. lib. 9. 

n Sesellius, lib. 2 de repub. Gal. valde enlm est indecorum, ubi qaod praster opinlonem accldlt, dicere, Non 

putaram, presertim sires prsecaveri potuerlt. Llvius, lib. 1. Dion. lib. 2. Diodorus Slculus lib. 2 . 

» Peragit tranquilla potestas, Quod violenta nequit. Claudlan. s Bellum nee timendum nee 

provocandum. Plin. Panegyr. Trajano. ^Lib. 3. poet. cap. 19. »Lib. 4. de repub. cap. 2. 

b Peucer. lib. 1. de divinat. « Camden in Cheshire. 



"64 Democritus to tloe Reader. 

wliy they are so frequent in the north, continue so long, are so soon extin- 
guished in the south, and so few, gives no other reason but this, luxus omnia 
dissipavit, riot hath consumed all, fine clothes and curious buildings came into 
this island, as he notes in his annals, not so many years since; non sine dis~ 
2oendio hosjntalitatis, to the decay of hospitality. Howbeit many times that 
word is mistaken, and under the name of bounty and hospitality, is shrouded 
riot and prodigality, and that which is commendable in itself well used, hath 
been mistaken heretofore, is become by his abuse, the bane and utter ruin of 
many a noble family. For some men live like the rich glutton, consuming 
themselves and their substance by continual feasting and invitations, with 
^ Axilon in Ilomer, keep open house for all comers, giving entertainment to 
such as visit them, ® keeping a table beyond their means, and a company of 
idle servants (though not so frequent as of old) are blown up on a sudden; and 
as Actseon was by his hounds, devoured by their kinsmen, friends, and multi- 
tude of followers; ^ It is a wonder that Paulus Jovius relates of our northern 
countries, what an infinite deal of meat we consume on our tables; that I may 
truly say, 'tis not bounty, not hospitality, as it is often abused, but riot and 
excess, gluttony and prodigality; a mere vice; it brings in debt, want, and 
beggary, hereditary diseases, consumes their fortunes, and overthrows the good 
temperature of their bodies. To this I might here well add their inordinate 
expense in building, those fantastical houses, tui rets, walks, parks, &c. gaming, 
excess of pleasure, and that prodigious riot in apparel, by which means they 
are compelled to break up house, and creep into holes. Sesellius in his com- 
monwealth of ^France, gives three reasons why the French nobility were so 
frequently bankrupts : " First, because they had so many law-suits and con- 
tentions one upon another, which were tedious and costly; by which means it 
came to pass, that commonly lawyers bought them out of their possessions. A 
second cause was their riot, they lived beyond their means, and were therefore 
swallowed up by merchants." (La Novo, a French writer, yields five reasons 
of his countrymen's poverty, to the same efiect almost, and thinks verily if the 
gentry of France were divided into ten parts, eight of them would be found 
much impaired, by sales, mortg;iges, and debts, or wholly sunk in their 
estates.) ''The last was immoderate excess in p.pparel, which consumed their 
revenues." How this concerns and agrees with our present state, look you. 
But of this elsewhere. As it is in a man's body, if either head, heart, stomach, 
liver, spleen, or any one part be misaffected, all the rest sufier with it : so is 
it with this economical body. If the head be naught, a spendthrift, a drunk- 
ard, a whoremaster, a gamester, how shall the family live at ease ? ^Ipsa si 
cupiat salus servare prorsus, non potest, hancfamiliam, as Demea said in the 
comedy, Safety herself cannot save it. A good, honest, painful man many 
times hath a shrew to his wife, a sickly, dishonest, slothful, foolish, careless 
woman to his mate, a proud, peevish flirt, a liquorish, prodigal quean, and by 
that means all goes to ruin : or if they differ in nature, he is thrifty, she spends 
all, he wise, she sottisli and soft ; what agreement can there be 1 what friend- 
ship? Like that of the thrush and swallow in ^sop, instead of mutual love, 
kind compellations, whore and thief is heard, they fling stools at one another's 
heads. ' Quce intemperies vexat lianc familiani ? All enforced marriages 
commonly produce such efiects, or if on their behalfs it be well, as to live and 
agree lovingly together, they may have disobedient and unruly children, that 



tiniacl. 6. lib. e vide Puteani Comum, Goclenium de portentosis coenis nostrorum temporum. 

f Mirabile dictu est, quantum opsoniorum una domus singulis diebus absumat, sternuntur raensse in omnes 
pene horas, calentibus semper eduliis. Descrip. Britan. sLib. 1. de rep. Gallorum; quod tot lites 

et causae forenses, aliae ferautm- ex aliis, in immensum producantur, et magnos sumptus requirant, unde fit 
ut juris administri plerumque nobilium possessiones adquirant, turn quod sumptuose vivant, et a merqatori- 
bus absorbentur et spleudidissime vestiantui-, &c. ^Ter. . >Ampliit. Plaut. 



Democritus to tJie Reader. 65 

take ill courses to disquiet them, ^ '• their son is a thief, a spendthrift, theif 
daughter a whore;" a step ^mother, or a daugliter-in-law, distempers all;™ 
or else for want of means, many torturers arise, debts, dues, fees, dowries, 
jointures, legacies to be paid, annuities issuing out, by means of which, they 
have not wherewithal to maintain themselves in that pomp as their predeces- 
sors have done, bring np or bestov/ their children to their callings, to their 
birth and quality, ° and will not descend to their present fortunes. Often- 
times, too, to aggravate the rest, concur maDy other inconveniences, unthank- 
ful friends, decayed friends, bad neighbours, negligent servants, ° servi furaces, 
versipelles, callidi, occlusa sibi onille clavibus reserant, furtimque; raptant, 
consumunt, Ugurmnt; casualties, taxes, mulcts, chargeable offices, vain ex- 
penses, entertainments, loss of stock, enmities, emulations, frequent invitations, 
losses, suretyship, sickness, death of friends, and that which is the gulf of 
all, improvidence, ill husbandry, disorder and confusion, by which means 
they are drenched on a sudden in their estates, and at unawares precipitated 
insensibly into an inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief, 
discontent and melancholy itself. 

I have done with families, and will now briefly run over some few sorts and 
conditions of men. The most secure, happy, jovial, and merry in the world's 
esteem are princes and great men, free from melancholy : but for their cares, 
miseries, suspicions, jealousies, discontents, folly and madness, I refer you to 
Xenophon's Tyrannus, where king Hieron discourseth at large with Simonides 
the poet, of this subject. Of all others they are most troubled with per- 
petual fears, anxieties, insomuch that, as he said in ^ Valerius, if thou knewest 
with what cares and miseries this robe were stuffed, thou wouldst not stoop 
to take it up. Or put case they be secure and free from fears and discon- 
tents, yet they are void ^ of reason too oft, and precipitate in their actions, 
read all our histories, quos de stultis prodidere stulti, lliades, ^neides, Annales, 
and what is the subject ? 

" Stultorum regum, et popiilorum eontinet jsstus." 

The giddy tumults and the foolish rage 
Of kings and people. 

How mad they are, how furious, and upon small occasions, rash and incon- 
siderate in their proceedings, how they doat, every page almost will witness, 

" delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi." 

When doating monarchs urge 

Unsound resolves, their subjects feel the scourge. 

Next in place, next in miseries and discontents, in all manner of hair-brain 
actions, are great men, procul a Jove, 2^focid a fahnine, the nearer the worse. 
If they live in court, they are up and dow^n, ebb and flow with their princes' 
favours, Ingeniu7)i vultu statque caditque suo, now aloft, to-morrow down, as 
"■ Poly bins describes them, " like so many casting counters, now of gold, to- 
morrow of silver, that vary in worth as the computant will ; now they stand for 
units, to-morrow for thousaiivds; now before all, and anon behind." Beside, 
they torment one another with mutual factions, emulations: one is ambitious, 
another enamoured, a third in debt, a prodigal, overruns his fortunes, a fourth 
solicitous with cares, gets nothing, &c. But for these men's discontents, 
anxieties, I refer you to Lucian s Tract, de 'mercede conductis, ^^neas Sylvius 
(libidinis et stuUidce servos, he calls them), Agrippa, and many others. 

1^ Paling. Filius aut fur. i Catus cum mure, duo galli simul in sede, Et glotes binas nunquam vivunt 

sine lite. "' Res angusta domi. " When pride and beggary meet in a family, they roar and howl, 

and cause as many flashes of discontents, as fire and -water, -when they concur, make thunder-claps in the 
skies. " Plautus Aulular. p Lib. 7. cap. 6. iPellitur in bellis sapientia, vi geritur res. Vetus 

proverbium, autregem aut fiituum nasci oportere. ^'LVb. 1. hist. Rom. Similes tot bacculorum calculis, 

secundum computantis arbitrium, modo eerei sunt, modo aurei: ad nutum regis nunc beati sunt nunc 
niiseri. ^ .^rumnosique Soloues in Sa. 3. De miser curialiuin. 

F 



66 Democritus to the Reader. 

Of philosopliers and scliolars pfiscce sapieniice dictatores, I have already 
spoken in general terms, those superintendents of wit and learning, men above 
men, those refined men, minions of the muses, 

tmentemque habere quels bonam 



Et esse " corculis datum est. 



* These acute and subtle sophisters, so much honoured, have as much need of 

hellebore as others. ^ medici mediam pertundlte venam. Bead 

Lucian's Piscator, and tell how he esteemed them ; Agrippa's Tract of the 
vanity of Sciences ; nay, read their own works, their absurd tenets, prodigious 
paradoxes, et rismn teiieatis amici ? You shall find that of Aristotle true, 
nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementice, they have a worm as well 
as others; you shall find a fantastical strain, a fustian, a bombast, a vain- 
glorious humour, an aflected style, &c., like a prominent thread in an uneven 
woven cloth, run parallel throughout their works. And they that teach wisdom, 
patience, meekness, are the veriest dizzards, hairb rains, and most discontent. 
" "^ In the multitude of wisdom is grief, and he that increaseth wisdom, in- 
creaseth sorrow." I need not quote mine author; they that laugh and contemn 
others, condemn the world of folly, deserve to be mocked, are as giddy- 
headed, and lie as open as any other. * Democritus, that common flouter of 
folly, was ridiculous himself, barking Menippus, scofiing Lucian, satirical 
Lucilius, Petronius, Yarro, Persius, &c., may be censured with the rest, Lori- 
pedem rectus derideat, j^thiopem alhus. Bale, Erasmus, Hospinian, Yives, 
Kemnisius, explode as a vast ocean of obs and sols, school divinity. ''A laby- 
rinth of intricable questions, unprofitable contentions, incredibiletn delirationem, 
one calls it. If school divinity be so censured, subtilis "" Scotus Iwia veritatis, 
Occam irrefragahilis, cujus ingenium Vetera omnia ingenia subvertit, &c. 
Baconthrope, Dr. Pesolutus, and Gorcidum Theologian, Thomas himself, Doctor 
^Seraphicus, cui dictavit Angelus, d'c. What shall become of humanity'? A7^s 
stulta, what can, she plead? What can her followers say for themselves ? Much 
learning, ^cere-diminuit-hrum, hath cracked their scouce, and taken such root, 
that trihus Anticyris caput insanahile, hellebore itself can do no good, nor 
that renowned ^ lanthorn of Epictetus, by which if any man studied, he should 
be as wise as he was. But all will not serve; rhetoricians, in ostentationem 
loquacitatis multa agitant, out of their volubility of tongue, will talk much to 
no purpose, orators can persuade other men what they will, quo volunt, unde 
volunt, move, pacify, &c., but cannot settle their own brains, what saith 
Tully ? 3falo indesertam prudentiam, qiiam loquacem stultitiam; and as ^Seneca 
seconds him, a wise man's oration should not be polite or solicitous. ""Pabius 
esteems no better of most of them, either in speech, action, gesture, than as 
men beside themselves, insanos declamatores; so doth Gregory, Nan mihi sapit 
qui sermone, sed qui factis saioit. Make the best of hiiu, a good orator is a 
turncoat, an evil man, bonus orator pessimus vir, his tongue is set to sale, he 
is a mere voice, as ' he said of a nightingale, dat sine mente sonum, an hy- 
perbolical liar, a flatterer, a parasite, and as ^Ammianus Marcellinus will, a 
corrupting cozener, one that doth more mischief by his fair speeches, than he 
that bribes by money; for a man may vdth more facility avoid him that cir- 
cumvents by money, than him that deceives with glozing terms; which made 

tF. Dousce Epid. ISb. 1. c. 13. ^ Hoc cognomento cohonest&ti Romas, qui casteros mortales sapientia 

prEestarent, testis Plin. lib. 7. cap. 34. ^ Insanire parant certa ratione modoque, mad, by the 

book they, &c. y Juvenal. "0 Physicians! open the middle vein." = Solomon. * Com- 

munis irrisor stultitise. ^ wit whither wilt ? « Scaliger exercitat. 324. ^ Vit. ejus. « Ennias. 

f Lucian. Ter mille drachmis olira empta; studens inde sapientiam adipiscetur. sEpist. 21. 1. lib. 

Non oportet orationem sapientis esse politam aut solicitam. »> Lib. 3. cap. 13. multo anhelitu jactatione 

furentes pectus, frontem ctedentes, &c. JLipsius, voces sunt, prseterea nihil. ^ Lib. 30. plus 

mail facere videtur qui oratione qukm qui pra'tio quern vis corrunipit : nam, &c. 



Dsmocri'.us to tJie Header. G7 

'Socrates so much abhor and explode them. ""Fracastoniis, a fliraous poet, 
freely grants all poets to be road; so doth "Scaliger; and who cloth not? 
Aut inscinit homo, aut versus facit (He's mad or making verses), Hor. Sat. vii. 
1. 2. Insanire luhet, i.e versus componere. Virg.S Eel. ; So Servius interprets it, 
all poets are mad, a company of bitter satirists, detractors, or else parasitical 
applauders : and what is poetry itself, but as Austin holds, Vinum erroris ab 
ebriis doctoribus propinatuni ? You may give that censure of them in general, 
which Sir Thomas More once did of Germanus Brixius' poems in particular. 

" veliuntur 



In rate stultitise, sylvarn habitant Furi^.o " 

Budseus, in an epistle of his to Lupsetus, will have civil law to be the tower 
of wisdom; another honours physic, the quintessence of nature; a third tum- 
bles them both down, and sets up the flag of his own peculiar science. Your 
supercilious critics, grammatical triflers, note-makers, curious antiquaries, find 
out all the ruins of wit, ineptiarum delicias, amongst the rubbish of old writers ; 
^Pro stidiis hahent nisi aliquid sufficiant invenire, quod in aliorum scriptis 
vertant vitio, all fools with them that cannot find fault ; they correct others, 
and are hot in a cold cause, puzzle themselves to find out how many streets in 
Home, houses, gates, towers. Homer's country, ^neas's mother, Niobe's 
daughters, an Sapp)ho 2^uhlica fuerit? ovum '^prius extiterit an gallina! (&g. 
ei alia quoi dediscenda essent scire, si scires. as "■ Seneca holds. Y/hat clothes 
the senators did wear in Home, what shoes, how they sat, where they went to 
the closestool, how many dishes in a mess, v/hat sauce, which for the present 
for an historian to relate, ^according to Lodovic. Yives, is very ridiculous, is 
to them most precious elaborate stutf, they admired for it, and as proud, as 
triumphant in the meantime for this discovery, as if they had won a city, or 
conquered a province; as rich as if they had found a mine of gold ore, Quos- 
lis auctores absurdis coriim,entis suis p)6rcacant et stsrcorant, one saith, they 
bewray and daub a company of books and good authors, with their absurd 
comments, co?'rec^orwm sterqidlinia ^ScpAigev calls them, arid show their wit in 
censuring others, a company of foolish note-makers, humble-bees, dors, or 
beetles, inter siercora ut 2"lurimu7)i versantur, they rake over all those rubbish 
and dunghills, and prefer a manuscript many times before the Gospel itself, 
^thesaurum criticum, before any treasure, and with their deleaturs, alii legunt 
sic, melts codex sic hahet, with their postremce editiones, annotations, casti- 
gations, &c., make books dear, themselves ridiculous, and do nobody good, 
3^et if any man dare oppose or coiitradict, they are mad, up in arms on a sudden, 
how many sheets are written in defence, how bitter invectives, what apologies? 
^ EpipiJiilledes lice sunt ut merce oiugce. But I dare say no more of, for, with, 
or against them, because I am liable to their lash as well as others. Of these 
and the rest of our artists and philosophers, I will generally conclude they are 
a kind of madmen, as ^Seneca esteems of them, to make doubts and scruples, 
how to read them truly, to mend old authors, but will not mend their own lives, 
or teach us ingenia sanare, memoriam of/iciorum ingerere, ac fidem in rebus 
humanis retinere, to keep our wits in order, or rectify our manners. Numquid 
tibi demens videtur, si istis ojiera'ni impenderit ? Is not he mad that draws lines 
with Archimedes, whilst his house is ransacked, and his city besieged, when 
the whole world is in combustion, or we whilst our souls are in danger, (piors 
sequitur, vitafugit) to spend our time in toys, idle questions, and things of 
no worth? 

1 In Gorg. Platonis. m In naugerio. " Si furor sit Lyssas, &c quoties furit, furit, furiti 

amaiis, bibens, et Poeta, &c. « " Tliey are borne in the bark of folly, and dwell in the grove of 

madness." PMornsUtop.lib.il. q Macrob. Satur. 7. 16. rEpiyt. 16. » lji,, (jg causis 

coirup. artium. * Lib. 2. in Ausouinm, cap. 19 et 32. "Edit. 7. volum. Jano Gutero. "Aristo- 

phanis Ranis. J" Lib. de beucficiis. 



68 Democritus to the Reader. 

That ^lovers are mad, I think no man will deny, A'niare slniul et saperSy 
ipsi Jovi no7i datur, Jupiter himself cannot intend both at once. 

" alSTon bene conveniunt, nee in una sede raorantur 
Majestas et amor." 

Tally, when he was invited to a second marriage, replied, he could not simul 
ainare et sapere, be wise and love both together. ^Est orcus ille, vis est 
immedicabilis, est rabies insana, love is madness, a hell, an incurable dis- 
ease; impotentem et insanam lihidinem ''Seneca calls it, an impotent and 
raging lust. I shall dilate this subject apart; in the meantime let lovers 
sigh out the rest. 

•^Nevisanus the lawyer holds it for an axiom, " most women are fools," 
^consilium fceminis invaliduvi; Seneca, men, be they young or old; who 
doubts it, youth is mad as Elius in TuUy, Stulti adolescentuli, old age little 
better, deliri senes, dx. Theophrastus, in the 107th year of his age, *"said he 
then began to be wise, turn sapere coepit, and therefore lamented his departure. 
If wisdom come so late, where shall we find a wise man? Our old ones doat 
at threescore-and-ten. I would cite more proofs, and a better author, but for 
the present, let one fool point at another. ^Nevisanus hath as hard an opinion 
of ''rich men, " wealth and wisdom cannot dwell together," stultitiam patiuntur 
opes, 'and they do coiwrnoiilj ^infatuare cor hominis, besot men; and as we 
see it, " fools have fortune:" ^Sap)ientia non invenitur in terra suaviter viven- 
tium. For beside a natural contemj^t of learaing, which accompanies such kind 
of men, innate idleness (for they will take no pains), and which ™ Aristotle 
observes, ubi mens plurima, ibi Tiiinima fortuna, ubi plurima fortuna, ibi mens 
perexigua, great wealth and little wit go commonly together : they have as 
much brains some of them in their heads as in their heels; besides this inbred 
neglect of liberal sciences, and all arts, which should excolere mentem, polish 
the mind, they have most part some guUish humour or other, by which they 
are led ; one is an Epicure, an Atheist, a second a gamester, a third a whore- 
master (tit subjects all for a satirist to work upon); 

*'° Hie nuptarnm insanit amoribns, hie puerorum." 
One burns to madness for the wedded dame; 
Unnatural lusts another's heart inflame. 

"one is mad of hawking, hunting, cocking; another of carousing, horse-riding, 
spending; a fourth of building, fighting, &c., Insanit veteres statuas Dama- 
sippus emendo, Damasippus hath an humour of his own, to be talked of: 
^Heliodorus the Carthaginian, another. In a word, as Scaliger concludes of 
them all, they are Statuai erectce stultitice, the very statues or pillars of folly. 
Choose out of all stories him that hath been most admired, you shall still 
find, multa ad laudern, multa ad vituperationem magnijlca, as "^Berosus of 
Semiramis; omnes tnortaUs militia, triuinp>his, divitiis, d'c, turn et hixu, ccede, 
coeterisque vitiis antecessit, as she had some good, so had she many bad 23arts. 
Alexander, a worthy man, but furious in his anger, overtaken in drink : 
Csesar and Scipio valiant and wise, but vain-glorious, ambitious : Vespasian 
a worthy prince, but covetous: 'Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had 
he many vices; unam virtutem mille vitia comitantur, as Machiavel of Cosmo 

!«Delirus et amens dlcatur amans. Hor. Seneca. » Ovid. Jlet. " Majesty and Love do not atrree 

•^\'ell, nor dwell together." t> Plutarch. Amatorio est amor insanus." c£pjst. 39. d Sylvie 

nuptialis, 1 . 1, num. 11. Omnes mulieres ut pluriraum stultte. e Aristotle. 'Dolere se dixit quod 

tum vita egrederetur. s Lib. 1. num. 11. sapientia et divitise vix simul possideri possunt. >» They get 
their wisdom by eating pie-crust some. ' xf-"7MaTa t"'^? Ovnroli •yiveTco acppoawri. Opes quidem mortalibus 
sunt amentia. Theognis. t Fortuna nimium quem fovet, stultum facit. i Joh. 28. ™Mag. 

moral, lib. 2. et lib. 1. sat. 4. " Hor. lib. 1. sat 4. <> Insana gula, insanag obstructiones, insanum 

venandi studium discordia demens. Virg. iEn. p Heliodorus Carthaginiensis. ad extremum orbis sar- 

cophago testament© me hie jussi condier, et ut viderem an quis insanior ad me visendum usque ad hsec loca 
penetraret. Ortelius in Gad. <i if it be his -vvork, which Gasper Veretus suspects. ' Livy, Ingentes 

\ia-tutes, ingentia vitia. 



Deniocritus to the Reader. 69 

de Medici, he had two distinct persons in him. I will determine of them all, 
they are like these double or turning pictures ; stand before which you see a 
fair maid, on the one side an ape, on the other an owl ; look upon them at the 
first sight, all is well, but further examine, you shall find them wise on the one 
side, and fools on the other; in some few things praiseworthy, in the rest 
incomparably faulty. I will say nothing of their diseases, emulations, dis- 
contents, wants, and such miseries : let poverty plead the rest in Aristophanes' 
Plutus. 

Covetous men, amongst others, are most mad, ^ They have all the symptoms 
of melancholy, fear, sadness, suspicion, (fee, as shall be proved in its proper 
place. 

"Danda est Hellebori multo pars maxima avaris." 

Jlisers make AnticjTa their own; 
Its heliebore reserv'd for them alone. 

And yet methinks prodigals are much madder than they, be of what con- 
dition they will, that bear a public or private purse; as * Dutch writer 
censured Richard the rich duke of Cornwall, suing to be emperor, for his 
profuse spending, qui effudit pecuniam ante fedes principium Electorum sicut 
aquam, that scattered money like water; I do censure them, Stulta Anglia 
(saith he) quce tot denariis sponte est p)rivata, stulti principes Alemanice, qui 
Qiohile jus suum pro pecunid vendiderunt; spendthrifts, bribers, and bribe- 
takers are fools, and so are " all they that cannot keep, disburse, or spend 
their moneys well. 

I might say the like of angry, peevish, envious, ambitious; '^ Anticyras 
melior sorbere ineracas; Epicures, Atheists, Schismatics, Heretics; hi omnes 
habent vnaginationem Icesccm (saith Nymannus) " and their madness shall be 
evident." 2 Tim. iii. 9., ^ Fabatus, an Italian, holds seafaring men all mad; 
"the ship is mad, for it never stands still; the mariners are mad, to expose 
themselves to such imminent dangers: the v/aters are raging mad, in perpetual 
motion: the winds are as mad as the rest, they know not whence they come, 
whither they would go : and those men are maddest of all that go to sea; for 
one fool at home, they find forty abroad." He was a madman that said it, 
and thou peradventure as mad to read it. ^ Fselix Platerus is of opinion all 
alchemists are mad, out of their wits; * Atheneus saith as much of fiddlers, 
et musarum luscinias, ^Musicians, omnes tibicines inscmiunt; icbi semel efflant, 
avolat illico mens, in comes music at one ear, out goes wit at another. Proud 
and vain-glorious persons are certainly mad ; and so are *" lascivious ; I can feel 
their pulses beat hither; horn-mad some of them, to let others lie with their 
wives, and wink at it. 

To insist "^in all particulars, were an Herculean task, to ® reckon up ^insanas 
substructiones, insanos labores, insanum luxiwi, mad labours, mad books, endea- 
vours, carriages, gross ignorance,, ridiculous actions, absurd gestures ; insanam 
gulam, insaniam villarmn, insana jurgia, as Tully terms them, madness of 
villages, stupend structures; as those Egyptian Pyramids, Labyrinths and 
Sphinxes, which a company of crowned asses, ad ostentationem op)um, vainly 
built, when neither the architect nor king that made them, or to what use and 
purpose, are yet known : to insist in their hypocrisy, inconstancy, blindness, 
rashness, dementem temeritateni, fraud, cozenage, malice, anger, impudence, 

sHor. Quisquis amhitione mala aut argent! pallet amore, Quisqiiis luxnria, tristiqne saperstitione. 
Per. ' Cronica Slavonica ad annum 1257. de cujus pecmiia jam incredibilia dixermit. 

"A fool and his money are soon parted. •^^Oi-at. de imag. ambitiosus et audax naviget Anticyras. 

yXavis stulta, qu^e continuo movetm-; nautre stulti qui se periculis exponunt; aqua insana quse sic fremit 
&c. ; acr jactatur, &c. ; qui mari se comniittit stolidum unum terra fugiens, 40 mari invenit. Gaspar Ens. 
Moros. '^ Cap. de alien, mentis. aDipnosophist. lib. 8. b Tibicines mente Capti. Erasm. Chi. 14. 

cer. 7. <:Prov. 30. Insana libido, Ilic rogo non furor est, non est hsec mentula demens. Mart. ep. 74. 

1. 3. d Mille puellarum et puerorum mille jurores. ^Uter est insanior horum ? Hor. Ovid. Virg. Plin. 
f Plin. lib. 36. 



70 , Democritics to the Header. 

ingratitude, ambition, gross superstition, ^tempora infecta et adulatione sordida, 
as in Tiberius' times, such base flattery, stupend, parasitical fawning and 
colloguing, &c., brawls, conflicts, desires, contentions, it would ask an expert 
Vesalius to anatomise every member. Shall I say^ Jupiter himself, Apollo, 
Mars, &c., doated; and monster-conquering Hercules that subdued the world, 
and helped others, could not relieve himself in this, but mad he was at last. 
And wdiere shall a man walk, converse with whom, in what province, city, and 
not meet with Sigiiior Deliro, or Hercules Furens, Msenades, and Corybantes 1 
Their speeches say no less. ^ E fungis nati homines, or else they fetched their 
pedigree from those that were struck by Samson with the jaw-bone of an ass. 
Or from Deucalion and Pyrrha's stones, for durum genus sumus, ' mccrmorei 
sumus, we are stony-hearted, and savour too much of the stock, as if they had 
all heard that enchanted horn of Astolpho, that English duke in Ariosto, which 
never sounded but all his auditors were mad, and for fear ready to make away 
with themselves;^ or landed in the mad haven in theEuxine sea of Daph?iis 
insana, which had a secret quality to dementate ; they are a company of giddy- 
heads, afternoon men, it is Midsummer moon still, and the dog-days last all 
the year long, they are all mad. Whom shall I then except ? Ulricus Hut- 
tenus ^nemo, nam nemo omnibus horis sajnt, Nemo nascitur sine mtiis, Cri~ 
mine Nemo caret, Nemo sm'te sua vivit contentus. Nemo in amoi'e sa2nt, Nemo 
bonus, Nemo sapiens, Nemo est ex omni parte beatus, d-c* and therefore 
Nicholas Nemo, or Monsieur No- body, shall go free. Quid valeat iiemo, Nemo 
referre potest .? But whom shall I except in the second place? such as are 
silent, mr sapit qui pauca loquitur; ™ no better way to avoid folly and mad- 
ness, than by taciturnity. Whom in a third % all senators, magistrates ; for all 
fortunate men are wise, and conquerors valiant, and so are all great men, non 
est bonum ludere cum diis, they are wise by authority, good by their office and 
place, his licet imp^me 2'^6ssimos esse (some say) we must not speak of them, 
neither is it fit ; per me sint omnia protinus alba, I will not think amiss of them. 
Whom next 1 Stoics? Sapiens Stoicus, and he alone is subject to no pertur- 
bations, as "Plutarch scoifs at him, "he is not vexed with torments, or burnt 
with fire, foiled by his adversary, sold of his enemy : though he be wrmkied, 
sand-blind, toothless, and deformed; yet he is most beautiful, and like a god, 
a king in conceit, though not worth a groat." '•' He never doats, never mad, 
never sad, drunk, because virtue cannot be taken away," as °Zeno holds, "by 
reason of strong apprehension," but he was mad to say so. "^ Anticyrce codo 
huic est opus aut dolahra, he had need to be bored, and so had all his fellows, 
as wise as they would seem to be. Chrysippus himself liberally grants them 
to be fools as well as others, at certain times, upon some occasions, amitti vir- 
tutem ait 2Jer ebrietatem, aut atribilarium morbum, it may be lost by drunken- 
ness or melancholy, he may be sometimes crazed as well as the rest: '^ad sum- 
7}ium sapiens nisi quum pituita molesta. I should here except some Cynics, 
Menippus, Diogenes, that Theban Crates ; or to descend to these times, that 
omniscious, only wise fraternity 'of the Kqsicrucians, those great theologues, 
politicians, philosophers, physicians, philologers, artists, &c. of whom S. Bridget, 



8 Tacitus 3. Annal. ^ Ovid. 7. met. E fungis nati homines ut olim Corintlii primasvi illiiis loci 

accolaj, quia stoiidi et fatui fungis nati dicebantur, idem et alibi dicas. ' Famian. Strade de 

bajulis, de marmore semisculpti. k^i-ianus periplo mavis Euxini poi'tus ejus meminit, et 

Giilius, 1. 3. de Bosplior. Thracio et lauvus insana qu£e allata in convivium con vivas omnes insania affecit. 
Guliel. Stuccliius comment., &c. ' Lepidum poema sic inscriptum. * " No one is wise at all hours, — no 
one bom •without faults, — no one fi'ee from crime, — no one content with his lot, — no one in love wise, — no 
good, or wise man perfectly happy." »' Stultitiam simulare non potes nisi taciturnitate. nExtortus non 
cruciatur, ambustus non Iteditur, prostratus in lucta, non vincitur ; non tit captivus ab hoste venundatus. 
Etsi rugosus, senex edentulus, luscus, deformis, formosus tamen, et deo similis, felix, dives, rex nullius 
egens, etsi denario non sit dignus. » Ilium contendunt non injuria aliici, non insaniii, non inebriari, 

quia virtus non eripitur ob constantes comprehensiones. Lips. phys. Stoic, lib. 3. diili. 18. Plarreus 

Hebus epig. 102. 1. 8. <iHor. '■Fratres sanct. Eosese crucis. 



LemocrUus to the Reader. 71 

Albas Joaccliimus, Leiccnbergius,. and such divine spirits have prophesied, 
and made promise to the world, if at least there be any such (Hen. ® Neuhusiua 
makes a doubt of it, ^Yalentinus Andreas and others) or an Elias artifex 
their Theophrastian master ; whom though Libavius and many deride and 
carp at, yet some will have to be " the "renewer of all arts and sciences," 
reformer of the world, and now living, for so Johannes Montanus Strigo- 
niensis, that great patron of Paracelsus, contends, and certainly avers "^ " a 
most divine man," and the quintessence of wisdom wheresoever he is ; for he, 
his fraternity, friends, &c. are all ^ " betrothed to wisdom," if we may believe 
their disciples and followers. I must needs except Lipsius and the Pope, 
and expunge their name out of the catalogue of fools. For besides that para- 
sitical testimony of Dousa, 

" A Sole exoriente Mseotidas usque paludes, 
Nemo est qui justo se sequiparare queat." * 

Lipsius saith of himself, that he was ^ humani generis qiiidem pcedagogus voce 
et stylo, a grand signior, a master, a tutor of us all, and for thirteen years he 
brags how he sowed wisdom in the Low Countries, as Ammonius the philo- 
sopher sometimes did in Alexandria, ^ cum humanitate literas et sainentiam 
cum prudentia: antistes sajnentics, he shall be Sapientum Octavus. The 
Pope is more than a man, as ""his parats often make him, a demi-god, and 
besides his holiness cannot err, in Cathedra belike : and yet some of them 
have been magicians, Pleretics, Atheists, children, and as Platina saith of 
John 22. Etsi vir liter atus, mzdta stoliditatem et lo3vitatem prce seferentia 
egit, stolidi et socordis vir ingenii, a scholar sufficient, yet many things he did 
foolishly, lightly. I can say no more than in particular, but in general terms 
to the rest, they are all mad, their wits are evaporated, and as Ariosto feigns 
1. 34. kept in jars above the m.oon. 

" Some lose their wits with love, some with ambition, 
Some following <= Lords and men of high condition. 
Some in fair jewels rich and costly set, 
Others in Poetry their wits forget, 
Another thinks to he an Alchemist, 
Till all toe spent, and that his number's mist." 

Convicted fools they are, madmen upon record ; and I am afiraid past cure 
many of them, '"' crepunt inguina, the symptoms are manifest, they are all of 
Gotam parish : 

" ^ Quum furor hand dubius, qtitim sit manifesta phrenesis," 
(Since madness is indisputable, since frenzy is obvious.) 

what remains then ^ but to send for Lorarios, those officers to carry them all 
together for company to Bedlam, and set Pabelais to be their physician. 

If any man shall ask in the meantime, who I am that so boldly censure 
others, tu nidlane hahes vitia ? have I no faults? ^Yes, more than thou hast, 
whatsoever thou art. I^os numerus sumus, I confess it again, I am as foolish, 
as mad as any one. 

" s Insanus vobis videor, non deprecor ipse, 
Quo minus insanus," 

I do not deny it, demens de populo dematur. My comfort is, I have more 
fellows, and those of excellent note. And though I be not so right or so dis- 
creet as I should be, yet not so mad, so bad neither, as thou perhaps takest 
me to be. 

» An sint, quales sint, unde nomen illud asciverint. tTurri Babel. " Omnium artiura et 

scicntiarum instaurator. xDhinus ille vir auctor notarum in epist. Eog. Bacon, ed. Hambur. 1608. 

y SapientiiB desponsati. * " From the Rising Sun to the Mteotid Lake, there was not one that could 

fairly be put in comparison with them." ^ Solus hie est sapiens alii volitant velut umbrae. » In 

ep. ad Balthas. Moretura. b Rejectiunculoj ad Patavum. Felinus cum reliquis. « Magnum 

vn-um sequi est sapere, some think; others desipere. Catul. * Plaut. Menec. <i In Sat. 14. 

« Or to send for a cook to the Anticyraj to make hellebore nottage, settle-brain pottage. '" Aliquan- 

tulum tamen inde me solabor, quod una cum multis et sapientibus et ccleberrimis viris ipse insipiens sim, 
quod se Menippus Luciani in Necyomantia. e Petronius in Catalect. 



72 DemocritiLs to the Reader. 

To conclude, this being granted, that all the world is melancholy, or mad, 
doats, and every member of it, I have ended my task, and sufficiently illus- 
trated that which I took upon me to demonstrate at first. At this present I 
have no more to say ; His sanam mentem Democritus, I can but wish myself 
and them a good physician, and all of us a better mind. 

And although for the abovenamed reasons, I had a just cause to undertake 
this subject, to point at these particular species of dotage, that so men might 
acknowledge their imperfections, and seek to reform what is amiss ; yet I have 
a more serious intent at this time ; and to omit all impertinent digressions, 
to say no more of such as are improperly melancholy, or metaphorically mad, 
lightly mad, or in disposition, as stupid, angry, drunken, silly, sottish, sullen, 
proud, vain-glorious, ridiculous, beastly, peevish, obstinate, impudent, extrava- 
gant, dry, doting, dull, desperate, harebrain, &c., mad, frantic, foolish, hetero- 
clites, which no new ^hospital can hold, no physic help; my purpose and 
endeavour is, in the following discourse to anatomize this humour of melan- 
choly, through all its parts and species, as it is an habit, or an ordinary dis- 
ease, and that philosophically, medicinally, to show the causes, symptoms, and 
several cures of it, that it may be the better avoided. Moved thereunto for 
the generality of it, and to do good, it being a disease so frequent, as 'Mercu- 
rialis observes, "in these our days; so often happening," saith ^Laurentius, 
" in our miserable times," as few there are that feel not the smart of it. Of 
the same mind is JElian Montalius, ^Melancthon, and others ; ""Julius Csesar 
Claudinus calls it the " fountain of all other diseases, and so common in this 
crazed age of ours, that scarce one of a thousand is free from it ;" and that 
splenetic hypochondriacal wind especially, which proceeds from the spleen 
and short ribs. Being then a disease so grievous, so common, I know not 
wherein to do a more general service, and spend my time better, than to pre- 
scribe means how to prevent and cure so universal a malady, an epidemical 
disease, that so often, so much crucifies the body and mind. 

If I have overshot myself in this which hath been hitherto said, or that it is, 
which I am sure some will object, too fantastical, " too light and comical for a 
Divine, too satirical for one of my profession," I will presume to answer with 
" Erasmus, in like case, 'tis not I, but Democritus, Democritus dixit : you 
must consider what it is to speak in one's own or another's person, an assumed 
habit and name ; a difference betwixt him that affects or acts a prince's, a 
philosopher s, a magistrate's, a fool's part, and him that is so indeed ;. and 
what liberty those old satirists have had ; it is a cento collected from others ; 
not I, but they that say it. 

" ° Dixero si quid forte jocosius, hoc mihi juris 
Cum venia dabis." 

Yet some indulgence I may justly claim. 
If too familiar with another's fame. 

Take heed, you mistake me not. If I do a little forget myself, I hope you 
will pardon it. And to say truth, why should any man be offended, or take 
exceptions at it 1 

" Licuit, semperque licebit, 
Parcere personis, dicere de vitiis." 
It lawful was of old, and still will be, 
To speak of vice, but let the name go free. 

I hate their vices, not their persons. If any be disjoleased, or take aught unto 

h That I mean of Andr. Vale. Apolog. manip. 1. let 26, Apol. ' Usee affectio nostris temporibus 

frequentissima. ^ Cap. 15. de Mel. ' De animo nostro hoc snaculo morbus frequentissimiis. 

'" Consult. 98. adeonostris temporibus frequenter ingruit ut nullus fere ab tins labe immunis repei'iatur et 
omnium fere morborum oocasio existat. " Mor. Encom. si quis calumnietur levius esse quam decet 

Theologum, aut mordacius quam deceat Christianum. « Hor. Sat. 4. 1. 1. 



Democritus to the Reader. 73 

himself, let liim not expostulate or cavil with him that said it (so did ^Erasmus 
excuse himself to Dorpius, si parva licet componere magnis) and so do I ; " but 
let him be angry with himself, that so betrayed and opened his own faults 
in applying it to himself : " "^if he be guilty and deserve it, let him amend, 
whoever he is and not be angiy. " He that hateth correction is a fool," Prov. 
xii. 1. If he be not guilty, it concerns him not; it is not my freeness of speech, 
but a guilty conscience, a galled back of his own that makes him wince. 

" Siispicione si quis errabit su^, 
Et rapiet ad se, quod erit commune omnium, 
Stulte nudabit animi conscientiam." * 

I deny not this which I have said savours a little of Democritus; ^Quamvis 
7'identem dicere verum quid vetat; one may speak in jest, and yet speak truth. 
It is somewhat tart, I grant it; acriora orexim excitant embammata, as he 
said, sharp sauces increase appetite, ^nec cihus ipse juvat morsu fraudatus 
aceti. Object then and cavil what thou wilt, I ward all with *Democritus's 
buckler, his medicine shall salve it; strike where thou wilfc, and when : Demo- 
critus dixit, Democritus will answer it. It was written by an idle fellow, at 
idle times, about our Saturnalian or Dyonisian feasts, when as he said, nidlum, 
libertati pericidum est, servants in old Eome had liberty to say and do what 
them list. When our countrymen sacrificed to their goddess "Vacuna, and 
sat tippling by their Yacuual fires, I writ this, and published this o^tj? luyiv, 
it is neirdnis nihil. The time, j^lace, persons, and all circumstances apologise 
for me, and why may I not then be idle with others? speak my mind freely? 
If you deny me this liberty, upon these presumptions I will take it : I say 
again, I will take it. 

"•^Si quis est qui dictum in se inclementius 
Existimavit esse, sic cxistimet." 

If any man take exceptions, let him turn the buckle of his girdle, I care not. 
I owe thee nothing (Reader), I look for no favour at thy hands, I am inde- 
pendent, I fear not. 

No, I recant, I will not, I care, I fear, I confess my fault, acknowledge a 
great offence, 

" motos prasstat componere fluctus," 

( let's first assuage the troubled waves.) 

I have overshot myself, I have spoken foolishly, rashly, unadvisedly, absurdly, 
I have anatomized mine own folly. And now methinks upon a sudden I am 
awaked as it were out of a dream ; I have' had a raving fit, a fantastical fit, 
ranged up and down, in and out, I have insulted over the most kind of men, 
abused some, offended others, wronged myself; and now being recovered, and 
perceiving mine error, cry with ^ Orlando, Solvite me, pardon (o boni) that 
which is past, and I will make you amends in that which is to come; I promise 
you a more sober discourse in my following treatise. 

If through weakness, folly, passion, discontent, ignorance, I have said 
amiss, let it be forgotten and forgiven. I acknowledge that of ''Tacitus to be 
true, Aspercefacetice ubi nimis ex vero traxere, acrem sui memoriam relinquunt, 
a bitter jest leaves a sting behind it: and as an honourable man observes, 
'•^ They fear a satirist's wit, he their memories." I may justly suspect the 

P Epi. ad Dorpium de Moria. si quispiam offendatur et sibi vindicet, non liabet quod expostulet cum eo qui 
scripsit, ipse si volet, secum agat injuriam, utpote sui proditor, qui dcclaravit hoc ad se proprie pertinere. 
ij Si quis se la^sum clamabit, aut conscientiam prodit suam, aut certe metum. Phasdr. lib. 3. .^{sop. Fab. 
* If any one shall err through his own suspicion, and shall apply to himself what is common to all, he will 
foolishly betray a consciousness of guilt. ■• Hor. s Mart. 1. 7. 22. t Ut lubet feriat, abstergant 

lios ictus Democriti pharmacos. " Rusticorum dea preesse vacantibus et otiosis putabatur, cui post 

labores agricola sacrificabat. Plin. 1. 3. c. 12. Ovid. 1. 6. Fast. Jam quoque cum fiunt antiques sacj-a Vacun.P, 
ante Vacunales stantque sedentque focos. Rosinus. ^ Ter. prol. Eunuch. y Ariost. 1. 39. Staf. 58. 

'Ut enim ex studiis gaudium, sic studia ex hilaritate proveniunt. Plinius Maximo suo, ep. lib. 8. » Aanal. 
15. b Sir Francis Bacon in his Essays, now Viscount St, Albans. 



74 



J)enioc7'itus to the Reader. 



worst; and tliougli I hope I have wronged no man, yet in Medea's words I 
will crave pardon. 



" Illud jam voce extrerna peto, 

Ne si qua noster dubius effndit dolor, 
Maneant in animo verba, scd mciior tibi 
Memoria iiostri subeat, htec irss data 
Obliterentur ." 



And in my last words this I do desire, 
That what in passion I have said, or ire, 
May be forgotten, and a better mind 
Be had of us, hereafter as you find. 



I earnestly request every private man, as Scaliger did Cardan not to take 
offence. I will conclude in liis lines, Si me cogmtumi haheres, non solum 
donares nobis hasfacetias nostras, sed etiam indignum duceres, tam hum^anum 
animum, lene ingenium, vel m^inimam suspicio7iem deprecari oportere. If thou 
knewest my * modesty and simplicity, thou wouldst easily pardon and for- 
give what is here amiss, or by thee misconceived. If hereafter anatomizing 
this surly humour, my hand slip, as an unskilful 'prentice I lance too deep, 
and cut through skin and all at unawares, make it smart, or cut awry, ''pardon 
a rude hand, an unskilful knife, 'tis a most difficult thing to keep an even tone, 
a perpetual tenor, and not sometimes to lash out ; difficile est Satyram non 
scribere, there be so many objects to divert, inward perturbations to molest, 
and the very best may sometimes err; cdiquando bonus dormitat Ilomerus 
(sometimes that excellent Homer takes a nap), it is impossible not in so much 

to overshoot; oi)eTe in longo fas est obrepere somnum. But what needs 

all this? I hope there will no such cause of offence be given; if there be, 
" "^ Nemo aliquid recognoscat, oios mentimur omnia. I'll deny all (my last 
refuge), recant all, renounce all I have said, if any man except, and with as 
much f:icility excuse, as he can accuse ; but I presume of thy good favour, 
and gracious accej)tance (gentle reader). Out of an assured hope and confi- 
dence thereof, I will begin. 



* Quod Probus Persii ^coypa<pof virginali verecundii Persium fuisse dicit, ego, &c. ^Quas aut 

incuria fadit, aut humana parum cavit natura. llor. dpj-oL quer. Plaut. " Let not any one take 

these things to himself, they are all but lictions." 



75 



LECTORI MAL£: FERTATO. 



Tu vero cavesis edico quisquis es, ne temere sugilles Avictoreni hiijusce opens, 
rait cavillator irrideas. Imo ne vel ex aliorimi censura tacite obloquaris (vis 
dicam verbo) ne quid nasutulus inepte improbes, aut false fingas. Nam si talis 
revera sit, qualem pree se fert Junior Democrltus, seniori Democrito saltern, 
affinis, aut ejus Genium vel tcmtillum sapiat; actum de te, censorem seque ac 
delatorem *aget e contra [petulanti splene cum sit), sufflabit te in jocos, commi- 
nuet in sales, addo etiam, ei deo risui te sacrificabit. 

Iterum moneo, ne quid cavillere, nedum Democrituni Juniorcm conviciis 
infames, aut ignominiose vituperes, de te non male sentientem: tu idem audias 
ab amico cordato, quod olim vulgus Ahderitanum ab ^ Hippocrate, concivem 
bene meritum et popularem suum Democritwm, pro insano habens. Ne tu 
DeniGcrUe scqns, stidti autem et insani Ahderitce. 

c " AbderitansB pectora plebis habes." 

Ilcec te paucis admonitum volo (male feriate Lector), abi. 



TO THE READER A.T LEISURE. 



Whoeveh you may be, I caution you against rashly defaming tlie author of 
this work, or cavilling in jest against him. Nay, do not silently reproach him 
in consequence of others' censure, nor employ your wit in foolish disapproval, 
or false accusation. For, should Democritus Junior prove to be what he 
professes, even a kinsman of his elder namesake, or be ever so little of the 
same kidney, it is all over with you: he will become both accuser and judge 
of you in your spleen, will dissipate you in jests, pulverise you into salt, and 
sacrifice you, I can promise you, to the god of Mirth. 

I farther adviTse you, not to. asperse, or calumniate, or slander, Democritus 
Junior, who possibly does not think ill of you, lest you may hear from some 
discreet friend, the same remark the people of Abdera did from Hippocrates, 
of their meritorious and popular fellow-citizen, whom they had looked on as a 
madman ; '• It is not that you, Democritus, that art wise, but that the people of 
Abdera are fools and madmen." "You have yourself an Abderitian soul;" and 
having just given you, gentle reader, these few words of admonition, farewell. 

a Si me commorit, melius non tangere clamo. Hor. bjilppoc, epist. Daraageto. Accersitus sum ut 

Democrituni tanquam insanum curarem, sed postquam conveui, non per Jovem dcsipientise negotium, sed 
rcrum omnium receptaculum deprehendi, fjusque ingenium demiratus sum. Abderitanos vero tanquam non 
sanos accusavi, veratri potionc ipsos potius eguisse dicens. ^Mart. 



Heracltte fleas, misero sic convenit sevo, 

Nil nisi turpe vides, nil nisi triste vides. 
Hide etiam, qiiantumque lubet, Democrite ride, 

Non nisi vana vides, non nisi sfculta vides. 
Is fletu, hie risu modo gaudeat, unus utrique 

Sit licet usque labor, sit licet usque dolor. 
Nunc opus est (nam totus eheu jam desipit orbis) 

Mille Heraclitis, milleque Democritis. 
Nunc opus est (tanta est insania) transeat omnis 

Mundus in Anticyras, gramen in Helleborum. 



Weep, O Heraditus, it suits the age, 

Unless you see nothing base, nothing sad. 
Laugh, O Democritus, as much as you please, 

Unless you see nothing either vain or foolish. 
Let one rejoice in smiles, the other in tears; 

Let the same labour or pain be the office of both. 
Now (for alas! how foolish the world has become), 

A thousand Heraclitus', a thousand Democritus' are required. 
Now (so much does madness prevail), all the world must be 

Sent to Anticyra, to graze on Hellebore. ^ 



THE 



SYNOPSIS OF THE FIRST PARTITION. 



In diseases, 
consider 
Sect. 1. 
Memi). 1. 



Their 

Causes. 
Suhs. 1. 



Or 



Definition, 
Member, 
Division. 
Suhs. 2. 



( Impulsive ; ] Sin, concupiscence, &c. 
(Instrumental; ] Intemperance, all second causes, &c. 
^ Of the body ( Epidemical, as Plague, Plica, &c. 
300, which are | p^^.^icular, as Gout, Dropsy, &c. 

■ In disposition ; as all perturbations, evil 
affection, &c. 



Or 



Of the head 
or mind. 
Subs. 3. 



Or 



Habits, as 
Sabs. 4. 



Dotage. 

Frenzy. 

Madness. 

Ecstasy. 

Lycanthropia. 

Choreus sancti Viti. 

Hydrophobia. 

Possession or obsession of 

Devils. 
Melancholy. See T*. 



Its Equivocations, in Disposition, Improper, &c. Subsect. 5. 



Melancholy: 
in which 
consider 



3Iemb. 2. 
To its ex- 
plication, a 
digression 
ofanatomy, 
in which 
observe 
parts of 
Subs. 1. 



'Body 
hath 
parts 
Subs. 2. 



contained as 



contammg 



Soul and its faculties, as 



\ Humours, 4. Blood, Phlegm, &c. 
l Spirits ; vital, natural, animal. 

r Similar; spermatioal, or flesh, 
J bones, nerves, &c. Subs. 3. 
) Dissimilar ; brain, heart, liver, &c. 
(. Subs. 4. 

Subs. 5. 
Subs. 6, 7, 8. 
Subsect. 9, 10, 11. 



C Vegetal. 
■< Sensible. 



( Rational. 



Memb. 3. 

Its definition, name, difi^erence. Subs. 1. 

The part and parties affected, affectation, &c. Subs. 2. 

The matter of melancholy, natural, unnatural, &c. Subs. 4. 

fOf the head alone, Hypo- 
Proper to jchondriacal, or windy me- 
parts, as ylancholy. Of the whole 
( (.body. 

1 ^\ 

Indefinite; as Love-melancholy, the subject of the third Par- 

l tition. 



Species, or 
kinds, 
which are 



with their several 
causes, symptoms, 
prognostics, cures. 



Its Causes in general. Sect. 2. A. 

Its Symptoms or signs. Sect. 3. B. 

Its Prognostics or indications. Sect. 4. 4. 

Its cures; the subject of the second Partition. 



78 



Synojysis of the First Fartition. 



Super- 
natural. 




A. 

Sect. 2. 
Causes of 
Melancholy 
are either 



Or 



Natural 



by second causes. Subs. 1. 
with a digression of the 
Subs. 2. 
tches. Subs. 3. 



'Primary, as stars, proved by aphorisms, signs from phy- 
siognomy, mctoposcopy, chiromancy. Subs. 4. 



'Congenite, ("Old age, temperament. Subs. 5. 
inward ■< Pai'ents, it being an hereditary disease, 

from (^ Subs. 6. 



'Necessary, see ^. 

Nurses, Subs. 1. 

Education, Subs. 2. 

Terrors, affrights, 
Subs. 3. 

Scoffs, calumnies, 
bitter jests, /S'uii,'. 4. 

Loss of liberty, ser- 
vitude, imprison- 
ment. Subs. 5. 

Poverty and want, 
Subs. 6. 

A heap of other ac- 
cidents, death of 
friends, loss, &c 
Subs. 7. 



Or 



Or 



Outward 
or adven- 
titious, 
^which are 



Evident, 
outward, 
rernxote, ad- 
ventitious, 
as, 



Or 



Contingent, 
inward, an- 
tecedent, 
nearest. 
Memb. 5. 
Sect. 2. 



Pai-ticTilar to the t-n-ec species. See n. 



In which the body works 
on the mind, and this 
malady is caused by 
precedent diseases; as 
agues, pox, &c., or 
temperature innate 
Subs. 1. 

Or by particvilar parts 
distempered, as brain, 
heart, spleen, liver, 
mesentery, pylorus, 
stomach, &c. Subs. 2. 



n. 
Particular 

causes. 
Sect. 2. 
Memb. 5. 



' Of head Me- 
lancholy are, 
Subs. 3. 



Of hvpochon- 
driacal, or 
windy Melan- 
choly are, 



i Innate humour, or from distemperature adust. 
A hot brain, corrupted blood in the brain. 
Excess of vencry, or defect. 
I Agues, or some precedent disease. 
lEumes arising from the stomach, &c. 

Heat of the sun immoderate. 
A blow on the head. 

Overmuch use of hot wines, spices, garlic, onions, 
\ hot baths, overmuch waking, &c. 
Outward Idleness, solitariness, or overmuch study, vclie- 
ment labour, &c. 
^Passions, perturbations, &c. 

Inward f Default of spleen, belly, bowels, stomach, mesen- 

\ tery, miseraic veins, liver, &c. 
or "j Months or hemorrhoids stopped, or any other 

(_ ordinary evacuation. 
Outward \ Those six non-natural things abused. 



Over all the f Inward 
body are, ) ^^ 

(.Outward. 



Sah 



jLiver distempered, stopped, over-hot, apt to en- 
( gender melancholy, temperature innate. 
rBad diet, suppression of hemorrhoids, &c., and 
\ such evacuations, passions, cares, &c., those 
( six non-natural things abused. 



SynoiJsis rf iJce First rariiiion. 



79 



Sub- 
stance 



Keccs- 

snry 

causes, 

ftS 

those 

six 

iion- 

ratui'al 

tliinfrs, 

■\vhicli 

arc, 

JSect. 2. 

Memb. 

2. 



Diet 
offend- 
ing- in 



Bread; coarse and black, &c. 
Drink; thick, thin, sour, &c. 
Water unclean, milk, oil, vinegar, wine, spices, &c. 

Parts; heads, feet, entrails, fat, bacon, blood, &c. 

j^. 1 5 Beef, pork, venison, hares, goats, pigeons, 



Flesh 



•1 pe.coe.s.fe„-fo-,vl,.c 

Herbs, (Of fish; all shell-fish, hard and slimy fish, &c. 
j Fish, -< Of herbs ; pulse, cabbage, melons, garlick, onions, &c. 

1^ &c. ( All roots, raw fruits, hard and windy meats. 

Quali- ( Preparing, dressing, sharp sauces, salt meats, indurate, soused, 
ty,asin \ fried, broiled, or made dishes, &ic. 

Disorder in eating, immoderate eating, or at unseasonable 

times, &c.. Subs. 2. 
Custom; delight, appetite, altei'cd, &c.. Subs. 3. 

Costiveness, hot baths, sweating, issues stopped, Yenus in 
excess, or in defect, phlebotomy, purging, &c. 



Quan- 
tity 



Retention and 

evacuation, 

Subs. 4. 

Air; hot, cold, tempestuous, dark, thick, foggy, moorish, &c.. Subs. 5. 
Exercise, ^ Unseasonable, excessive, or defective, of body or mind, solitariness, 



Sabs. 6. 



idleness, a life out of action, &c. 



Sleep and waking, unseasonable, inordinate, overmuch, overlittls, &c., Subs. 7. 



Memb. 3. Sect. 2. 
Passions and 
perturbations of 
the mind. 
Subs. 2. With 
a digression of , 
the force of 
imagination. 
Subs. 2., and di- 
vision of passions 
into, Subs. 3. 



Irascible 



or 



concupis- 
cible. 



Sorrow, cause and symptom, Subs. 4. Fear, cause 
and symptom, Subs. 5. Shame, repulse, disgrace, 
J &:c..Subs.6. Envy and malice, >S'k65. 7. Emu- 
lation, hatred, faction, desire of revenge, Subs. 8. 
Anger a cause, Subs. 9. Discontents, cares, mise- 
ries, &c.. Subs. 10. 

Vehement desires,ambition,;S';J;5.11. Covetousness, 
<pi\apyvplav^ Subs. 12. Love of pleasures, gamingin 
excess, &c.. Subs. 13. Desire of praise, pride, vain- 
glory, ttc, Subs. 14. Love of learning, study in 
excess, with a digression of the miser}^ of scholars, 
and whv the muses are melancholv, Subs. 15. 



B. 

Symp- 
toms 
of me- 
lancho- 
ly are 
either 
Beet. 3. 






Hu- 
mours 



Body, as ill digestion, crudity, wind, dry bi'ains, liard belly, thick blood, much 
waking, heaviness and palpitation of heart, leaping in many places,&e., Subs.l. 
Common (Fear and sorrow without a just cause, si^spicion, jealousy, 
■< discontent, solitariness, irksomeness, continual cogitations, 
( restless thoughts, vain imaginations, &c.. Subs. 2. 
Celestial influences, as T? If $, &c., parts of the body, heart, 
brain, liver, spleen, stomach, &c. 

Sanguine are merry still, laughing, pleasant, medi- 
tating on plays, women, music, <&c. 
Phlegmatic, slothful, dull, iieavy, &c. 
J Choleric, furious, impatient, subject to hear and 
* see strange apparitions, &c. 

Black, solitary, sad; they think they are bewitched, 
dead, &c. 
Or mixed of these fom* humom's adust, or not adust, infi- 
nitely varied, &c. 
Their several [Ambitious, thinks himself a king, a lord; co- 
customs, con-- vetous, runs on his money; lascivious, on 
ditions, incli- <( his mistress; religious, hath revelations, 
visions, is a prophet, or troubled in mind; 
a scholar, on his book, &c. 
Pleasant at first,hardlydiscerncd; afterwards 
harsh and intolerable, if inveterate. 

1. Falsa cogitatio. 

2. Cogitata loquL 



to all or 
most. 



Or, 



Particu- 
lar to 
private 
persons, 
accord- 
ing to 
Subs.'^4:. 



nations, disci- 
pline, &c. 

Continuance 
of time as the 
humour is in- 
tended or re- 
mitted, &c. 



j Hence some 
^1 three degr 



make \ 
•ees. I 



3. Exeqid loquutum. 



By fits, or continuate, as the object varies, 
pleasing, or displeasing. 

Simple, or as it is mixed with other diseases, apoplexies gout, caninus appetiius, 
&c,, so the symptoms are various. 



80 



Synopsis r>f the First Partition. 



55 
Pai'ticular 
symptoms to 
the three dis- 
tinct species. 
Sect. 3. 
Mernb. 2. 



Head me- 
lancholy. ( 
Subs. 1. 



Hypo- 
chondria- 
cal, or 
windy 
melan- 
choly. 
Subs. 2. 



Over all 
the body. 
Subs. 3. 



fHeadach, binding and heaviness, vertigo, lightncP'?, 
J singing of the ears, much waking, fixed eyes, 
i hig-li colour, red eyes, hard belly, dry body; no 
(_ great sign of melancholy in the other parts. 

r Continual fear, sorrow, suspicion, discontent, su- 
3 perfluous cares, solicitude, anxiety, perpetual 
J cogitation of such toj^s they are possessed with, 
(_ thoughts like dreams, &c. 

Wind, rumbling in the guts, belly-ach, heat in 
the bowels, convulsions, crudities, short wind, 
sour and sharp belchings, cold sweat, pain in 
the left side, suffocation, palpitation, heaviness 
of the heart, singing in the ears, much spittle,' 
and moist, &c. 
or 

r Fearful, sad, suspicious, discontent, anxiety, &c. 
In mind. < Lascivious by reason of much wind, troublesome 
( dreams, affected by fits, &c. 

( Black, most part lean, broad veins, gross, thick 
( blood, their hemorrhoids commonly stopped, &c. 

( Fearful, sad, solitary, hate light, averse from com- 
( pany, fearful dreams, &c. 



In body 



In mind. 



In body 



In body 

or 
In mind. 



Symptoms of nuns', maids', and widows' melancholy, in body and mind, &c. 



A reason 
of these 
symp- 
toms, 
Memb. 3. 



Why they are so fearful, sad, suspicious without a cause, why 
solitary, why melancholy men are Avitty, why they suppose 
they hear and see strange voices, visions, apparitions. 

Why they prophesy, and speak strange languages; whence 
comes their crudity, rumbling, convulsions, cold sweat, 
heaviness of heart, palpitation, cardiaca, fearful dreams, 
much waking, prodigious fantasies. 



C. 

\Prognostics 
ofmelancholy. 
Sect. 4. 



Tending to good, as 



Tending to evil, as 



Corollaries and ques- 
tions. 



"Morphew, scabs, itch, breaking out, &c. 
I Black jaundice. 

I If the hemorrhoids voluntarily open. 
^ If varices appear. 

Leanness, dryness, hollow-eyed, &,c. 
Inveterate melancholy is incurable. 
If cold, it degenerates often into epilepsy, apo- 
plexy, dotage, or into blindness. 
If hot, into madness, despair, and violent death. 

The grievousness of this above all other diseases. 
The diseases of the mind are more grievous than 

those of the body. 
< Whether it be lawful, in this case of melancholy, 

for a man to ofi"er violence to himself. Neg. 
How a melancholy or mad man ofiering violence 

to himself, is to be censured. 



THE FIEST PAETITION. 



THE FIRST SECTIOiT, MEMBEU, SUBSECTION". 



Mans Excellency, Fall, Miseries, Infirmities; The causes of them. 

Mans Excellency.] Man, the most excellent and noble creature of tlie 
world, " the principal and mighty work of God, wonder of nature," as Zoro- 
aster calls him ; auclacis naturce miraculwm, '^ the '"^ marvel of marvels," as 
Plato ; " the** abridgment and epitome of the world," as Pliny; Microcosmus, 
a little world, a model of the world, '^ sovereign lord of the earth, viceroy of the 
world, sole commander and governor of all the creatures in it ; to whose empire 
they are subject in particular, and yield obedience; far surpassing all the rest, 
not in body only, but in &o^A',^Imaginis Imago, ^created to God's own ^ image, 
to that immortal and incorporeal substance, with all the faculties and powers 
belonging unto it ; M^as at first pure, divine, perfect, happy, " ^ created after 
God in true holiness and righteousness;" Deo congruens, free from all manner 
of infirmities, and put in Paradise to know God, to praise and glorify him, to 
do his will, Ut diis consimiles jparturiat deos (as an old poet saith) to propagate 
the church. 

Man's Fall and Misery?^ But this most noble creature, Heu tristis, et 
lachrymosa commutatio (^one exclaims) O pitiful change ! is fallen from that he 
was, and forfeited his estate, become Tniserabilis homuoicio, a cast- away, a 
caitiff, one of the most miserable creatures of the world, if he be considered in 
his own nature, an unregenerate man, and so much obscured by his fall that 
(some few reliques excepted) he is inferior to a beast, "'Man in honour that 
understandeth not, is like unto beasts that perish," so David esteems him : a 
monster by stupend metamorphosis, ^ a fox, a dog, a hog, what nof? Quantum 
mutatus ah illo ? How much altered from that he was ; before blessed and 
happy, now miserable and accursed ; " ^ He must eat his meat in sorrow," 
subject to death and all manner of infirmities, all kind of calamities. 

A Description of Melancholy.'] "°' Great travail is created for all men, and 
an heavy yoke on the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their 
mother's womb, unto that day they return to the mother of all things. Namely, 
their thoughts, and fear of their hearts, and their imagination of things they 
wait for, and the day of death. From him that sitteth in the glorious throne, 

■Magnum miraculuni. bMundi epitome, naturas delicije. c Finis rerum omnium, cui sublunaria 

serviunt. Scalig. exercit. 365. sec. 3. Vales, de sacr. Phil. c. 5. ^ut in nuraismate Ctesaris imago, sic in 
homine Dei. « Gen. 1. f Imago mundi in corpore, Dei in anima. Exemplumque dei quisque est in 

imagine parva. KEph. iv. 24. i^Pa'.anterius. 'Psal. xlix. 20. ^Lascivia superat equum, impu- 
dentia canem, astu vulpem, furore leonem. Chrys. 23. Gen. » Gen. iii. 13. wEcclus. iv. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8. 

G 



82 Diseases hi General. [Part. 1. Sect. 1. 

to him that sitteth beneath in the earth and ashes; from him that is clothed in 
bkie silk and weareth a crown, to him that is clothed in simple linen. Wrath, 
envy, trouble, and nnquietness, and fear of death, and rigour, and strife, and 
such things come to both man and beast, but sevenfold to the ungodly." All 
this befalls him in this life, and perad venture eternal misery in the life to come. 

I7)ipulsive Cause of Man s Misery and Infirmities. '\ The impulsive cause of 
these miseries in Man, this privation of destruction of God's image, the cause 
of death and diseases, of all temporal and eternal punishments, was the sin of 
our first parent Adam, " in eating of the forbidden fruit, by the devil's insti- 
gation and allurement. His disobedience, pride, ambition, intemperance, incre- 
dulity, curiosity ; from whence proceeded original sin, and that general corrup- 
tion of mankind, as from a fountain flowed all bad inclinations and actual 
transgressions which cause our several calamities inflicted upon us for our sins. 
And this belike is that which our fabulous poets have shadowed unto us in the 
tale of "Pandora's box, which being opened through her curiosity, filled the 
world full of all manner of diseases. It is not curiosity alone, but those other 
crying sins of ours, which pull these several plagues and miseries upon our 
heads. For ^J^i^^Si^caiwrn, ^6i proce?^ as ^Chrysostom well observes. "^ Fools 
by reason of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are affiicted. 
""Fear cometh like sudden desolation, and destruction like a whirlwind, affiic- 
tion and anguish," because they did not fear God, " * Are you shaken with 
wars?" as Cyprian well urgeth to Demetrius, " are you molested with dearth 
and famine? is your health crushed with raging diseases? is mankind gene- 
rally tormented with epidemical maladies? 'tis all for your sins," Hag. i, 9, 
10; Amos i. ; Jer. vii. God is angry, punisheth and threateneth, because of 
their obstinacy and stubbornness, they will not turn unto him. "*If the earth 
be barren then for want of rain, if dry and squalid, it yield no fruit, if your 
fountains be dried up, your wine, corn, and oil blasted, if the air be corrupted, 
and men troubled with diseases, 'tis by reason of their sins:" which like the 
blood of Abel cry loud to heaven for vengeance. Lam. v. 15. '* That v/e have 
sinned, therefore our hearts are heavy," Isa. lix. 11, 12. "Vfe roar like 
bears, and mourn like doves, and want health, &c. for our sins and trespasses." 
But this we cannot endure to hear or to take notice of, Jer. ii. 30. " We are 
smitten in vain and receive no correction;" and cap. v. 3. "Thou hast 
stricken them, but they have not sorrowed; they have refused to receive cor- 
rection ; they have not returned. Pestilence he hath sent, but they have not 
turned to him," Amos iv. "Herod could not abide John Baptist, nor ''Domitian 
endure ApoUonius to tell the causes of the plague at Ephesus, his injustice, 
incest, adultery, and the like. 

To punish therefore this blindness and obstinacy of ours as a concomitant 
cause and principal agent, is God's just judgment in bringing these calamities 
upon us, to chastise us, I say, for our sins, and to satisfy God's wrath. For the 
law requires obedience or punishment, as you may read at large, Deut. xxviii. 
15. " If they v/ill not obey the Lord, and keep his commandments and ordi- 
nances, then all these curses shall come upon them. ^ Cursed in the town and 
in the field, &c. ^Cursed in the fruit of the body, &c. ""The Lord shall send 
thee trouble and shame, because of thy wickedness." And a little after, 
"''The Lord shall smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with emrods, and 

« Gen. iii. 17. ollla cacTens tegmen manibus decussit, et una perniciem immisil; miseris mortalibus 

atram. Hesiod. 1. oper. p Horn. 5. ad pop. Antioch. i Psal. evil. 17. ^pro. i. 27. « Quod 

autem cvebrius bella concutiant, quod sterilitas et fames solicitudinem cumulent, quod ssevientibus morbis 
valetudo frangitur, quod humanum genus luis populatione vastatur ; ob peccatum omnia. Cypr. t Si rai o 
desupcr pluvia descendat, si ten-a situ pulveris squalleat, si vix jejunas et pallidas herbas sterilis gleba 
producat, si turbo viiieam debilitet, &c. Cypr. i Mat. xiv. 3. -^ Philostratus, lib. 8. vit. Apollo rdi. 

Injustitiam ejus, et sceleratas nuptias, et csetera quae praster rationem fccerat, morborum causas dixit, y 16. 
«18. »20. b Verse 27. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Diseases in General. S3 

scab, and itch, and tbou canst not be healed. •'With madness, blindness, and 
astonishing of heart." This Paul seconds, Rom. ii. 9, " Tribulation and 
anguish on the soul of every man that doth evil." Or else these chastise- 
ments are inflicted upon us for our humiliation, to exercise and try our patience 
here in this life, to bring us home, to make us to know God ourselves, to inform 
and teach us wisdom. '"^Therefore is my people gone into captivity, because 
they had no knowledge ; therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his 
people, and he hath stretched out his hand upon them." He is desirous of 
our salvation. ^Nostrce salutis avidus, saith Lemnius, and for that cause pulls 
us by the ear many times, to put us in mind of our duties : "That they which 
erred might have understanding, (as Isaiah speaks xxix. 24) and so to be 
reformed.* I am afflicted, and at the point of death," so David confesseth of 
himself, Psalm Ixxxviii. v. 15, v. 9. "Mine eyes are sorrowful through mine 
affliction:" and that made him turn unto God. Great Alexander in the midst 
of all his prosperity, by a company of parasites deified, and now made a god, 
when he saw one of his wounds bleed, remembered that he was but a man, and 
remitted of his pride. In morbo recolligit se animus,'^' as ^ Pliny well perceived; 
" In sickness the mind reflects upon itself, with judgment surveys itself, and 
abhors its former courses ; " insomuch that he concludes to his friend Marius, 
"^that it were the period of all philosophy, if we could so continue, sound, or 
perform but a part of that which we promised to do, being sick." Whoso is wise 
then, will consider these things, as David did (Psal. cxliv., verse last) ; and 
whatsoever fortune befall him, make use of it. If he be in sorrow, need, sick- 
ness, or any other adversity, seriously to recount with himself, why this or that 
malady, misery, this or that incurable disease is inflicted upon him; it maybe 
for his good, ^ sic expedit, as Peter said of his daughter's ague. Bodily sick- 
ness is for his soul's health, periisset nisi periisset, had he not been visited, he 
had utterly perished; for "'the Lord correcteth him whom he loveth, even as 
a father doth his child in whom he delighteth." If he be safe and sound on 
the other side, and free from all manner of infirmity ; ^ et cui 

*' Gratia, forma, valetudo contingat abunde I "And that lie have grace, heauty, favour, health, 

Et mundus victus, non deficiente crumena." | A cleanly diet, and abound in wealth." 

Yet in the midst of his prosperity, let him remember that caveat of Moses, 
"^Beware that he do not forget the Lord his God;" that he be not puffed up, 
but acknowledge them to be his good gifts and benefits, and " tthe more he 
hath, to be more thankful," (as Agapetianus adviseth) and use them aright. 

Instrumental Causes of our Iv/iimities.'j Now the instrumental causes of 
these our infirmities, are as diverse as the infirmities themselves; stars, 
heavens, elements, &c. And all those creatures which God hath made, are 
armed against sinners. They were indeed once good in themselves, and that 
they are now many of them pernicious unto us, is not in their nature, but our 
corruption, which hath caused it. For from the fall of our first parent Adam, 
they have been changed, the earth accursed, the influence of stars altered, the 
four elements, beasts, birds, plants, are now ready to offend us. " The prin- 
cipal things for the use of man, are water, fire, iron, salt, meal, v/heat, honey, 
milk, oil, wine, clothing, good to the godly, to the sinners turned to evil," 
Ecclus. xxxix. 26. "Eire, and hail, and famine, and dearth, all these are created 

« 28. Deus quos diligit, castigat. ^ Isa. v. 13. verse 15. e Nostras salutis a^^dus continenter aures 
velicat, ac calamitate suhinde nos exercet. Levinus Lemn. 1. 2. c. 29. de occult, nat. mir. * Vexatio dat 
intellectum. Isa. xxviii. 19. In sickness the mind recollects itself. ^'Lib. 7. Cum judicio, moses 

et facta recognoscit et se intuetur Dum fero languorem, fero religionis amorem. Expers languoris non. 
sum memor hujus amoris. s Summum esse totius philosophise, ut tales esse perseveremus, quales nos 

futures esse infirmi profitemui-. h Petrarch. ' Prov. iii. 12. ^ jior. Epis. lib. I. 4. ' Deut. viii. 11. 
Qui Stat videat ne cadat. t Quanto majoribus beneficiis a Deo cumulatur, tanto obligatiorem sa 

debitorera fateri. 



84 



Diseases in General. 



[Part, 1. Sec. 1. 



for vengeance,'' Eccliis. xxxix. 29. Tlie heavens threaten us with their comets, 
stars, planets, with their great conjunctions, eclipses, oppositions, quartiles, 
'and such unfriendly aspects. The air with his meteors, thunder and lightning, 
intemperate heat and cold, mighty winds, tempests, unseasonable weather; 
from which proceed dearth, famine, plague, and all sorts of epidemical diseases, 
consuming infinite myriads of men. At Cairo in Egypt, every third year, (as 
it is related by ™Boterus, and others) 300,000 die of the plague; and 200,000, 
in Constantinople, every fifth or seventh at the utmost. How doth the earth 
terrify and oppress us with terrible earthquakes, which are most frequent in 
° China, Japan, and those eastern climes, swallowing up sometimes six cities 
at once 1 How doth the water rage with his inundations, irruptions, flinging 
down towns, cities, villages, bridges, &c., besides shipwrecks; whole islands 
are sometimes suddenly overwhelmed with all their inhabitants in " Zealand, 
Holland, and many parts of the continent drowned, as the ^ lake Erne in Ire- 
land 1 "^ Nihilque lovceter arcium cadavera patenti cernimus freto. In the 
fens of Eriesland 1230, by reason of tempests, "^the sea drowned QnuUa homi- 
num millia, et jumenta sine numero, all the country almost, men and cattle in 
it. Hov/ doth the fire rage, that merciless element, consuming in an instant 
whole cities'? What town of any antiquity or note hath not been once, again 
and again, by the fury of this merciless element, defaced, ruinated, and left 
desolate? In a word, 



" s Ignis pepercit, uncTa mergit, aeris 
Vis pestilentis sequori ereptum necat, 
Bello superstes, tabidus morbo perit." 



" Whom fire spares, sea doth drown ; whom sea. 
Pestilent air doth send to clay; 
Whom war 'scapes, sickness takes away." 



To descend to more particulars, how many creatures are at deadly feud with 
men? Lions, v/olves, bears, &c. Some with hoofs, horns, tusks, teeth, nails: 
How many noxious serpents and venomous creatures, ready to offend us with 
stings, breath, sight, or quite kill us ? How many pernicious fishes, plants, 
gums, fruits, seeds, flowers, &c., could I reckon up on a sudden, which by their 
very smell many of them, touch, taste, cause some grievous malady, if not 
death itself? Some make mention of a thousand several poisons: but these 
are but trifles in respect. The greatest enemy to man, is man, who by the 
devil's instigation is still ready to do mischief, his own executioner, a wolf, 
a devil to himself, and others.''^ We are all brethren in Christ, or at least 
should be, members of one body, servants of one Lord, and yet no fiend can 
so torment, insult over, tyrannize, vex, as one man doth another. Let me 
not fall therefore (saith David, when wars, plague, famine were offered) into 
the hands of men, merciless and wicked men : 

-" Vix sunt homines hoc nomine digni, 



Quamque lupi, ssevss plus ferltatis hahent." 

We can most part foresee these epidemical diseases, and likely avoid them ; 
Dearths, tempests, plagues, our astrologers foreiel us; Earthquakes, inunda- 
tions, ruins of houses, consuming fires, come by little and little, or make some 
noise beforehand; but the knaveries, impostures, injuries and villanies of men 
no art can avoid. We can keep our professed enemies from our cities, by 
gates, walls, and towers, defend ourselves from thieves and robbers by watchful- 
ness and weapons; but this malice of men, and their pernicious endeavours, 
no caution can divert, no vigilancy foresee, we have so many secret plots and 
devices to mischief one another. 

Sometimes by the devil's help as magicians, Svitches: sometimes by impos- 



m Boterus de Inst. urMum. " Lege hist, relationem Lod. Frois de rebus Japonicis ad annum 1596. 

"Guicciard. descript. Belg. anno 1421. pGiraldus Cambrens. *J Janus Dousa, ep. lib. 1. car. 10. And 

we perceive nothing, except the dead bodies of cities in the open sea. ■■ Munster. 1. 3. Cos. cap. 462. 

^-Buchanan. Baptist. * Homo homini lupus, homo homini daemon. f Ovid, de Trist. 1. 5. Eleg. 8. 

tMLscent aconita noverc33. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Diseases in General. d)5 

tures, mixtures, poisons, stratagems, single combats, wars, we back and hew, 
as if we were ad hiternecionem nati, like Cadmus' soldiers born to consume one 
another. 'Tis an ordinary thing to read of a hundred and two hundred thou- 
sand men slain in a battle. Besides all manner of tortures, brazen bulls, 
racks, wheels, strapadoes, guns, engines, &c. "^Ad unum corpus humanum 
supplicia plura, quam membra : We have invented more torturing instruments, 
than there be several members in a man's body, as Cyprian well observes. To 
come nearer yeb, our own parents by their offences, indiscretion and intem- 
perance, are oiu" mortal enemies. " "" The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and 
the children's teeth are set on edge." They cause our grief many times, 
and put upon us hereditary diseases, inevitable infirmities : they torment us, 
and we are ready to injure our posterity; 

^ "mox datiu'i progeniem vitiosiorem." I " And yet with crimes to ns unknoTm, 

I Our sons shall mark the coming age their own." 

and the latter end of the world, as ''Paul foretold, is still like to be the worst. 
We are thus bad by nature, bad by kind, but far worse by art, every man the 
greatest enemy unto himself We study many times to undo ourselves, abus- 
ing those good gifts which God hath bestowed upon us, health, wealth, 
strength, wit, learning, art, memory to our own destruction, ^ Perditio tua ex 
te. As '^ Judas Maccabeus killed Apollonius with his own weapons, we arm 
ourselves to our own overthrows ; and use reason, art, judgment, all that 
should help us, as so many instruments to undo us. Hector gave Ajax a 
sword, which so long as he fought against enemies, served for his help and 
defence ; but after he began to hurt harmless creatures with it, turned to his 
own hurtless bowels. Those excellent means God hath bestowed on us, well 
employed, cannot but much avail us ; but ii otherwise perverted, they ruin and 
confound us : and so by reason of our indiscretion and weakness they com- 
monly do, we have too many instances. This St. Austin acknowledgeth of 
himself in his humble confessions, " promptness of wit, memory, eloquence, 
they were God's good gifts, but he did not use them to his glory." If you 
will particularly know how, and by what means, consult physicians, and thej 
will tell you, that it is in offending in some of those six non-natural things, of 
which 1 shall * dilate more at large; they are the causes of our infirmities, our 
surfeiting, and drunkenness, our immoderate msatiable lust, and prodigious 
riot. Plures crapula, quam gladius, is a true saying, the board consumes 
more than the sword. Our intemperance it is, that pulls so many several 
incurable diseases upon our heads, that hastens^ old age, perverts our temper- 
ature, and brings upon us sudden death. And last of all, that which crucifies 
us most, is our own folly, madness, (^quos Juinter perdit, dementat ; by sub- 
traction of his assisting grace God permits it) weakness, want of government^ 
our facility and proneness in yielding to several lusts, in giving way to every 
passion and perturbation of the mind : by which means we metamorphose our- 
selves and degenerate into beasts. All which that prince of ^ poets observed 
of Agamemnon, that when he was well pleased, and could moderate his passion, 
he was — os oculosque Jom par : like Jupiter in feature. Mars in valour, Pallas 
in wisdom, another god; but when he became angry, he was a lion, a tiger, a 
dog, &c., there appeared no sign or likeness of Jupiter in him ; so we, as long 
as we are ruled by reason, correct our inordinate appetite, and conform our- 
selves to God's word, are as so many saints : but if we give reins to lust, 
anger, ambition, pride, and follow our own ways, we degenerate into beasts, 

" Lib. 2. Epist. 2. ad Donatum. vEzech. xviii. 2. "^ Hor. 1. 3 Od. 6. ^2 Tim. iii. 2. 

y Ezec. xviii. 31. Thy destruction is from thyself. ^ 21 Jfacc. iii. 12. "Part 1. Sec. 2. Memb. 2. 

^ Nequitia est quai te non sinet esse senem. . <= Homer. Iliad. 



86 Bef., Num., Div. of Diseases. [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

transform ourselves, overthrow our constitutions, ^provoke God to anger, and 
heap upon us this of melancholy, and all kinds of incurable diseases, as a just 
and deserved punishment of our sins. 

SuBSECT. II. — The Definition, Number, Division of Diseases. 

What a disease is, almost every physician defines. ^Fernelius calleth it an 
" Affection of the body contrary to nature." ^ Fuschius and Crato, " an hin- 
derance, hurt, or alteration of any action of the body, or part of it." ^ Tho- 
losanus, " a dissolution of that league which is between body and soul, and a 
perturbation of it ; as health the perfection, and makes to the preservation 
of it." ^ Labeo in Agellius, " an ill habit of the body, opposite to nature, 
hindering the use of it." Others otherwise, all to this effect. 

Number of Diseases. "] How many diseases there are, is a question not yet 
determined ; ' Pliny reckons up 300 from the crown of the head to the sole of 
the foot : elsewhere he saith, morboru7)i iiifinita muUitudo, their number is 
infinite. Howsoever it was in those times, it boots not ; in our days I am 
sure the number is much augmented : 



■macies, et nova febrium 



Terris incubat coliors." 

For besides many epidemical diseases unheard of, and altogether unknown to 
Galen and Hippocrates, as scorbutum, small-pox, plica, sweating sickness, 
morbus Gallicus, &c., we have many proper and peculiar almost to every part. 
No man free from some Disease or other.] No man amongst us so sound, of 
so good a constitution, that hath not some impediment of body or mind. 
Quisque sues patimur manes, we have all our infirmities, first or last, more or 
less. There will be peradventure in an age, or one of a thousand, like Zeno- 
philus the musician in ^ Pliny, that may happily live 105 years without any 
manner of impediment ; a PoUio Romulus, that can preserve himself " ""with 
wine and oil ;" a man as fortunate as Q. Metellus, of whom Valerius so much 
brags ; a man as healthy as Otto Herwardus, a senator of Augsburg in Ger- 
many, whom " Leovitius the astrologer brings in for an example and instance of 
certainty in his art ; who because he had the significators in his geniture 
fortunate, and free from the hostile aspects of Saturn and Mars, being a very 
cold man,'" ° could not remember that ever he was sick," ^ Paracelsus may 
brag that he could make a man live 400 years or more, if he might bring him 
up from his infancy, and diet him as he list ; and some physicians hold, that 
there is no certain period of man's life ; but it may still by temperance and 
physic be prolonged. We find in the meantime, by common experience, that 
no man can escape, but that of 'Hesiod is true : 

"nXe/rj jufci/ y'lp faia Kanuiv, TrXetrj 6s OdXaacra, I " Th' earth's full of maladies, and full the sea, 
tiovcToid' avOpu)noi hiv icp" ri/Jiept], h^' enl vvktI Which set upon us both by night and day." 



AvTOfJ-aTOi (ponwa-i. 



Divisio7i of Diseases.] If you require a more exact division of these ordinary 
diseases which are incident to men, I refer you to physicians ; ^ they will tell 
you of acute and chronic, first and secondary, lethales, salutares, errant, fixed, 
simple, compoand, connexed, or consequent, belonging to parts or the whole, in 



^ Intemperantia, luxus, ingluvies, et infinita hnjusmodi flagitia, quse divinas poenas merentur. Crato. 
• Fern. Path. I. 1. c. 1. Morbus est afFectus contra naturam corpori insidens. ^ Fusch. Instit. 1. 3. 

Sect. 1. c. 3. a quo priraum vitiatur actio. s Dissolutio foederis in corpore, utsanitas est consunimatio. 

'' Lib. 4. cap. 2. Morbus est habitus coi:itra naturam, qui usum ejus, &c. » Cap. 1 1. lib. 7. * Horat. 

lib. 1. ode 3. " Emaciation, and a new cohort of fevers broods over the earth." ^ Cap. 50. lib. 7. Centum 
et quinque vixit annos sine ullo incommodo. '" Intus mulso, foras oleo. " Exemplis genitur. praifixis 
Kphemer. cap. de infirmitat. "Qui, quoad pueritiaj ultimam memoriam recordari potest non meminit se 
ajgrotum decubuisse. p Lib. de vitalonga. Oper. et Dies. « See Fernelius Path. lib. 1. cap. 9. 

10, 11, 12. Fuschius instit. 1. 3. sect. 1. c. 7. Wecker. Synt. 



'Mem. 1, Subs. 4.] Div. of the Diseases of the Head. 87 

habit, or in disposition, &c. My division at this time (as most befitting my 
purpose) shall be into those of the body and mind. For them of the body, a 
brief catalogue of which Fuschius hath made, Institut. lib. 3, sect. 1, cap. 11. 
I refer you to the voluminous tomes of Galen, Areteus, Rhasis, Avicenna, 
Alexander, Paulus ^tius, Gordonerius : and those exact Neoterics, Savana- 
rola, Capivaccius," Donatus Altomarus, Hercules de Saxonia, Mercurialis, 
Victorius Faventinus, Wecker, Piso, &c., that have methodically and elabo- 
rately written of them all. Those of the mind and head I will briefly handle, 
and apart. 

SuBSECT. III. — Division of the Diseases of the Head. 

These diseases of the mind, forasmuch as they have their chief seat and 
organs in the head, which are commonly repeated amongst the diseases of the 
head which are div^^rs, and vary much according to their site. For in the head, 
as there be several parts, so there be divers grievances, v/hich according to that 
division of 'Heurnius, (which he takes out of Arculanus,) are inward or outward 
(to omit all others which pertain to eyes and ears, nostrils, gums, teeth, mouth, 
palate, tongue^ wesel, chops, face, &c.) belonging properly to the brain, as 
baldness, falling of hair, furfaire, lice, &c. "Inward belonging to the skins 
next to the brain, called dura and pia mater, as all head-aches, &c., or to the 
ventricles, caules, kels, tunicles, cresks^ and parts of it, and their passions, as 
caro, vertigo, incubus, apoplexy, falling sickness. The diseases of the nerves, 
cramps, stupor, convulsion, tremor, palsy : or belonging to the excrements of 
the brain, catarrhs, sneezing, rheuuis, distillations: or else those that pertain 
to the substance of the brain itself, in which are conceived frenzy, lethargy, 
melancholy, madness, weak memory, sopor, or Ccnia Vigilia et vigil Coma. 
Out of these again I will single such as properly belong to the phantasy, or 
imagination, or reason itself, which ""Laurentius calls the diseases of the mind ; 
and Hildesheim, morbos imaginationis, aut rationis Icesce, (diseases of the 
imagination, or of injured reason.) v/hich are three or four in number, phrensy, 
madness, melancholy, dotage, and their kinds : as hydrophobia, lycanthropia. 
Chorus sancti viti, morhi dc&moniaci, (St. Vitus's dance, possession of devils,) 
which I will briefly touch and point at, insisting especially in this of melancholy, 
as more eminent than the rest, and that through all his kinds, causes, symp- 
toms, prognostics, cures : as Lonicerus hath done de apoplexid, and many other 
of such particular diseases. Not that I find fault with those which have 
written of this subject before, as Jason Pratensis, Laurentius, Montaltus, T. 
Bright, &c., they have done very well in their several kinds and methods ; yet 
that which one omits, another may haply see; that which one contracts, 
another may enlarge. To conclude with ^ Scribanius, " that which they had 
neglected, or profunctorily handled, we may more thoroughly examine; that 
which is obscurel}'- delivered in them, may be perspicuously dilated and amplifi- 
ed by us:" and so made more familiar and easy for every man's capacity, and 
the common good, which is the chief end of my discourse. 

SuBSECT. IV. — Dotage, Phrensy, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycantliropia, 
Chorus sancti Viti, Uxtasis. 

Delirium, Dotage.] Dotage, fatuity, or folly, is a common name to all the 
following species, as some will have it. ^ Laurentius and ^Altomarus compre- 
hended madness, melancholy, and the rest under this name, and call it the 

' Prtefat. de morbis capitis. In capite ut vaiise habitant partes, ita varife querelse iM eveniunt. "Of 

■which read Heurnius, Montaltus, Hildesheim, Qnercetan, Jason Pratensis, &c. ^^Cap. 2. de melanchol. 

y Cap. 2. de Phisiologia sagarum ; Quod alii minus recte fortasse dixurint, nos esaminare, melius dij udicare, 
corrigere studeamus. ^ Cap 4. de mol. » Art. Jffcd. 7, 



^8 Diseases of the Mind. [Part. 1. Sect. 1, 

summum genus of tliem all. If it be distinguislied from them, it is natural or 
ingenite, which comes by some defect of the organs, and over-much brain, as 
we see in our common fools j and is for the most part intended or remitted in 
particular men, and thereupon some are wiser than others : or else it is acqui- 
site, an appendix or symptom of some other disease, which comes or goes; or 
if it continue, a sign of melancholy itself. 

Phrensy.'] Phrenitis, which the Greeks derive from the word tP""? is a 
disease of the mind, with a continual madness or dotage, which hath an acute 
fever annexed, or else an inflammation of the brain, or the membranes or 
kels of it, with an acute fever, which causeth madness and dotage. It differs 
from melancholy and madness, because their dotage is without an ague : 
this continual, with waking, or memory decayed, &c. Melancholy is most 
part silent, this clamorous; and many such like differences are assigned by 
physicians. 

Madness^ Madness, phrensy, and melancholy are confounded by Celsus 
and many writers; others leave out phrensy, and make madness and melan- 
choly but one disease, v/hich ^ Jason Pratensis especially labours, and that they 
differ only secundum majus or minus, in quantity alone, the one being a degree 
to the other, and both proceeding from one cause. They differ intenso et 
remisso gradu, saith ° Gordonius, as the humour is intended or remitted. Of the 
same mind is "^ Areteus, Alexander Tertullianus, Guianerius, Savanarola, Heur- 
nius; and Galen himself writes promiscuously of them both by reason of their 
affinity : but most of our neoterics do handle them apart, whom I will follow in 
this treatise. Madness is therefore defined to be a vehement dotage; or raving 
without a fever, far more violent than melancholy, full of anger and clamoui-, 
horrible looks, actions, gestures, troubling the patients with far greater vehe- 
mency both of body and mind, without all fear and sorrow, with such impetuous 
force and boldness, that sometimes three or four men cannot hold them. 
Differing only in this from phrensy, that it is without a fever, and their memory 
is most part better. It hath the same causes as the other, as choler adust, 
and blood incensed, brains inflamed, &c. ^Fracastorius adds, "a due time, 
and full age to this definition, to distinguish it from children, and will have it 
confirmed impotency, to separate it from such as accidentally come and go 
again, as by taking henbane, nightshade, wine," &c. Of this fury there be 
divers kinds ;^ ecstasy, which is familiar with some persons, as Cardan saith of 
himself, he could be in one when he list ; in which the Indian priests deliver 
their oracles, and the witches in Lapland, as Olaus Magnus writeth, 1. 3, cap. 
18. Extasi omnia prcedicere, answer all questions in an extasis you will ask ; 
what your friends do, where they are, how they fare, &c. The other species 
of this fury are enthusiasms, revelations, and visions, so often mentioned by 
Gregory and Beda in their works ; obsession or possession of devils, sibylline 
prophets, and poetical furies; such as come by eating noxious herbs, tarantulas' 
stinging, &c., which some reduce to this. The most known are these, lycan- 
thropia, hydropbobia, chorus sancti viti. 

Lycanthropia.'] Lycanthropia, which Avicenna calls Cucubuth, others 
Lupinam insaniam, or Wolf-madness, when men run howling about graves and 
fields in the night, and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves, or 
some such beasts, ^^tius and ^Paulus call it a kind of melancholy; but I 
should rather refer it to madness, as most do. Some make a doubt of it 



i> Plerique inedici uno complexu perstringunt hos duos morbos, quod ex eadem causa oriantur, quodquei 
magnitudine et modo solum distent, et alter gradus ad alterum existat. Jason Pratens. ^Lib. Med. 

d Pars manife mihi videtur. « Insanus est, qui setate debita, et tempore debito per se, non momentaneara 
et fugacem, ut vini, solani, Hyoscyami, sed confirmatam habet impotentiam bene operandi circa intellectum. 
lib. 2. de intellectione. ^01" wliicli read Foelix Plater, cap. 3. de mentis alienatione. sLib. 6. cap. 11. 
>» Lib. 3. cap. 16. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 4,] Diseases of the 2find. 89 

whether there be any such disease. 'Donat ab Altomari saith, that he saw- 
two of them in his time : •" Vv^ierus tells a story of such a one at Padua 1541, 
that would not believe to the contrary, but that he was a wolf He hath 
another instance of a Spaniard, who thought himself a bear; ^Forrest us 
confirms as much by many examples ; one amongst the rest of which he was 
an eye-witness, at Alcmaer in Holland, a poor husbandman that still hunted 
about graves, and kept in churchyards, of a pale, black, ngly, and fearful look. 
Such belike, or little better, were King Prpstus' ""'dpaighters, that thought 
themselves kine. And Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel, as some interpreters hold, 
was only troubled with this kind of madness. This disease perhaps gave occa- 
sion to that bold assertion of "Pliny, " some men were turned into wolves in 
his time, and from wolves to men again:" and to that fable of Pausanias, of 
a man that was ten years a wolf, and afterwards turned to his former shape : 
to ° Ovid's tale of Lycaon, &c. He that is desirous to hear of this disease, or 
more examples, let him read Austin in his 18th book de Civitate Dei, cap. 5, 
Mizaldus, cent. 5. 77. Sckenkius, lib. 1. Hildesheim, spicel. 2. de Mania, 
Forrestus, lib. 10. de morbis cerebri. Olaus Magnus, Vincentius' Bellavicensis, 
spec. met. lib. 31. c. 122. Pierius, Bodine, Ziiinger, Zeilger, Peucer, Wierus, 
Spranger, &c. This malady, saith Avicenna, troubleth men most in February, 
and is now-a-days frequent in Bohemia and Hungary, according to ^ Heurnius. 
Schernitzius will have it common in Livonia. They lie hid most part all day, 
and go abroad in the night, barking, howliug, at graves and deserts; " *they 
have usually hollow eyes, scabbed legs and thighs, very dry and pale," "^ saith 
Altomarus; he gives a reason there of all the symptoms, and sets down a 
brief cure of them. 

Hydrophobia is a kind of madness, w^ell known in every village, which comes 
by the biting of a mad dog, or scratching, saith 'Am-elianus; touching, or 
smelling alone sometimes as ^Sckenkius proves, and is incident to many other 
creatures as well as men : so called because the parties affected cannot endure 
the sight of water, or any liquor, supposing still they see a mad dog in it. 
And which is more wonderful; though they be very dry, (as in this malady 
they are) they will rather die than drink : ' Cselius Aurelianus, an ancient 
writer, makes a doubt whether this Hydrophobia be a passion of the body or 
the mind. The part afiected is the brain : the cause, poison that comes from 
the mad dog, which is so hot and dry, that it consumes all the moisture in the 
body. "Hildesheim relates of some that died so mad; and being cut up, had 
no water, scarce blood, or any moisture left; in them. To such as are so 
affected, the fear of water begins at fourteen days after they are bitten, to some 
again not till forty or sixty days after : commonly saith Heurnius, they begin 
to rave, fly water and glasses, to look red, and swell in the face, about twenty 
days after (if some remedy be not taken in the meantime) to lie awake, to be 
pensive, sad, to see strange visions, to bark and howl, to fall into a swoon, 
and oftentimes fits of the falling sickness. ^ Some say, little things like 
whelps will be seen in their urine. If any of these signs appear, they are 
past recovery. Many times these symptoms will not appear till six or seven 
months after, saith ^'Codronchus; and sometimes not till seven or eight years, 
as Guianerius; twelve as Albertus; six or eight months after, as Galen holds. 
Baldus the great lawyer died of it : an Augustine friar, and a woman in 
Delft, that were ^Forrestus' patients, were miserably consumed with it. The 



'Cap. 9. Art. med. ^De prasstig. Dssmonum. 1. 3. cap. 21. ' Observat. lib. 10. de morbis cerebri, 

cap. 15. "1 Hippocrates, lib. de insania. " Lib. 8. cap. 22. homines interdum lupos fieri : et contra. 

Met. lib. 1. p Cap. de Man. * Ulcerata crura, sitis ipsis adest immodica, pallidi, lingua sicca. 

1 Cap. 9. art. Hydi-ophobia. "^ Lib. 3. cap. 9. ^Lib. 7. de Venenis. * Lib. 3. Cap. 13. de morbis 
acutis. u Spicel. 2. ^ Sckenkius, 7 lib. de Veneuis. y Lib. de Hydrophobia. * Obseryat. 
Ub. 10. 25. 



'^0 Diseases of the Mind. [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

common cure in tlie country (for sucli at least as dwell near the sea-side) 
is to duck them over head and ears in sea water ; some use charms : every 
good wife can prescribe medicines. But the best cure to be had in such 
cases, is from the most approved physicians ; they that will read of them, may 
consult with Dioscorides, lib. 6. c. 37, Heurnius, Hildesheim, Oapivaccius, 
Forrestus, SckenkiuS; and before all others Codronchus an Italian, who hath 
lately written two exquisite books on the subject. 

Chorus sancti Viti, or S. Vitus' dance; the lascivious dance, ^Paracelsus 
calls it, because they that are taken from it, can do nothing but dance till 
they be dead or cured. It is so called, for that the parties so troubled were 
wont to go to S. Yitus for help, and after they had danced there awhile, they 
were ^certainly freed. 'Tis strange to hear how long they will dance, and in 
what manner, over stools, forms, tables; even great bellied women sometimes 
(and yet never hurt their children) will dance so long that they can stir 
neither hand nor foot, but seem to be quite dead. One in red clothes they 
cannot abide. Music above all things they love, and therefore magistrates in 
Germany will hire musicians to play to them, and some lusty sturdy com- 
panions to dance with them. This disease hath been very common in Germany, 
as appears by those relations of ''Sckenkius, and Paracelsus in his book of 
madness, who brags how many several persons he hath cured of it. Felix 
Platerus de mentis alienat. cap. 3. reports of a woman in Basil whom he saw, 
that da,nced a whole month together. The Arabians call it a kind of palsy. 
Bodine in his 5th book de Repub. cap. 1, speaks of this infirmity ; Monavius 
in his last epistle to Scoltizius, and in another to Dudithus, where you may 
read more of it. 

The last kind of madness or melancholy, is that demoniacal (if I may so 
call it) obsession or possession of devils, which Platerus and others would 
have to be preternatural : stupend things are said of them, their actions, ges- 
tures, contortions, fasting, prophesying, speaking languages they were never 
taught, &c. Many strange stories are related of them, which because some 
will not allow, (for Deacon and Darrel have written large volumes on this 
subject pro and con.) I voluntarily omit. 

•^Fuschius, institut. lib. 3. sec. 1. cap. 11, Felix Plater, ^Laurentius, add 
to these another fury that proceeds from love, and another from study, another 
divine or religious fury; but these more properly belong to melancholy; of all 
which I will speak * apart, intending to write a whole book of them. 

SuBSECT. Y. — Melancholy in Disposition, improperly so called, Equivocations, 

Melajstcholy, the subject of our present discourse, is either in disposition or 
habit. In disposition, is that transitory melancholy which goes and comes 
upon every small occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear, grief, 
passion, or perturbation of the mind, any manner of care, discontent, or 
thought, which causeth anguish, dulness, heaviness and vexation of spirit, any 
ways opposite to pleasure, mirth, joy, delight, causing frowardness in us, or a 
dislike. In which equivocal and improper sense, we call him melancholy that 
is dull, sad, sour, lumpish, ill-disposed, solitary, any way moved, or displeased. 
And from these melancholy dispositions, ^no man living is free, no stoic, 
none so wise, none so happy, none so patient, so generous, so godly, so divine, 
that can vindicate himself; so well composed, but more or less, some time or 

aLascivam Choream. To. 4. de morbis araentium. Tract. 1. iJEventu ut plurimum rem ipsam compro- 
■bante. <= Lib. 1. cap. de Mania. d Cap. 3. de mentis alienat. e Cap. 4. de mel. * PART. 3. 

fDe quo homine securitas, de quo certum gaudium ? q[uocuuq.ue se convertit, in ten'enis rebus amaritudincm 
auimi inveniet. Aug. in Psal. viii. 5. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 5.] Melamcholy in Disposition, ^\ 

otlier he feels the smart of it. Ttlelancholy in this sense is the character of 
mortality. " * Man that is born of a vv oman, is of short continuance, and full 
of trouble." Zeno, Cato, Socrates himself, whom ^^lian so highly commends 
for a moderate temper, that " nothing could disturb him, but going out, and 
coming in, still Socrates kept the same serenity of countenance, what misery 
soever befel him," (if we may believe Plato his disciple) was much tormented 
with it. Q, Metellus, in whom ^"Valerius gives instance of all haj)piness, " the 
most fortunate man then living, born in that most flourishing city of Rome, of 
noble parentage, a proper man of person, well qualified, healthful, rich, honour- 
able, a senator, a consul, happy in his wife, happy in his cliildren," &c., yet 
this man was not void of melancholy, he had his share of sorrow. ' Polycrates 
Samius, that flung his ring into the sea, because he would participate of 
discontent with others, and had it miraciJously restored to him again shortly 
after, by a fish taken as he angled, was not free from melancholy dispositions. 
No man can cure himself; the very gods had bitter pangs, and frequent 
passions, as their own ^ poets put upon them. In general, " ^ as the heaven, 
so is our life, sometimes fair, sometimes overcast, tempestuous, and serene j 
as in a rose, flowers and prickles ; in the year itself, a temperate summer 
sometimes, a hard winter, a drought, and then again pleasant showers : so is 
our life intermixed with joys, hopes, fears, sorrows, calumnies :" Ijivicem 
cedunt dolor et voluntas, there is a succession of pleasure and pain. 

™ " medio de fonte leporum, 

Surgit amari aliq,uid m ipsis floilfeus angat." 

" Even in the midst of laughing there is sorrow" (as ° Solomon holds) : even 
in the midst of all our feasting and jollity, as, "Austin infers in his Com. on the 
41st Psalm, there is grief and discontent. Inter delicias semper aliqidd scevi 
nos strangulat, for a pint of honey thou shalt here likely find a gallon of gall, 
for a dram of pleasure a pound ot pain, for an inch of mirth an ell of moan ; 
as ivy doth an oak, these miseries encompass our life. And it is most absurd 
and ridiculous for any mortal man to look for a perpetual tenure of happiness 
in this life. Nothing so prosperous and pleasant, but it hath ^ some bitterness 
in it,.. some complaining, some grudging; it is all y-kvuu-rnKfov, a mixed passion, 
and like a chequer table, black and white men, families, cities, have their falls 
and wanes ; now trines, sextiles, then quartiles and oppositions, ^ye are not 
here as those angels, celestial powers and bodies, sun and moon, to finish our 
course without all offence, with such constancy, to continue for so many ages : 
but subject to infirmities, miseries, interrupted, tossed and tumbled up and 
down, carried about with every small blast, often molested and disquieted 
upon each slender occasion, "^ uncertain, brittle, and so is all that we trust 
unto. " ^ And he that knows not this is not armed to endure it, is not fit to 
live in this world (as one condoles our time), he knows not the condition of it, 
where with a reciprocalty, pleasure and pain are still united, and succeed one 
another in a ring." J^xi e mundo, get thee gone hence if thou canst not 

* Job i. 14. s Omni tempoi'e Socratem eodem rultu videri, sive doraum rediret, sire domo egrederetur. 
^ Lib. 7. cap. 1. Natus in florentissima totius orbis civitate, nobilissimis parentibus, corporis vires habuit et 
rarissimas animi dotes, uxorem conspicuam, pudicam, fteliccs liberos, consulare decus, sequentes tiimnphos, 
&c. »-£lian. i^ Homer. Iliad. i Lipsius, cent. 3. ep. 45. ut ccelam, sic nos liomines sumus : illud ex 
intervallo mibibus obducitur et ob.scuratm-. In rosai-io flores spinis intermixti. Vita similis aeri, udum 
modd, sudiim, tempestas, serenitas : ita vices rerum sunt, prremia gaudiis, et sequaces cnxfe. "' Lucretius, 
1. 4. 1124. "Prov. xiv. 13. Extremum gaudii luctus occupat. ^Xatalitia inquit cclebrantur, nuptise 
hie sunt ; at ibi quid celebratur quod non dolet, quod non transit ? p Apuleius 4. florid. Xiliil quicquid 
bomini tarn prqsperum diviuitus datum, quin ei admixtum sit aiiquid difficultatis, ut etiam amplissimS 
quaque Itetitia, subsit quajpiam vel parva querimonia, conjugatione quadam mellis et fellis. i Caduca 

nirairum et fragilia, et puerilibus ccnsentanea crepundiis, sunt ista qute vires et opes humante rocantur, 
atfiuunt subitd, repente delabuiitur, nullo In loco, nulla in persona, stabilibus nixa radicibus consistunt, sed iu- 
certissimoflatufortmia; quosin sublime extulerunt,improvisorecursudestitutos in profundo miseriarum vaUe 
miserabiliter immergur.t. Valerius, lib. 6. cap. 11. ■■ Huic seculo parum aptus es, aut potius omnium nostro- 
nun conditionem ignoras, quibus reciproco quodam nexu, &c. Lorchanixs Gollobelgicus, Ub. 3. ad annum 15'J8. 



92 Digression of Anatomy. [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

brook it ; tliere is no way to avoid it, but to arm thyself with patience, with 
magnanimity, to ^ oppose thyself unto it, to suffer affliction as a good soldier 
of Christ ; as *Paul adviseth constantly to bear it. But forasmuch as so few 
can embrace this good counsel of his, or use "it aright, but rather as so many 
brute beasts give a way to their passion, voluntary subject and precipitate 
themselves into a labyrinth of cares, woes, miseries, and suj3er their souls to 
be overcome by them, cannot arm themselves with that patience as they 
ought to do, it falleth out oftentimes that these dispositions become habits, 
and " many affects contemned (as " Seneca notes) make a disease. Even as 
one distillation, not yet grown to custom, makes a cough ; but continual and 
inveterate causeth a consumption of the lungs;" so do these our melancholy 
provocations : and according as the humour itself is intended, or remitted in 
men, as their temperature of bod}?-, or rational soul is better able to make 
resistance ; so are they more or less aiffected. For that which is but a flea- 
biting to one, causeth insufferable torment to another ; and which one by his 
singular moderation, and well-composed carriage can happily overcome, a 
second is no whit able to sustain, but upon every small occasion of miscon- 
ceived abuse, injury, grief, disgrace, loss, cross, humour, &c. (if solitary, or 
idle) yields so far to passion, that his complexion is altered, his digestion 
hindered, his sleep gone, his spirits obscured, and his heart heavy, his 
hypochondries misaffected ; wind, crudity, on a sudden overtake him, and he 
himself overcome with melancholy. As it is with a man imprisoned for debt, 
if once in the gaol, every creditor will bring his action against him, and there 
likely hold him. If any discontent seize upon a patient, in an instant all 
other perturbations (for — qua data 2yorta riiunt) will set upon him, and then 
like a lame dog or broken- winged goose he droops and pines away, and is 
brought at last to that ill habit or malady of melancholy itself. So that as 
the philosophers make ^ eight degrees of heat and cold, we may make eighty- 
eight of melancholy, as the parts affected are diversely seized with it, or have 
been plunged more or less into this infernal gulph, or waded deeper into it. 
But all these melancholy fits, howsoever pleasing at first, or displeasing, 
violent and tyrannizing over those whom they seize on for the time ; yet 
these fits I say, or men affected, are but improperly so called, because they 
continue not, but come and go, as by some objects they are moved. This 
melancholy of which we are to treat, is a habit, Tnorhus sonticus, or chronicuSj 
a chronic or continuate disease, a settled humour, as ^ Aurelianus and ''others 
call it, not errant, but fixed ; and as it was long increasing, so now being 
(pleasant, or painful) grown to an habit, it will hardly be removed. 



SECT. I. MEMB. II. 

SuBSECT. I. — Digression of Anatomy. 

Befoke I proceed to define the disease of melancholy, what it is, or to 
discourse farther of it, I hold it not impertinent to make a brief digression of 
the anatomy of the body and faculties of the soul, for the better understanding 
of that which is to follow ; because many hard words will often occur, as 
myrache, hypochondries, emrods, &c., imagination, reason, humours, spirits, 
vital, natural, animal, nerves, veins, arteries, chylus, pituita ; which by the 

» Horsum omnia studia dirigi detent, ut humana fortiter feramus. t2 Tim. ii. 3. "Epist. 96. lib. 10. 
aftectus ft'equentes contemptique morbum faciunt. Distillatio una nee adhuc in morem adaucta, tussira 
facit, assidua et violenta plithisim. ^ Calidiim ad octo : frigidum ad octo. Una hiruudo nou facit 

aestatem. y Lib. 1. c. 6. * Fuscliius, 1. 3. sec, 1. cap. 7. Hildeslieim, fol. 130. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2,] Division of the Body. 93 

vulgar will not so easily be perceived, what they are, how cited, and to what 
end they serve. And besides, it may peradventure give occasion to some 
men to examine more accurately, search further into this most excellent 
subject, and thereupon with that royal * prophet to praise God, ('-for a man 
is fearfully and wonderfully made, and curiously wrought") that have time 
and leisure enough, and are sufficiently informed in all other worldly businesses, 
as to make a good bargain, buy and sell, to keep and make choice of a fair 
hawk, hound, horse, &c. But for such matters as concern the knowledge of 
themselves, they are wholly ignorant and careless; they know not what this 
body and soul are, how combined, of what parts and faculties they consist, or 
how a man differs from a dog. And what can be more ignominious and 
filthy (as ^Melancthon well inveighs) "than for a man not to know the struc- 
ture and composition of his own body, especially since the knowledge of it 
tends so much to the preservation of his health, and information of his man- 
ners?" To stir them up therefore to this study, to peruse those elaborate 
works of ^ Galen, Bauhines, Plater, Vesalius, Faloj)ius, Laurentius, Remelinus, 
&c., which have written copiously in Latin; or that which some of our in- 
dustrious countrymen have done in our mother tongue, not long since, as that 
translation of "Columbus and "^ Microcosmographia, in thirteen books, I have 
made this brief digression. Also because ^Wecker, ^Melancthon, ^Eernelius, 
^Fuschius, and those tedious Tracts de Aniynd (which have more com- 
pendiously handled and written of this matter) are not at all times ready to be 
had, to give them some small taste; or notice of the rest, let) this epitome 
suf&ce. 

SuBSECT. IT. — Division of the Body, Humours, Sjyirits. 

Of the parts of the body there may be many divisions : the most approved 
is that of 'Laurentius, out of Hippocrates : which is, into parts contained, or 
containing. Contained, are either humours or spirits. 

Humours^ A humour is a liquid or fl uent part of the body, comprehended 
in it, for the preservation of it; and is either innate or born with us, or ad- 
ventitious and acquisite. The radical or innate, is daily supplied by nourish- 
ment, which some call cambium, and make those secondary humours of ros 
and gluten to maintain it : or acquisite, to maintain these four first primary 
humours, coming and proceeding from the first concoction in the liver, by 
which means chylus is excluded. Some divide them into profitable and ex- 
crementitious. But ^Crato out of Hippocrates will have all four to be juice, 
and not excrements, without which no living creature can be sustained : which 
four, though they be comprehended in the mass of blood, yet they have their 
several affections, by which they are distinguished from one another, and from 
those adventitious, peccant, or ^diseased humours, as Meiancthon calls them. 

Blood.^ Blood is a hot, sweet, temperate, red humour, prepared in the 
meseraic veins, and made of the most temperate parts of the chylus in the 
liver, whose office is to nourish the whole body, to give it strength and colour, 
being dispersed by the veins through every part of it. And from it spirits 
are first begotten in the heart, which afterwards hj the arteries are com- 
municated to the other parts. 

Pituita, or phlegm, is a cold and moist humour, begotten of the colder part 
of the chylus (or white juice coming out of the meat digested in the stomach), 
in the liver; his office is to nourish and moisten the members of the body, 
which as the tongue are moved, that they be not over dry. 

*Psal. xxxix. 13. ^De anima. Turpe enim est homini ignorare sui corporis (ut ita dicam) sedificium, 
pi-aesertim cum ad valetudinem et moi-es liasc cognitio plurimum couducat. ^Dq usu part. <= History 

of man. ij). Crooke. ^In Syutaxi. i"De Anima. ginstit. lib. i. ^Physiol. 1. 1, 2. 

»Auat. 1. 1. c. 18. ''lu Micro, succos, sine quibus animal sustentari non potest. 'Morbosos huraores. 



94 Similar Parts. [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

Choler is hot and dry, bitter, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus, 
and gathered to the gall : it helps the natural heat and senses, and serves to 
the expelling of excrements. 

Melancholy.'] Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, begotten 
of the more feculent part of nourishment, and purged from the spleen, is a 
bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in 
the blood, and nourishing the bones. These four humours have some analogy 
with the four elements, and to the four ages in man. 

Serum, Sweat, Tears^ To these humours you may add serum, which is 
the matter of urine, and those excrementitious humours of the third concoc- 
tion, sweat and tears. 

S'pirits^ Spirit is a most subtile vapour, which is expressed from the blood, 
and the instrument of the soul, to perform all his actions ; a common tie or 
medium between the body and the soul, as some will have it ; or as "^ Paracel- 
sus, a fourth soul of itself. Melancthon holds the fountain of these spirits to 
be the heart, begotten there ; and afterward conveyed to the brain, they take 
another nature to them. Of these spirits there be three kinds, according to 
the three principal parts, brain, heart, liver; natural, vital, animal. The 
natural are begotten in the liver, and thence dispersed through the veins, to 
perform those natural actions. The vital spirits are made in the heart of the 
natural, which by the arteries are transported to all the other parts ; if the 
spirits cease, then life ceaseth, as in a syncope or swooning. The animal 
spirits formed of the vital, brought up to the brain, and diffused by the 
nerves, to the subordinate members, give sense and motion to them all. 

SuBSECT. III. — Similar Parts. 

Similar Parts^ Containing parts, by reason of their more solid substance, 
are either homogeneal or heterogeneal, similar or dissimilar; so Aristotle 
divides them, lib. 1, cap. 1, de Hist. Animal. ; Laurentius, cap. 20, lib. 1. 
Similar, or homogeneal, are such as, if they be divided, are still severed into 
parts of the same nature, as water into water. Of these some be spermatical, 
some fleshy or carnal. ° Spermatical are such as are immediately begotten of 
the seed, which are bones, gristles, ligaments, membranes, nerves, arteries, 
veins, skins, fibres or strings, fat. 

Bones.] The bones are dry and hard, begotten of the thickest of the seed, 
to strengthen and sustain other parts : some say there be 304, some 307, or 
313 in man's body. They have no nerves in them, and are therefore without 
sense. 

A gristle is a substance softer than bone, and harder than the rest, flexible, 
and serves to maintain the parts of motion. 

Ligaments are they that tie the bones together, and other parts to the 
bones, with their subserving tendons : membranes' office is to cover the rest. 

Nerves, or sinews, are membranes without, and full of marrow within ; they 
proceed from the brain, and carry the animal spirits for sense and motion. Of 
these some be harder, some softer ; the softer serve the senses, and there be 
seven pair of them. The first be the optic nerves, by which we see; the 
second move the eyes ; the third pair serve for the tongue to taste; .the fourth 
pair for the taste in the palate; the fifth belong to the ears; the sixth pair is 
most ample, and runs almost over all the bowels; the seventh pair moves the 
tongue. The harder sinews serve for the motion of the inner parts, proceed- 
ing from the marrow in the back, of whom there be thirty combinations, 
seven of the neck, twelve of the breast, &c. 

m SpLritalis anima. " Laurentius, cap. 20, lib. 1. Anat. 



Mem. 2. Sabs. 4.] Dissimilar Farts. 95 

Arteries.'] Arteries are long and hollow, with a double skin to convey the 
vital spirits ; to discern which the better, they say that Vesalius the anatomist 
was wont to cut up men alive. ° They arise in the left side of the heart, and 
are principally two, from which the rest are derived, aorta and venosa : aorta 
is the root of all the other, which serve the whole body; the other goes to 
the lungs, to fetch air to refrigerate the heart. 

Veins:] Veins are hollow and round, like pipes, arising from the liver, 
carrying blood and natural spirits; they feed all the parts. Of these there 
be two chief. Vena porta and Vena cava, from which the rest are corrivated. 
That Vena porta is a vein coming from the concave of fhe liver, and receiv- 
ing those meseraical veins, by whom he takes the chylus from the stomach 
and guts, and conveys it to the liver. The other derives blood from the liver 
to nourish all the other dispersed members. The branches of that Vena porta 
are the meseraical and hajmorrhoides. The branches of the Cava are inward 
or outward. Inward, seminal or emulgent. Outward, in the head, arms, 
feet, &c., and have several names. 

Fibrce, Fat, Flesh:] Fibr^ are strings, white and solid, dispersed through 
the whole member, and right, oblique, transverse, all which have their several 
uses. Felt is a similar part, moist, without blood, composed of the most 
thick and unctuous matter of the blood. The ^skin covers the rest, and 
hath Cuticulum, or a little tikin under it. Flesh is soft and ruddy, composed 
of the congealing of blood, &c. 

SuBSECT. IV. — Dissimilar Parts. 

Dissimilar parts are those which we call organical, or instrumental, and 
they be inward or outward. The chiefest outward parts are situate forward 
or backward : — forward, the crown and foretop of the head, skull, face, fore- 
head, temples, chin, eyes, ears, nose, &c., neck, breast, chest, upper and lower 
part of the belly, hypochondries, navel, groin, flank, &c. ; backward, the 
hinder part of the head, back, shoulders, sides, loins, hipbones, os sacrum, but- 
tocks, &c. Or joints, arms, hands, feet, legs, thighs, knees, &c. Or common 
to both, which, because they are obvious and well known, I have carelessly 
repeated, eaque proecipua et grandiora tantitni ; quod reliqaum ex libris de 
aniind qui volet, accipiat. 

Inward organical parts, which cannot be seen, are divers in number, and 
have several names, functions, and divisions; but that of '^Laurentius is most 
notable, into noble or ignoble parts. Of the noble there be three principal 
parts, to which all the rest belong, and whom they serve — brain, heart, liver; 
according to whose site, three regions, or a threefold division, is made of the 
whole body. As first of the head, in which the animal organs are contained, 
and brain itself, which by his nerves give sense and motion to the rest, and is, 
as it were, a privy counsellor and chancellor to the heart. The second region 
is the chest, or middle belly, in which the heart as king keeps his court, and 
by his arteries communicates life to the whole body. The third region is the 
lower belly, in which the liver resides as a Legat alatere, with the rest of those 
natural organs, serving for concoction, nourishment, expelling of excrements. 
This lower region is distinguished from the upper by the midriff, or diaphragma, 
and is subdivided again by '' some into three concavities or regions, upper, 
middle, and lower. The upper of the hypochondries, in whose right side is the 
liver, the left the spleen ; from which is denominated hypochondriacal melan- 
choly. The second of the navel and flanks, divided from the first by the rim. 

o In these they observe the 'beatiiig of the pulse. p Cujus est pars simularis a vi cutifica ut interiora 

nuiniat. Capivac. Anat. piig. 252. <i Anat. lib. 1. c. 19. Celebris est et pervulgata partium divisio 

iu principea et ignobiles partes. ^ d. Crook out of Galea and others. 



96 Anatomy of the Body. [Part. 1. Sect. 1. 

The last of the water course, which is again subdivided into three other parts. 
The Arabians make two parts of this region, Epigastrium and Hypogastrium, 
upper or lower. Epigastrium they call Mirach, from whence comes Mirachialis 
MelanclioUa, sometimes mentioned of them. Of these several regions I will 
treat in brief apart j and first of the third region, in which the natural organs 
are contained. 

De Anima. — The Lower Region, Natural Organs^ But you that are 
readers in the meantime, '' Suppose you were now brought into some sacred 
temple, or majestical palace (as ^Melancthon saith), to behold not the matter 
only, but the singular art, workmanship, and counsel of this our great Creator. 
And it is a pleasant and profitable speculation, if it be considered aright." 
The parts of this region, which present themselves to your consideration and 
view, are such as serve to nutrition or generation. Those of nutrition serve to 
the first or second concoction ; as the oesophagus or gullet, which brings meat 
and drink into the stomach. The ventricle or stomach, which is seated in the 
midst of that part of the belly beneath the midriff, the kitchen, as it were, of 
the first concoction, and which turns our meat into chylus. It hathtwo mouths, 
one above, another beneath. The upper is sometimes taken for the stomach 
itself; the lower and nether door (as Wecker calls it) is named Pylorus. This 
stomach is sustained by a large kell or kauU, called omentum; which 
some will have the same with peritoneum, or rim of the belly. From the 
stomach to the very fundament are produced the guts, or intestina, which serve 
a little to alter and distribute the chylus, and convey away the excrements. 
They are divided into small and great, by reason of their site and substance, 
slender or thicker : the slender is duodenum, or whole gut, which is next to 
the stomach, some twelve inches long, saith *Fuschius. Jejunum, or empty 
gut, continuate to the other, which hath many meseraic veins annexed to it, 
which take part of the chylus to the liver from it. Ilion the third, which 
consists of many crinkles, which serves with the rest to receive, keep, and 
distribute the chylus from the stomach. The thick guts are three, the blind 
gut, colon, and right gut. The blind is j. thick and short gut, having one 
mouth, in which the ilion and colon meet : it receives the excrements, and 
conveys them to the colon. This colon hath many windings, that the excre- 
ments pass not away too fast : the right gut is strait, and conveys the excre- 
ments to the fundament, whose lower part is bound up with certain muscles 
called sphincters, that the excrements may be the better contained, until such 
time as a man be willing to go to the stool. In the midst of these guts is 
situated the mesenterium or midrifij composed of many veins, arteries, and 
much fat, serving chiefly to sustain the guts. All these parts serve the first 
concoction. To the second, which is busied either in refining the good nourish- 
ment or expelling the bad, is chiefly belonging the liver, like in colour to con- 
gealed blood, the shop of blood, situate in the right hypercondry, in figure like 
to a half-moon — Generosum memhrum Melancthon styles it, a generous part; 
it serves to turn the chylus to blood, for the nourishment of the body. The 
excrements of it are either choleric or watery, which the other subordinate 
parts convey. The gall placed in the concave of the liver, extracts clioler to 
it : the spleen, melancholy ; which is situate on the left side, over against the 
liver, a spongy matter that draws this black choler to it by a secret vii'tue, 
and feeds upon it, conveying the rest to the bottom of the stomach, to stir up 
appetite, or else to the guts as an excrement. That watery matter the two 
kidneys expurgate by those emulgent veins and ureters. The emulgent draw 
this superfluous moisture from the blood; the two ureters convey it to the 

» Vos vero veluti in templum ac sacrarium quoddam vos duci putetis, &c. Suavis et utilia cognitio. 
tLib. 1. cap. 12. Sect. 5. 



Mem. 2. Sabs. 4] Anatomy-of the Body, 97 

hladder, wliicli by reason of bis site in fcbe lower belly, is apt to receive it, 
liaving two parts, neck and bottom : the bottom holds the water, the neck is 
constringed with a muscle, which, as a porter, keejDS the water from running 
out against our will. 

Members of generation are common to both sexes, or peculiar to one; which, 
because they are impertinent to my purpose, I do voluntarily omit. 

Middle Region^ Next in order is the middle region, or chest, which com- 
prehends the vital faculties and parts; which (as I have said) is separated 
from the lower belly by the diaphragma or midriff, which is a skin consisting 
of many nerves, membranes; and amongst other uses it hath, is the instru- 
ment of laughing. There is also a certain thin membrane, full of sinews, 
which covereth the whole chest within, and is called pleura, the seat of the 
disease called pleurisy, when it is inflamed; some add a third skin, which is 
termed Mediastinus, which divides the chest into two parts, right and left ; of 
this region the principal part is the heart, which is the seat and fountain of 
life, of heat, of spirits, of pulse and respiration — the sun of our body, the king 
and sole commander of it — -the seat and organ of all passions and affections. 
Prinium vivens, uUimum moriens, it lives first, and dies last in all creatures. 
Of a pyrtimidical form, and not much unlike to a pine-apple; a part worthy of 
"admiration, that can yield such variety of affections, by whose motion it is 
dilated or contracted, to stir and command the humours in the body. As in 
sorrow, melancholy; in anger, choler; in joy, to send the blood outwardly; in 
sorrow, to call it in ; moving the humours, as horses do a chariot. This heart, 
though it be one sole member, yet it maybe divided into two creeks right and left. 
The right is like the moon increasing, bigger than the other part, and receives 
blood from Vena cavci distributing some of it to the lungs to nourish them ; the 
rest to the left side, to engender spirits. The left creek hath the form of a 
cone, and is the seat of life, which, as a torch doth oil, draws blood tinto it, 
begetting of it spirits and fire ; and as fire in a torch, so are spirits in the 
blood; and by that great artery called aorta, it sends vital spirits over the 
body, and takes air from the lungs by that artery which is called venosa; so 
that })oth creeks have their vessels, the right two veins, the left two arteries, 
besides those two common anfractuous ears, which serve them both; the one 
to hold blood, the other air, for several uses. The lungs is a thin spongy part, 
like an ox hoof (saith ""Fernelius), the town-clerk or crier (^one terms it), the 
instrument of voice, as an orator to a king; annexed to the heart, to express 
their thoughts by voice. That it is the instrument of voice, is manifest, in 
that no creature can speak, or ut ber any voice, which wanteth these lights. It 
is besides the instrument of respiration, or breathing ; and its office is to cool 
the heart, by sending air unto it, by the venosal artery, which vein comes to 
the lungs by that aspera arteria, which consists of many gristles, membranes, 
nerves, taking in air at the nose and mouth, and by it likewise exhales the 
fumes of the heart. 

In the upper region serving the animal faculties, the chief organ is the brain, 
which is a soft, marrowish, and white substance, engendered of the purest 
part of seed and spirits, included by many skins, and seated within the skull 
or brain pan; and it is the inost noble organ under heaven, the dwelling- 
house and seat of the soul, the habitation of wisdom, memory, judgment, 
reason, and in which man is most like unto God ; and therefore nature hath 
covered it with a skull of hard bone, and two skins or membranes, whereof the 
one is called dura mater, or meninx, the other pia mater. The dura mater is 



'Hfecresest pr?eciptie digna admiratione, quod tanta affectuum varietate cietur cor, quod omnes res 
tristes et laetas statim corda feriunt et movent. v Physio. 1. 1. c. 8. ^ Ut orator regi : sic pulmo vocis 

instrumentum annectitur cordi, &c. Melancth. 

H 



98 Anatomy of the Soul [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

D€xt to tlie skull, above the other, which includes and protects the brain. 
When this is taken away, the pia mater is to be seen, a thin membrane, the 
next and immediate cover of the brain, and not covering only, but entering 
into it. The brain itself is divided into two parts, the fore and hinder part ; 
the fore part is much bigger than the other, which is called the little brain in 
respect of it. This fore part hath many concavities distinguished by certain 
ventricles, which are the receptacles of the spirits^ brought hither by the arte- 
ries from the heart, and are there refined to a more heavenly nature, to perform 
the actions of the soul. Of these ventricles there are three — right, left, and 
middle. The right and left answer to their sight, and beget animal spirits; if 
they be any way hurt, sense and motion ceaseth. These ventricles, moreover, 
are held to be the seat of the common sense. The middle ventricle is a com- 
mon concourse and concavity of them both, and hath two passages — the one to 
receive pituita, and the other extends itself to the fourth creek ; in this they 
place imagination and cogitation, and so the three ventricles of the fore part of 
the brain are used. The fourth creek behind the head is common to the 
cerebel or little brain, and marrow of the back-bone, the last and most solid of 
all the rest, which receives the animal spirits from the other ventricles, and 
conveys them to the marrow in the back, and is the place where they say the 
memory is seated. 

SuBSECT. V. — 0/ the Soul and her Faculties. 

According to ^Aristotle, the soul is defined to be hraixj^a, perfeclio et 
actus primus coo'jjoris organici, vitam hahentis in potentia : the perfection or 
first act of an organical body, having power of life, which most ''philosophers 
approve. But many doubts arise about the essence, subject, seat, distinction, 
and subordinate faculties of it. For the essence and particular knowledge, of 
all other things it is most hard (be it of man or beast) to discern, as ^Aristotle 
himself, ^Tully, ""Picus Mirandula, ''Tolet, and other Neoteric philosophers 
confess : — ^ " We can understand all things by her, but what she is we cannot 
apprehend." Some therefore make one soul, divided into three principal 
faculties ; others, three distinct souls. Which question of late hath been much 
controverted by Picolomineus and Zabarel. ^Paracelsus will have four souls, 
adding to the three grand faculties a spiritual soul : which opinion of his, Cam- 
panella, in his book de sensu rerum,'^ much labours to demonstrate and prove, 
because carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer; with many such argu- 
ments: And ^some again, one soul of all creatures whatsoever, differing only 
in organs; and that beasts have reason as well as men, though, for some 
defect of organs, not in such measure. Others make a doubt whether it be all 
in all, and all in every part ; which is amply discussed in Zabarel amongst the 
rest. The ^common division of the soul is into three principal faculties — 
vegetal, sensitive, and rational, which make three distinct kinds of living 
creatures — vegetal plants, sensible beasts, rational men. How these three 
principal faculties are distinguished and connected, ^itmcmo ingenio inaccessum 
fidetur, is beyond human capacity, as 'Taurellus, Philip, Flavins, and others 
suppose. The inferior may be alone, but the superior cannot subsist without 
the other; so sensible includes vegetal, rational both; which are contained in 
it (saith Aristotle) ut trigonus in tetragono, as a triangle in a quadrangle. 

yDe anim, c. 1. ^ Scalig. exerc. 307. Tolet. in lib. de anima. cap. 1. &c. "1. De anima. cap. 1. 

t> Tusciil. qu.Pst. «Lib. 6. Doct. Va. Gentil. c. 13. pag. 1216. dAristot. « Anima quaeque intelli- 

gimus, et tamen quae sit ipsa intelligere non valemiis. f Spiritualem animam a reliquis distinctam tuetur, 
etiani in cadavere inhasrentem post mortem per aliquot menses. * Lib. 3. cap. 31. eCoelius, lib. 2. c. 31. 
Hutarch. in Grillo Lips. Cen. 1. ep. 50. Jossius de Eisu et Fletu, Averroes, Campanella, &c. ^ PhiLp. 

de Anima. ca. 1. Coelius 20. antiq. cap. 3. Plutarch, deplacit. pbilos. 'De vit. et mort. part. 2. c. 3. 

prop. 1. de vit. et mort. 2, c. 22. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 5.] Anatomy of the Soul. 99 

Vegetal SoulP^ "Vegetal, tlie first of the three distinct faculties, is defined 
to be "a substantial act of an organical body, by which it is nourished, aug- 
mented, and begets another like unto itself" In which definition, three several 
operations are specified — altrix, auctrix, procreatrix; the first is '^nutrition, 
whose object is nourishment, meat, drink, and the like; his organ the liver 
in sensible creatures; in plants, the root or sap. His office is to turn the 
nutriment into the substance of the body nourished, which he performs by 
natural heat. This nutritive operation hath four other subordinate functions 
or powers belonging to it — attraction, retention, digestion, expulsion. 

Attraction^ ^Attraction is a ministering faculty, which, as a loadstone 
doth iron, draws meat into the stomach, or as a lamp doth oil ; and this 
attractive power is very necessary in jjlants, which- suck up pioisture by the 
root, as another mouth, into the sap, as a like stomach. 

Betention^^ Retention keeps it, being attracted into the stomach, until 
such time it be concocted; for if it should pass away straight, the body could 
not be nourished. 

Digestion^ Digestion is performed by natural heat ; for as the flame of a 
torch consumes oil, wax, tallow, so doth it alter and digest the nutritive mat- 
ter. Indigestion is opposite unto it, for want of natural heat. Of this di- 
gestion there be three differences — maturation, elixation, assation. 

Maturation.~\ Maturation is especially observed in the fruits of trees; which 
are then said to be ripe, when the seeds are fit to be sown again. Crudity is 
opposed to it, which gluttons, epicures, and idle persons are most subject 
unto, that use no exercise to stir natural heat, or else choke it, as too much 
wood puts out a fire. 

Elixation^ Elixation is the seething of meat in the stomach, by the said 
natural heat, as meat is boiled in a pot; to which corruption or putrefaction 
is opposite. 

Assation.'] Assation is a concoction of the inward moisture by heat ; his 
opposite is a semiustulation. 

. Order of Concoction fourfold.] Besides these three several operations of 
digestion, there is a four- fold order of concoction : — mastication, or chewing 
in the mouth; chilification of this so chewed meat in the stomach; the third 
is in the liver, to turn this chylus into blood, called sanguification; the last 
is assimulation, which is in every part. 

Expulsion.] Expulsion is a power of nutrition, by which it expels all 
superfluous excrements, and reliques of meat and drink, by the guts, bladder, 
pores; as by purging, vomiting, spitting, sweating, inline, hairs, nails, &c. 

Augmentation.] As this nutritive faculty serves to nourish the body, so 
doth the augmenting faculty (the second operation or power of the vegetal 
faculty) to the increasing of it in quantity, according to all dimensions, long, 
broad, thick, and to make it grow till it come to his due proportion and per- 
fect shape; which hath his period of augmentation, as of consumption; and 
that most certain, as the poet observes : — 

"Stat sua cTiique dies, breve et irreparabile tempus | "A term of life is set to every man, 
Omnibus est vitas." | Which is but short, and pass it no one can." 

Generation^ The last of these vegetal faculties is generation, which begets 
another by m.eans of seed, like unto itself, to the perpetual preservation of the 
species. To this faculty they ascribe three subordinate operations : — the first 
to turn nourishment into seed, &c. 

Life and Death concomitants of the Y eg etat Faculties?] Necessary concomi- 
tants or affections of this vegetal faculty are life and his privation, death. To 

k Nutritio est alimenti transmutatio, viro naturalis. Seal, exerc. 101 . sec. 17. ' See more of Attraction 
in Seal. exer. 343. 



100 Anatomy of the Soul. [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

the preservation of life fhe natural heat is most requisite, though siccity and 
humidity, and those first qualities, be not excluded. This heatls likewise in 
plants, as appears by their increasing, fructifying, &c., though not so easily 
perceived. In all bodies it must have radical * moisture to preserve it, that it 
be not consumed ; to which preservation our clime, country, temperature, and 
the good or bad use of those six non- natural things avail much. Tor as this 
natural heat and moisture decays, so doth our life itself; and if not prevented 
before by some violent accident, or interrupted through our own default, is in 
the end dried up by old age, and extinguished by death for want of matter, 
as a lamp for defect of oil to maintain it. 

SuBSECT. YI. — -Of the sensible Soul. 

Next in order is the sensible faculty, which is as far beyond the other in 
dignity as a beast is preferred to a plant, having those vegetal powers included 
in it. 'Tis defined an "Act of an organical body by which it lives, hath sense, 
appetite, judgment, breath, and motion." His object in general is a sensible 
or passible quality, because the sense is affected with it. The general organ 
is the brain, from which principally the sensible operations are derived. This 
sensible soul is divided into two parts, apprehending or moving. By the ap- 
prehensive power we perceive the species of sensible things present, or absent, 
and retain them as wax doth the print of a seal. By the moving, the body is 
outwardly carried from one place to another; or inwardly moved by spirits and 
pulse. The apprehensive faculty is subdivided into two parts, inward or out- 
ward. Outward, as the five senses, of touching, hearing, seeing, smelling, 
tasting, to which you may add Scaliger's sixth sense of titillation, if you please ; 
or that of speech, which is the sixth external sense, according to Lullius. 
Inward are three — common sense, phantasy, memory. Those five outward 
senses have their object in outward things only and such as are present, as the 
eye sees no colour except it be at hand, the ear sound. Three of these senses 
are of commodity, hearing, sight, and smell; two of necessity, touch, and 
taste, without which we cannot live. Besides, the sensitive power is active 
or passive. Active in sight, the eye sees the colour; passive when it is hurt 
by his object, as the eye by the sun-beams. According to that axiom, Visibile 
forte destruit sensum.^ Or if the object be not pleasing, as a bad sound to the 
ear, a stinking smell to the nose, &c. 

Sight.] Of these five senses, sight is held to be most precious, and the best, 
and that by reason of his object, it sees the whole body at once. By it we 
learn, and discern all things, a sense most excellent for use : to the sight three 
things are required; the object, the organ, and the medium. The object in 
general is visible, or that which is to be seen, as colours, and all shining bodies. 
The medium is the illumination of the air, which comes from "light, commonly 
called diaphanum ; for in dark we cannot see. The organ is the eye, and 
chiefly the apple of it, which by those optic nerves, concurring both in one, 
conveys the sight to the common sense. Between the organ and object a true 
distance is required, that it be not too near, nor too far off. Many excellent 
questions appertain to this sense, discussed by philosophers : as whether this 
sight be caused intra mittendo, vel extra mittendo, &c., by receiving in the 
visible species, or sending of them out, which ° Plato, ^Plutarch, ^Macrobius, 
^Lactantius, and others dispute. And besides it is the subject of the perspec- 
tives, of which Alhazen the Arabian, Vitellio, Roger Bacon, Baptista Porta, 
Guidus Ubaldus, Aquilonius, &c., have written whole volumes, 

1 Vita consistit in calido et humido. ™ " Too bright an object destroys the organ." " Lumen est 

actus perspicui. Lumen a luce provenit, lux est in corpore lucido. « Satur. 7. c. 14. p In Pliaidon. 

<iDe pract. Philos, 4. 'Lac. cap. 8. de opif. Dei, 1. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 7.] .Anatomy of the Soul. 101 

Rearing^ Hearing, a most excellent outward sense, " by wbicli we learn 
and get knowledge." His object is sound, or that which is heard ; the medium, 
air; organ the ear. To the sound, which is a collision of the air, three things 
are required ; a body to strike, as the hand of a musician ; the body struck, 
which must be solid and able to resist ; as a bell, lute-string, not wool, or sponge; 
the medium, the air; which is inward, or outward ; the outward being struck 
or collided by a solid body, still strikes the next air, until it come to that 
inward natural air, which as an exquisite organ is contained in a little skin 
formed like a drum-head, and struck upon by certain small instruments like 
drum-sticks, conveys the sound by a pair of nerves, appropriated to that use, 
to the common sense, as to a judge of sounds. There is great variety and 
much delight in them ; for the knowledge of which, consult with Boethius 
and other musicians. 

Smelling^ Smelling is an "outward sense, which apprehends by the 
nostrils drawing in air ; " and of all the rest it is the weakest sense in men. 
The organ in the nose, or two small hollow pieces of flesh a little above it : 
the medium the air to men, as water to fish : the object, smell, arising from a 
mixedbody resolved, which, whether it be a quality, fume, vapour, or exhalation, 
I will not now dispute, or of their difierences, and how they are caused. This 
sense is an organ of health, as sight and hearing, saith ® Agellius, are of disci^ 
pline; and that by avoiding bad smells, as by choosing good, which do as 
much alter and affect the body many times, as diet itself. 

Taste.'] Taste, a necessary sense, "which perceives all savours by the 
tongue and palate, and that by means of a thin spittle, or watery juice." His 
organ is the tongue with his tasting nerves; the medium, a watery juice; the 
object, taste, or savour, which is a quality in the juice, arising from the mix- 
ture of things tasted. Some make eight species or kinds of savour, bitter, 
sweet, sharp, salt, &c., ail which sick men (as in an ague) cannot discern, by 
reason of their organs misaffected. 

Touching^ Touch, the last of the senses, and most ignoble, yet of as great 
necessity as the other, and of as much pleasure. This sense is exquisite in 
men, and by his nerves dispersed all over the body, perceives any tactile quality. 
His organ the nerves; his object those first qualities, hot, dry, moist, cold; 
and those that follow them, hard, soft, thick, thin, &c. Many delightsome 
questions are moved by philosophers about these five senses; their organs, 
objects, mediums, which for brevity I omit. 

SuBSECT. yil. — Of the Inward Senses, 

Common Sensed] Innek senses are three in number, so called, because they 
be within the brain-pan, as common sense, phantasy, memory. Their objects 
are not only things present, but they perceive the sensible species of things to 
come, past, absent, such as were before in the sense. This common sense is 
the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of 
objects; for by mine eye I do not know that I see, or by mine ear that I hear, 
but by my common sense, who judgeth of sounds and colours ; they are but the 
organs to bring the species to be censured; so that all their objects are his, 
and all their of&ces are his. The forepart of the brain is his organ or seat. 

Phantasy.] Phantasy, or imagination, which some call estimative, or 
cogitative (confirmed, saith *Fernelius, by frequent meditation), is an inner 
sense which doth more fully examine the species perceived by common sense, 
of things present or absent, and keeps them longer, recalling them to mind 
again, or making new of his own. In time of sleep this faculty is free, and 

"Lib. 19. cap. 2. tPhis. 1. 5. c. 8. 



102 Anatomy of the Soul. ^ [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

many times conceives strange, stnpend, absurd shapes, as in sick men we com- 
monly observe. His organ is the middle cell of the brain; his objects all the 
species communicated to him by the common sense, by comparison of which he 
feigns infinite other unto himself. In melancholy men this faculty is most 
powerful and strong, and often hurts, producing many monstrous and prodi- 
gious things, especially if it be stirred up by some terrible object, presented 
to it from common sense or memory. In poets and painters imagination forci- 
bly works, as appears by their several fictions, antics, images : as Ovid's house 
of sleep. Psyche's palace in Apuleius, &c. In men it is subject and governed 
by reason, or at least should be; but in brutes it hath no superior, and is 
ratio brutormn, all the reason they have. 

Memory.'] Memory lays up all the species which the senses have brought 
in, and records them as a good register, that they may be forthcoming when 
they are called for by phantasy and reason. His object is the same with 
phantasy, his seat and organ the back part of the brain. 

Affections of the Senses, sleep and %oaking?\ The afiections of these senses 
are sleep and waking, common to all sensible creatures. " Sleep is a rest or 
binding of the outward senses, and of the common sense, for the preservation 
of body and soul" (as ^'Scaliger defines it); for when the common sense 
resteth, the outward senses rest also. The phantasy alone is free, and his 
commander reason : as appears by those imaginary dreams, which are of divers 
kinds, natural, divine, demoniacal, &c., which vary according to humours, diet, 
actions, objects, &c., of which Artemidorus, Cardanus, and Sambucus, with 
their several interpretators, have written great volumes. This ligation of 
senses proceeds from an inhibition of spirits, the way being stopped by which 
they should come; this stopping is caused of vapours arising out of the 
stomach, filling the nerves, by which the spirits should be conveyed. "When 
these vapours are spent, the passage is open, and the spirits perform their 
accustomed duties: so that " waking is the action and motion of the senses, 
which the spirits dispersed over all parts cause." 

SuBSscT. YIII. — Of the Moving Faculty. 

Appetite.'] This moving faculty is the other power of tlie sensitive soul, 
which causeth all those inward and outward animal motions in the body. It is 
divided into two faculties, the power of appetite, and of moving from place to 
place. This of appetite is threefold, so some will have it ; natural, as it signi- 
fies any such inclination, as of a stone to fall downward, and such actions as 
retention, expulsion, which depend not on sense, but are vegetal, as the appetite 
of meat and drink ; hunger and thirst. Sensitive is common to men and brutes. 
Voluntary, the third, or intellective, which, commands the other two in men, 
and is a curb unto them, or at least should be, but for the most part is capti- 
vated and overruled by them; and men are led like beasts by sense, giving 
reins to their concupiscence and several lusts. For by this appetite the soul is 
led or inclined to follow that good which the senses shall approve, or avoid that 
which they hold evil : his object being good or evil, the one he embraceth, the 
other he rejecteth; according to that aphorism, OQiinia appetunt honuin, all 
things seek their own good, or at least seeming good. This power is inse- 
parable from sense, for v/here sense is, there are likewise pleasure and pain. 
His organ is the same with the common sense, and is divided into two powers, 
or inclinations, concupiscible or irascible: or (as ^one translates it) coveting, 
anger invading, or impugning. Concupiscible covets always pleasant and 
delightsome things, and abhors that which is distasteful, harsh, and unpleasant. 

" Exercit. 280. * T. W. Jesuite, in his Passions of tlve Minde. 



Mem. 2. Sabs. 9.] Aiuctomy of tin Soul. 103 

Irascible, ^ quasi aversans per iram ef odium, as avoiding it with anger and 
indignation. All atfections and perturbations arise out of these two foun- 
tains, which, although the Stoics make light of, we hold natural, and not to be 
resisted. The good affections are caused by some object of the same nature; 
and if present, they procure joy, which dilates the heart, and preserves tlie 
body : if absent, they cause hope, love, desire, and concupiscence. The bad 
are simple or mixed: simple for some bad object present, as sorrow, which 
contracts the heart, macerates the soul, subverts the good estate of the body, 
hindering all the operations of it, causing melancholy, and many times death 
itself; or future, as fear. Out of these two arise those mixed affections and 
passions of anger, which is a desire of revenge ; hatred, which is inveterate 
anger; zeal, which is offended with him who hurts that he loves; and 
sviHaipenaxla, a compound affection of joy and hate, when we rejoice at other 
men's mischief, and are grieved at their prosperity; pride, self-love, emulation, 
envy, shame, &c., of which elsewhere. 

Moving from place to place, is a faculty necessarily following the other. For 
in vain were it otherwise to desire and to abhor, if we had not likewise power 
to prosecute or eschew, by moving the body from place to place : by this 
faculty therefore we locally move the body, or any part of it, and go from one 
place to another. To the better performance of which, three things are requi- 
site: that which moves; by what it moves; that which is moved. That 
which moves, is either the e:fficient cause, or end. The end is the object, 
which is desired or eschewed; as in a dog to catch a hare, &c. The efficient 
cause in man is reason, or his subordinate phantasy, which apprehends good 
or bad objects: in brutes imagination alone, which moves the appetite, the 
appetite this faculty, which, by an admirable league of nature, and by me- 
diation of the spirit, commands the organ by which it moves ; and that consists 
of nerves, muscles, cords, dispersed through the whole body, contracted and 
relaxed as the spirits will, which move the muscles, or ^ nerves in the midst 
of them, and draw the cord, and so juer consequens, the joint, to the place 
intended. That which is moved, is the body or some member apt to move. 
The motion of the body is divers, as going, running, leaping, dancing, sitting, 
and such like, referred to the predicament of situs. Worms creep, birds fly, 
fishes swim ; and so of parts, the chief of which is respiration or breathing, 
and is thus performed. The outward air is drawn in by the vocal artery, 
and sent by mediation of the midriff to the lungs, which, dilating themselves 
as a pair of bellows, reciprocally fetch it in, and send it out to the heart to 
cool it; and from thence now being hot, convey it again, still taking in fresh. 
Such a like motion is that of the pulse, of which, because many have written 
whole books, I wili say nothing. 

SuBSECT. IX. — Of the Rational Soul. 

In the precedent subsections I have anatomized those inferior faculties of 
the soul; the rational remain eth, "a pleasant but a doubtful subject" (as 
* one terms it), and with the like brevity to be discussed. Many erroneous 
opinions are about the essence and original of it; whether it be fire, as Zeno 
held ; harmony, as Aristoxenus ; number, as Xenocrates ; whether it be organi- 
cal, or inorganical; seated in the brain, heart or blood; mortal or immortal; 
how it comes into the body. Some hold that it is ex traduce, as Phil. 1. de 
Anima, Tertullian, Lactantius de opific. Dei, cap. 19. Hugo, lib. de Spiritu 
et Anima, Viiicentius Bellavic. spec, natural, lib. 23. cap. 2. et 11. Hippo- 

y Velcurio. « Nervi a spiritu moYentur, spiritus ab anima, Melanct. » Velcurio. Jucundum et 

anceps subjectum. 



104: Anatomy of the Soul. [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

crates, Avicenna, and many ^late writers; that one man begets another, 
body and soul; or as a candle from a candle, to be produced from the seed : 
otherwise, say they, a man begets but half a man, and is worse than a beast 
that begets botli matter and form ^ and besides the three faculties of the soul 
must be together infused, which is most absurd as they hold, because in beasts 
they are begot, the two inferior I mean, and may not be well separated in 
men. " Galen supposeth the soul crasin esse, to be the temperature itself ; 
Trismegistus, Musseus, Orpheus, Homer, Pin darns, Phserecides Syrus, Epic- 
tetus, with the Chaldees and Egyptians, affirmed the soul to be immortal, 
as did those British * Druids of old. The ^ Pythagoreans defend Metempsy- 
chosis; and Palingenesia, that souls go from one body to another, epotdprius 
Lethes undd, as men into wolves, bears, dogs, hogs, as they were incliaed in 
their lives, or participated in conditions. 

" finque ferinas 

Possum us ire domus, pecudumque in corpora condi." 

* Lucian's cock was first Euphorbus a captain : 

" Ille ego (nam memini) Trojani tempore belli 
Panthoides Euphorbus eram." 

A horse, a man, a sponge. ^Julian the Apostate thought Alexander's soul 
was descended into his body : Plato in Timteo, and in his Phsedon (for aught 
I can perceive), differs not much from this opinion, that it was from God at 
first, and knew all, but being inclosed in the body, it forgets, and learns anew, 
which he calls reminiscentia, or recalling, and that it was put into the body 
for a punishment ; and thence it goes into a beast's, or man's, as appears by 
his pleasant fiction cle sortitione animarum,lih. 10. de rep. and after ^ ten 
thousand years is to return into the former body again. 

' post varios annos, per mille figuras, 



Kursus ad humanaj fertur primordiavitae." 

Others deny the immortality of it, which Pomponatus of Padua decided out 
of Aristotle not long since, Plinius Avuncidiis, cap. 1. lib. 2. et lib. 7. cap. 55; 
Seneca, lib. 7. epist. ad Lucilium ejnst. 55 ; Dicearchus in Tidl. Tusc. EpicU" 
rus, Aratics, Hijypocrates, Galen, Lucretius, lib. 1. 

" (Prreterea gigni parlter cum corpore, et una 
Crescere sentimus, pariterque senescere nientem.) " f 

Averroes, and I know not how many Neoterics. "J This question of the 
immortality of the soul, is diversely and wonderfully impugned and disputed, 
especially among the Italians of late," saith Jab. Colerus, lib. de immort. 
animce, cap. 1. The popes themselves have doubted of it : Leo Decimus, 
that Epicurean pope, as § some record of him, caused this question to be dis- 
cussed pro and con before him, and concluded at last, as a prophane and 
atheistical moderator, with that verse of Cornelius Gallus, Et redit m nihilum, 
quod fait ante nihil. It began of nothing, and in nothing it ends. Zeno and 
his Stoics, as || Austin quotes him, supposed the soul so long to continue, till 
the body was fully putrefied, and resolved into materia jjrijna: but after that, 
infumos evanescere, to be extinguished and vanished; and in the mean time, 
whilst the body was consuming, it wandered all abroad, et e longinquo multa 
an7iunciare, and (as that Clazomenian Hermotimus averred) saw pretty visions, 
and suffered I know not what. ^ Errant exangues sine corpore et ossibus 

b Goclenius in ^yxoX. pag. 302. Bright in Pliys. Scrib. 1.1. David Crusius, Melancthon, Hippitis Hernius, 
Levinus Lemnius, &c. <^ Lib. an mores sequantur, &c. *CEesar. 6. com. ^ Kead Jineas Gazeus 

dial, of the immortality of the Soul. f Ovid. Met. 15. "We, who may take up our abode in wild beasts, 
or be lodged in the breasts of cattle." e in Gallo. Idem. * Nicepliorus, hist. lib. 10. cap. 35. e Phaido. 
* Claudlan, lib. 1. derap. Proserp. f " Besides, we observe that the mind is born with the body, grows 

with it, and decays with it." i Hrec qutestio multos per annos varie, ac mirabiliter impugnata, &c. 

§ Colerus, ibid. || De eccles. dog. cap. 16. ^ Ovid. 4. Met. "The bloodless shades without either 

body or bones wander." 



Mem. 2. Subs. 10.] Anatomy of the Soul. . 105 

umbrce. Others grant the immortality thereof, but they make many fabulous 
fictions in the meantime of it, after the departure from the body : like Plato's 
Elysian fields, and that Turkey paradise. The souls of good men they deified ; 
the bad (saith ''Austin) became devils, as they supposed; with many such 
absurd tenets, which he hath confuted. Hierome, Austin, and other Fathers 
of the church, hold that the soul is immortal, created of nothing, and so 
infused into the child or embryo in his mother's womb, six months after the 
'conception; not as those of brutes, which are ex traduce, and dying with 
them vanish into nothing. To whose divine treatises, and to the Scriptures 
themselves, I rejourn all such atheistical spirits, as Tully did Atticus, doubting 
of this point, to Plato's Phsedon. Or if they desire philosophical proofs and 
demonstrations, I refer them to Niphus, Nic. Faventinus' tracts of this subject. 
To Fran, and John Picus in digress : sup. 3. de Anima, Tholosanus, Eugu- 
binus, to Soto, Canas, Thomas, Peresius, Dandinus, Colerus, to that elabo- 
rate tract in Zanchius, to Tolet's Sixty Reasons, and Lessius' Twenty-two 
Arguments, to prove the immortality of the soul. Campanella lib. de Sensu 
rerum, is large in the same discourse, Albertinus the Schoolman, Jacob. 
!Nactantus, torn. 2. op. handleth it in four questions, Antony Brunus, A.onius 
Palearius, Marinus Marcennus, with many others. This reasonable soul, which 
Austin calls a spiritual substance moving itself, is defined by philosophers to 
be " the first substantial act of a natural, humane, organical body, by which a 
man lives, perceives, and understands, freely doing all things, and with elec- 
tion." Out of which definition we may gather, that this rational soul includes 
the powers, and performs the duties of tlie two other, which are contained in 
it, and all tliree faculties make one soul, which is inorganical of itself, although 
it be in all parts, and incorporeal, using their organs, and working by them. 
It is divided into two cliief parts, differing in office only, not in essence. The 
iniderstanding, which is the rational power apprehending; the will, which is 
the rational power moving: to which two, all the other rational powers are 
subject and reduced, 

SuBSECT. X. — Of the Understanding. 

" Understanding is a power of the soul, ^ by which we perceive, know, 
remember, and judge as well singulars, as universals, having certain innate 
notices or beginnings of arts, a reflecting action, by which it judgeth of his 
own doings, and examines them." Out of this definition (besides his chief 
office, which is to apprehend, judge all that he performs, without the help of 
any instruments or organs) three differences appear betwixt a man and a beast. 
As first, the sense only comprehends singularities, the understanding univer- 
salities. Secondly, the sense hath no innate notions. Thirdly, brutes cannot 
reflect upon themselves. Bees indeed make neat and curious works, and many 
other creatures besides; but when they have done, they cannot judge of them. 
His object is God, Ens, all nature, and whatsoever is to be understood : which 
successively it apprehends. The object first moving the understanding, is 
some sensible thing; after by discoursing, the mind finds out the corporeal 
substance, and from thence the spiritual. His actions (some say) are appre- 
hension, composition, division, discoursing, reasoning, memory, which some 
include in invention, and judgment. The common divisions are of the 
understanding, agent, and patient ; speculative, and practical ; in habit, or in 
act; simple, or compound. The agent is that which is called the wit of man, 
acunien or subtilty, sharpness of invention, when he doth invent of himself 

J* Bonorum lares, malorum vero larvas et lemures. • Some say at three days, some sis weeks, others 

Otherwise. i' Melancthon. 



103 Anatomy of the Soul, [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

without a teacher, or learns anew, which abstracts those intelligible species 
from the phantasy, and transfers them to the passive understanding, *•' because 
there is nothing in the understanding, which was not first in the sense." That 
which the imagination hath taken from the sense, this agent judgeth of, 
whether it be true or false; and being so judged he commits it to the passible 
to be kept. The agent is a doctor or teacher, the passive a scholar; and his 
office is to keep and further judge of such things as are committed to his 
charge; as a bare and rased table at first, capable of all forms and notions. 
Now these notions are two-fold, actions or habits : actions, by which we take 
notions of, and perceive things; habits, which are durable lights and notions, 
which we may use when we will. Some reckon up eight kinds of them, sense, 
experience, intelligence, faith, suspicion, error, opinion, science; to which are 
added art, prudency, wisdom: as also ""synteresis, dictanien rationis, con- 
science ; so that in all there be fourteen species of the understanding, of which 
some are innate, as the three last mentioned; the other are gotten by doctrine, 
learning, and use. Plato will have all to be innate : Aristotle reckons up but 
five intellectual habits ; two practical, as prudency, whose end is to practise ; 
to fabricate; wisdom to comprehend the use and experiments of all notions, 
and habits whatsoever. Which division of Aristotle (if it be considered aright) 
is all one with the precedent; for three being innate, and five acquisite, the 
rest are improper, imperfect, and in a more strict examination excluded. Of 
all these I should more amply dilate, but my subject will not permit. Three 
of them I will only point at, as more necessary to my following discourse. 

Synteresis, or the purer part of the conscience, is an innate habit, and doth 
signify " a conversation of the knowledge of the law of God and Nature, to 
know good or evil." And (as our divines hold) it is rather in the under- 
standing than in the will. This makes the major proposition in a practical 
syllogism. The dictamen o^ationis is that which doth admonish us to do good 
or evil, and is the minor in the syllogism. The conscience is that which 
approves good or evil, justifying or condemning our actions, and is the con- 
clusion of the syllogism : as in that familiar example of Regulus the Roman, 
taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, and suffered to go to Kome, on that 
condition he should return again, or pay so much for his ransom. The 
synteresis proposeth the question ; his word, oath, promise, is to be religiously 
kept, although to his enemy, and that by the law of nature. **"Do not that 
to another which thou wouldest not have done to thyself" Dictamen applies 
it to him, and dictates this or the like: Regulus, thou wouldst not another 
man should falsify his oath, or break promise with thee ; conscience concludes, 
therefore, Regulus, thou dost well to perform thy promise, and oughtest to 
keep thine oath. More of this in Religious Melancholy. 



SuBSECT. XL— Of the TFill 

Will is the other power of the rational soul, ^" which covets or avoids such 
things as have been before judged and apprehended by the understanding." 
If good, it approves; if evil, it abhors it : so that his object is either good or 
evil. Aristotle calls this our rational appetite ; for as, in the sensitive, we are 
moved to good or bad by our appetite, ruled and directed by sense; so in this 
we are carried by reason. Besides, the sensitive appetite hath a particular 
object, good or bad; this an universal, immaterial: that respects only things 
delectable and pleasant ; this honest. Again, they differ in liberty. The 

1 Nihil in intellectu, qnod non prius fuerat in sensu. Velcurio. "> The pure part of the conscience, 

n Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris. "Res ah intellectu monstratas recipit, vel rejicit; approbat, 

vel improbat, Philip. Ignoti nulla cupido. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 11.] Anatomy of the Souv. 107 

sensual appetite seeing an object, if it be a coTavenient good, cannot but desire 
it; if evil, avoid it: but this is free in his essence, P^'much now depraved, 
obscured, and fallen from his first perfection;- yet in some of his operations 
still free," as to go, walk, move at his pleasure, and to choose whether it will 
do or not do, steal or not steal. Otherwise, in vain were laws, deliberations, 
exhortations, counsels, precepts, rewards, promises, threats and punishments : 
and God should be the author of sin. But in '^ spiritual things we will no good, 
prone to evil (except we be regenerate, and led by the Spirit), we are egged on 
by our natural concupiscence, and there is ara^la, a confusion in our powers, 
'•'our whole will is averse from God and his law," not in natural things only, 
as to eat and drink, lust, to which we are led headlong by our temperature 
and inordinate appetite, 

8 "Nee nos obniti contra, nee tendere tantum 

SuflScimus, " 

we cannot resist, our concuj^tiscence is originally bad, our heart evil, the seat of 
our affections captivates and enforceth our will. So that in voluntary things 
we are averse from God and goodness, bad by nature, by *ignorance worse, 
by art, discipline, custom, we get many bad habits: suffering them to domi- 
neer and tyrannize over us ; and the devil is still ready at hand with his evil 
suggestions, to tempt our depraved will to some ill-disposed action, to precipi- 
tate ns to destruction, except onr will be swayed and counterpoised again with 
some divine precepts, and good motions of the spirit, which many times restrain, 
hinder and check us, when we are in the full career of our dissolute courses. 
So David corrected himself, when he had Saul at a vantage. Revenge and 
malice were as two violent oppugners on the one side; but honesty, religion, 
fear of God, withheld him on the other. 

The actions of the will are velle and nolle, to will and nill: which two words 
com2)rehend all, and they are good or bad, accordingly as they are directed, 
and some of them freely performed by himself; although the Stoics absolutely 
deny it, and will have all things inevitably done by destiny, imposing a fatal 
necessity upon us, which we may not resist ; yet we say that our will is free 
in respect of us, and things contingent, howsoever in respect of God's deter- 
minate counsel, they are inevitable and necessary. Some other actions of the 
will are performed by the inferior powers, which obey him, as the sensitive 
and moving appetite; as to open our eyes, to go hither and thither, not to touch 
a book, to speak fair or foul: but this appetite is many times rebellious in us, 
and will not be contained within the lists of sobriety and temperance. It was 
(as I said) once well agreeing with reason, and there was an excellent consent 
and harmony between them, but that is now dissolved, they often jar, reason is 
overborne by passion : Fertur equis auriga, nee audit currus habenas, as so 
many wild horses run away with a chariot, and will not be curbed. We know 
many times what is good, but will not do it, as she said, 

n'^ Trahit inAitum nova yis, aliudque cupido, 
Mens aliud suadet, " 

Lust counsels one thing, reason another, there is a new reluctancy in men. 
*(9c/i, nee j)0ssum, ciqnens, non esse quod odi. "We cannot resist, but as 
Phsedra confessed to her nurse, ^ quce loqueris, vera sunt, sed furor suggerit 
sequi pejora : she said well and true, she did acknowledge it, but headstrong 
passion and fury made her to do that which was opposite. So David knew the 
filthiness of his fact, what a loathsome, foul, crying sin adultery was, yet 

p Melancthon. Operationes plerumque ferse, etsi libera sit ilia in essentia sua. i In civilibus libera, 

sed non in spiritualibus Osiander. "^Tota voluntas aversa a Deo. Omnis homo mendax. » Virg. 

"We are neither able to contend against them, nor only to make way " * Vel propter ignorantiam, quod 
bonis studiis non sit instructa mens ut debuit, aut divinis prgeceptis exculta. " Med. Ovid. * Ovid. 

»= Seneca. Hipp. 



108 Definition of Melancholy. . [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

iiotwitlistandmg, he would commit murder, and take away another man's 
wife, enforced against reason, religion, to follow his appetite. 

Those natural and vegetal powers are not commanded by will at all; for 
"who can add one cubit to his stature 1" These other may, but are not: and 
thence come all those headstrong passions, violent perturbations of the mind ; 
and many times vicious habits, customs, feral diseases; because we give so 
much way to our appetite, and follow our inclination, like so many beasts. 
The principal habits are two in number, virtue and vice, whose peculiar defi- 
nitions, descriptions, differences, and kinds, are handled at large in the ethics, 
and are, indeed, the subject of moral philosophy. 



MEMB. Ill, 

SuBSECT. I. — Definition of Melancholy, Name, Difference. 

Having thus briefly anatomized the body and soul of man, as a preparative 
to the rest; I may now freely proceed to treat of my intended object, to most 
men's capacity; and after many ambages, perspicuously define what this 
melancholy is, show his name and differences. The name is imposed from the 
matter, and disease denominated from the material cause : as Bruel observes, 
lAi'Ka.yxoy^ia. quasi MEXflfva ;)(;o'xn, from black choler. And whether it be a cause or 
an effect, a disease or symptom, let Donatus Altomarus and Salvianus de- 
cide; I will not contend about it. It hath several descriptions, notations, 
and definitions. ^ Fracastorius, in his second book of intellect, calls those 
melancholy, " whom abundance of that same depraved humour of black choler 
hath so misaffected, that they become mad thence, and dote in most things, 
or in all, belonging to election, will, or other manifest operations of the under- 
standing." ^Melanelius out of Galen, Ruffus, yEtius, describe it to be "a bad 
and peevish disease, which makes men degenerate into beasts : " Galen, " a 
privation or infection of the middle cell of the head," &c. defining it from the 
part affected, which * Hercules de Saxonia approves, lib. 1. cap. 16. calling 
it "a depravation of the principal function :" Fuschius, lib. l.cap. 23. Arnoldus 
Breviar. lib. 1. cap. 18. Guiauerius, and others: "By reason of black choler," 
Paulus adds. Halyabbas simply calls it a " commotion of the mind." Are- 
tseus, """a perpetual anguish of the soul, fastened on one thing, without an 
ague;" which definition of his, Mercurialis de affect, cap. lib. l.cap. 10. taxeth: 
but ^lianus Montaltus defends, lib. de morh. cap. 1. de Melan. for sufficient 
and good. The common sort define it to be " a kind of dotage without a 
fever, having for his ordinary companions, fear and sadness, without any 
apparent occasion. So doth Laurentius, cap. 4. Piso, lib. 1. cap. 43. Donatus 
Altomarus, cap. 7. art. medic. Jacchinus,m com. in lib. 9. Bhasis ad Almansor, 
cap. 15, Valesius exerc. 17. Fuschius, institut. 3. sec. 1. c. 11. <^c,, which 
common definition, howsoever approved by most, '^ Hercules de Saxonia will 
not allow of, nor David Crucius, Theat. morb. Herm. lib. 2. cap. 6. he holds it 
insufficient ; "as ** rather showing what it is not, than what it is:" as omitting 
the specific diffi3rence, the phantasy and brain ; but I descend to particulars. 
The summum geniis is "dotage, or anguish of the mind," saith Aretseus; "of 
the principal parts," Hercules de Saxonia adds, to distinguish it from cramp 
and palsy, and such diseases as belong to the outward sense and motions 

y Melan cholicos vocamus, quos exuberantia vel pravitas Melancholias ita male habet, lit inde Insaniant 
vel in omnibus, vel in pluribus iisque manifestis sive ad rectam rationem, voluntatem pertinent, vel elec- 
tionem, vel intellectus operationes. == Pessimum et pertinacissimum morbum qui homines in bruta dege- 
nerare cogit. » Panth. med. ^ Angor animi in una contentione detixus, absque febre. «Cap. 16. 1. 1. 
<J Eorum definitio morbus quid non sit potius quam quid sit, explicat. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 2.] Of the Farts affected, d:c, 109 

[depraved] * to distinguish it from folly and madness (wliicli Montaltus makes 
angor animi, to separate) in wliicli those functions are not depraved, but rather 
abolished ; [without an ague] is added bv all, to separate it from phrensy, and 
that melancholy which is in a pestilent fever. (Fear and sorrow) make it 
differ from madness : [without a cause] is lastly inserted, to specify it from all 

other ordinary passions of [fear and sorrow]. We properly call that dotage, 
as " Laurentius interprets it, " when some one principal faculty of the mind, 
as imagination, or reason, is corrupted, as all melancholy persons have." It is 
without a fever, because the humour is most part cold and dry, contrary to 
putrefaction. Fear and sorrow are the true characters and inseparable com- 
panions of most melancholy, not all, as Her. de Saxonia, Tract, de j^osihumo 
de Melancholia, cap. 2. well excepts; for to some it is most pleasant, as to 
such as laugh most part; some are bold again, and free from all manner of 
fear and grief, as hereafter shall be declared. 



SuBSECT; ir. — Of the Paff affected. Affection. Parties affected. 

Some difference I find amongst writers, about the principal part affected 
in this disease, whether it be the brain, or heart, or some other member. Most 
are of opinion that it is the brain : for being a kind of dotage, it cannot other- 
wise be but that the brain must be affected, as a similar part, be it by * con- 
sent or essence, not in his ventricles, or any obstructions in them, for then it 
would be an apoplexy, or epilepsy, as ^Laurentius well observes, but in a cold, 
dry distemperature of it in his substance, which is corrupt and become too 
cold, or too dry, or else too hot, as in madmen, and such as are inclined to it : 
and this ^ Hippocrates confirms, Gcilen, the Arabians, and most of our new 
writers. ■ Marcus de Oddis (in a consultation of his, quoted by ^ Hildesheim) 
and five others there cited are of the contrary part ; because fear and sorrow, 
which are passions, be seated in the heart. But this objection is sufiiciently 
answered by ^ Montaltus, who doth not deny that the heart is affected (as 
^ Melanelius proves out of Galen) by reason of his vicinity, and so is the mid- 
riff and many other parts. They do compati, and have a fellow feeling by 
the law of nature : but forasmuch as this malady is caused by precedent 
imagination, with the appetite, to whom spirits obey, and are subject to those 
principal parts, the brain must needs primarily be misaffected, as the seat of 
reason ; and then the heart, as the seat of affection. ^Cappivaccius and Mercu- 
rialis have copiously discussed this question, and both conclude the subject is 
the inner brain, and from thence it is communicated to the heart and other 
inferior parts, which sympathize and are much troubled, especially when it 
comes by consent, and is caused by reason of the stomach, or myrach, as the 
Arabians term it, whole body, liver, or "^ spleen, which are seldom free, pylo- 
rus, meseraic veins, &c. For our body is like a clock, if one wheel be amiss, 
all the rest are disordered ; the whole fabric suffers : with such admirable 
art and harmony is a man composed, such excellent proportion, as Ludovicus 
Yives in his Fable of Man hath elegantly declared. 

As many doubts almost arise about the "affection, whether it be imagination 
or reason alone, or both, Hercules de Saxonia proves it out of Galen, ^tius, 
and Altomarus, that the sole fault is in ° imagination. Bruel is of the same 

* Animae fiinctiones imminuuntur, in fatuitate, tolluntur in mania, depravantur solum in melancholia. 
Here, de Sax. cap, 1. tract, de Melanch. e Cap. 4. de mel. ♦ Per consensum siveper essentlam. 

*"Cap. 4. de mel. s Sec. 7. de mor. vulgar, lib. 6. ^ Spicel. de melancholia. i Cap. 3. de mel. pars 
affecta cerebrum sive per consensum, sive per cerebrum contingat, et procerum auctoritate et ratione 
stabilitur. ^ Lib. de Mel. Cor vero vicinitatis ratione unk afficitur, acceptiim transversum ac stomachus 
cum dorsali spina, &c. ' Lib. 1. cap. 10. Subjectum est cerebrum interius. ™ Raro quisqiiam tumorem 
eifugit lienis, qui hoc morbo afficitur, Piso. Quis affectus. " See Donat. ab Altomar. <> Facultas imagi- 
nandi, non cogitandi, nee memorandl l£esa hie. 



no Matter of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 1. 

mind : Montaltus in his 2 cap. of Melancliolj confutes this tenet of theirs, and 
illustrates the contrary by many examples : as of him that thought himself a 
shell-fish, of a nun, and oiF a desperate monk that would not be persuaded but 
that he was damned; reason was in fault as well as imagination, which did 
not correct this error : they make away themselves oftentimes, and suppose 
many absurd and ridiculous things. Why doth not reason detect the fallacy, 
settle and persuade, if she be free? ^ Avicenna therefore holds both corrupt, 
to whom most Arabians subscribe. The same is maintained by ** Arete as, 
•■ Gorgonius, Guianerius, &c. To end the controversy, no man doubts of 
imagination, but that it is hurt and misafFected here ; for the other, I deter- 
mine with * Albertinus Bottonus, a doctor of Padua, that it is first in " ima- 
gination, and afterwards in reason ; if the disease be inveterate, or as it is 
more or less of continuance ; but by accident," as '^ Here, de Saxonia adds ; 
" Mth, opinion, discourse, ratiocination, are all accidentally depraved by the 
default of imagination." 

Parties ajfected.] To the part affected, I may here add the parties, which 
shall be more opportunely spoken of elsewhere, now only signified. Such as 
have the moon, Saturn, Mercury misaifected in their genitures, such as live 
in over cold, or over hot climes: such as are born of melancholy parents; as 
offend in those six non-natural things, are black, or of a high sanguine com- 
plexion, * that have little heads, that have a hot heart, moist brain, hot liver 
and cold stomach, have been long sick : such as are solitary by nature, great 
students, given to much contemplation, lead a life out of action, are most sub- 
ject to melancholy. Of sexes both, but men more often; yet "women mis- 
aSected are far more violent, and grievously troubled. Oi seasons of the year, 
the autumn is most melancholy. Of peculiar times : old age, from which 
natural melancholy is almost an inseparable accident; but this artificial malady 
is more frequent in such as are of a '^ middle age. Some .assign 40 years, 
Gariopontus 30. Jubertus excepts neither young nor old from this adven- 
titious. Daniel Sennertus involves all of all sorts, out of common experience, 
^ in omnibus omnino corporihus cujuscunque constitutionis dominatur. ^tius 
and Aretius t ascribe into the number "not only ^discontented, passionate, and 
miserable persons, swarthy, black ; but such as are most merry and pleasant, 
scoffers, and high coloured." '' Generally," saith Rhasis, ^ " the finest wits and 
most generous spirits, are before other obnoxious to it;" I cannot except any 
complexion, any condition, sex, or age, but ^ fools and Stoics, which, accord- 
ing to " Synesius, are never troubled with any manner of passion, but as 
Anacreon's cicada, sine sanguine et dolore; similes fere diis sunt. Erasmus 
vindicates fools from this melancholy catalogue, because they have most part 
moist brains and light hearts ; ^ they are free from ambition, envy, shame and 
fear ; they are neither troubled in conscience, nor macerated with cares, to 
which our whole life is most subject. 

SuBSECT. III. — Of the Matter of Melancholy. 

Of the matter of melancholy, there is much question betwixt Avicen and 
Galen, as you may read in ^ Cardan's Contradictions, ^ Valesius' Controversies, 



P Lib. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4. cap. 8. «i Lib. 3. cap. 5. 'Lib. Med. cap. 19. part. 2. Trac. 15, cap. 2. 

» Hlldesheim spicel. 2 de Melanc. fol. 207, et fol. 127. Qnandoque etiam rationalis si aff^ctus inveteratus 
sit. * Lib. posthumo de Melanc. edit. 1620 deprivatur fides, discursus, opinio, &c., I'er vitium Imagina- 
ti^mis, ex Accidenti. ' Qui pawum caput habent, insensati pleiique sunt. Avist. in physiognomia. 

» Areteus, lib. 3. cap. 5. 'f Qui prope statum sunt. Aret. Mediis convenit tetatibus, Piso. y De quartano. 
' Primus ad Melancholiam non tarn mcestus sed et hilares, jocosi, cacliinnantes, irrisores, et, qui plenimque 
prggrubri sunt. t Lib. 1. part. 2. cap. IL » Qui sunt subtilis ingenii, et multag perspicacitatis de facili 
incidunt in Jlelanclioliain, lib. 1. cent. Tract. 9. ^ Nunquam sanitate mentis excidit ant dolore capitur. 
Erasm. <= In laud, calvit. '' Vacant conscientiai carnificiaa, neo pudefiunt, nee verentur, nee dilace- 

vantui" millibus cururum, quibus tota vita obnoxia est. « Lib. 1. tract. 3. contradic. 18. f Lib. 1. cont.21. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 3.] Matter of Melancholy. Ill 

Montanus, Prosper Caleniis, Cappivaccius, ^ Brlglit, ^ Flcinus, that Lave 
written either whole tracts, or copiously of it, in their several treatises of 
^this subject. '" What this humour is, or whence it proceeds, how it is engen- 
dered in the body, neither Galen, nor any old writer, hath sufficiently dis- 
cussed, as Jacchinus thinks : the Neoterics cannot agree. Montanus, in his 
Consultations, holds melancholy to be material or immaterial: and so doth 
Arculanus : the material is one of the four humours before mentioned, and 
natural. The immaterial or adventitious, acquisite, redundant, unnatural, 
artificial; which * Hercules de Saxonia will have reside in the spirits alone, 
and to proceed from a " hot, cold, dry, moist distemperature, which, without 
matter, alter the brain and functions of it. Paracelsus wholly rejects and 
derides this division of four humours and complexions, but our Galenists 
generally approve of it, subscribing to this opinion of Montanus. 

This material melancholy is either simple or mixed ; offending in quantity or 
quality, varying according to his place, where it settleth, as brain, spleen, 
meseraic veins, heart, womb, and stomach; or differing according to the mix- 
ture of those natural humours amongst themselves, or four unnatural adust 
humours, as they are diversely tempered and mingled. If natural melancholy 
abound in the body, which is cold and dry, " so that it be more ^ than the 
body is well able to bear, it must needs be distempered," saiuh Faventius, 
"and diseased;" and so the other, if it be depraved, whether it arise from 
that other melancholy of choler adust, or from blood, produceth the like effects, 
and is, as Montaltus contends, if it come by adustion of humours, most part 
hot and dry. Some difference I find, whether this melancholy matter may be 
engendered of all four humours, about the colour and temper of it. Galen 
holds it may be engendered of three alone, excluding phlegm, or pituita, whose 
true assertion ^ Valesius and Menard us stiffly maintain, and so doth ""Fuschius, 
Montaltus, ° Montanus. How (say they) can white become black? But Her- 
cules de Saxonia, lib. post, de mela. c. 8, and ° Cardan are of the opposite part 
(it may be engendered of phlegm, etsi rarb contingat, though it seldom come 
to pass), so is ^Guianerius and Laurentius, c. 1. with Melanct. in his Book de 
Anima, and Chap, of Humours; he calls it Asininam, dull, swinish melan- 
choly, and saith that he was an eye-witness of it : so is "^ Wecker. From 
melancholy adust ariseth one kind; from choler another, which is most brutish; 
another from phlegm, which is dull ; and the last from blood, which is best. 
Of these some are cold and dry, otliers hot and dry, "varying according to 
their mixtures, as they are intended, and remitted. And indeed as Rodericus 
a Fons. cons. 12. 1. determines, ichors, and those serous matters being thick- 
ened become phlegm, and phlegm degenerates into choler, choler adust becomes 
ceruginosa melancliolia, as vinegar out of purest wine putrefied or by exhalation 
of purer spirits is so made, and becomes sour and sharp ; and from the sharp- 
ness of this humour proceeds much waking, troublesome thoughts and dreams, 
&c., so that I conclude as before. If the humour be cold, it is, saith ^Faven- 
tinus, " a cause of dotage, and produceth milder symptoms : if hot, they are 
rash, raving mad, or inclining to it." If the brain be hot, the animal spirits 
are hot; much madness follows, with violent actions : if cold, fatuity and sot- 
tishness,* Cappivaccius. " " The colour of this mixture varies likewise according 

e Bright, ca. 16. ^Lib. 1. cap. 6. de sanit. tuenda. iQuisve aut qualis sit humor, aut qu£B istius 

differentiag et quomodo gignantur in corpore, scrutandura, hac eniin re multi veterum laboraverunt, iiec 
facile accipere ex Galeiio sententiam ob loquendi varietatem. Leon. Jacch. com. in 9. Rhasis cap. 15. cap. 16. 
in 9. Rhasis. * Lib. postham. de Melan. edit. Venetiis 1620. cap. 7 et 8. Ab intemperie calida, humida, 
&c. fc Secundum magis aut minus si in corpore fuerit, ad intemperiem plusquam corpus salubriter 

fen-e poterit: inde corpus morbosum effitur. 'Lib. 1. controvers. cap. 21. "»Lib. 1. sect. 4. 

cap. 4. "Concil. 26. oLib. 2. contradic. cap. 11. PDe feb. tract, ditf. 2. cap. 1. non est negandum 
ex hac fieri Melancholicos. 1 1n Syntax. ^ Varie aduritur, et miscetur, unde varise amentiiim species, 
Melanct. ' Humor frigidiis delirii causa, furoris calidus, &c. t Lib. 1. cap. 10. de affect, cap. 

n 2s igrescit hie humor, aliquando supercalefactus, aliquando superfrigefactus, ca. 7. 



113 Species of Melanclioly. [Part. 1. Sec. I. 

to the mixture, be it hot or cold ; 'tis sometimes black, sometimes not, Alto- 
marus. The same ^Melanelius proves out of Galen; and Hippocrates in his 
Book of Melancholy (if at least it be his), giving instance in a burning coal, 
"which when it is hot, shines; when it is cold, looks black; and so doth the 
humour." This diversity of melancholy matter produceth diversity of effects. 
If it be within the ^body, and not putrefied, it causeth black jaundice; if putre- 
fied, a quartan ague; if it break out to the skin, leprosy; if to parts, several 
maladies, as scurvy, &c. If it trouble the mind; as it is diversely mixed, it 
produceth several kinds of madness and dotage : of which in their place. 



SuBSECT. TV. — Of the species or kinds of Melanclioly. 

"When the matter is divers and confused, how should it otherwise be, but 
that the species should be divers and confused? Many new and old writers 
have spoken confusedly of it, confounding melancholy and madness, as ''Heur- 
nius, Guianerius, Gordonius, Salustius, Salvianus, Jason Pratensis, Savana- 
rola, that will have madness no other than melancholy in extent, differing (as 
I have said) in degrees. Some make two distinct species, as Hiiffas Ephesius, 
an old writer, Constantinus Africanus, Aretasus, *" Aurelianus, ''Paulus ^gi- 
neta : others acknowledge a multitude of kinds, and leave them indefinite, as 
-^tius in his Tetrabiblos, ''Avicenna, lib. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4. cap. 18. Arcu- 
lanus, cap. 16. in 9, Rasis, Montanus, med. part. 1. "^ If natural melancholy 
be adust, it maketh one kind; if blood, another; if choler, a third, difiering 
from the first; and so many several opinions there are about the kinds, as 
there be men themselves." "^ Hercules de Saxonia, sets down two kinds, 
" material and immaterial ; one from spirits alone, the other from humours and 
spirits." Savanarola, Rub. 11. Tract. 6. cap. 1. de cegritud. capitis, will have 
the kinds to be infinite; one from the myrach, called myrachialis of the 
Arabians; another stomachalis, from the stomach; another from the liver, 
heart, womb, hemrods : ®" one beginning, another consummate." Melancthon 
seconds him, ^ "as the humour is diversely adust and mixed, so are the species 
divers ;" but what these men speak of species I think ought to be understood 
of symptoms, and so doth ^Arculanus interpret himself: infinite species, id 
est, symptoms; and in that sense, as Jo. GoitIicus acknowledgeth in his medi- 
cinal definitions, the species are infinite, but they may be reduced to three 
kinds by reason of their seat ; head, body, and hypochondries. This threefold 
division is approved by Hippocrates in his Book of Melancholy (if it be his, 
which some suspect), by Galen, lib. 3. de loc. affectis, cap. 6., by Alexander, lib. 
1. cap. 16., Basis, lib. 1. Continent. Tract. 9. lib. 1. cap. 16., Avicenna, and 
most of our new writers, Th. Erastus makes two kinds; one perpetual, which 
is head melancholy; the other interrupt, which comes and goes by fits, which 
he subdivides into the other two kinds, so that all comes to the same pass. 
Some again make four or five kinds, with Rodericus ^ Castro, de morbis mulier. 
lib. 2. cap. 3., and Lod. Mercatus, who, in his second book de mulier. affect, 
cap. 4., will have that melancholy of nuns, widows, and more ancient maids, 
to be a peculiar species of melancholy differing from the rest : some will reduce 
enthusiasts, extatical and demoniacal persons to this rank, adding '*love 
melancholy to the first, and lycanthropia. The most received division is into 

^ Humor hie niger aliCiUatido praster modum calefactus, et alias refrigeratus evadit: nam recentibus 
cavbonibus ei quid simile accidit, qui durante flamma pellucidissirae candent, ea extincta prorsus nigres- 
cunt. Hippocrates, y Guianerius, difF. 2. cap. 7. ^ Non est mania, nisi extensa melancholia. "Cap. 6. 
lib. 1. 2. Ser. 2. cap. 9. Morbus hie est omnifarius. « Species indeflnitiB sunt. ^ Si aduratur 

naturalis melancholia, alia fit species, si sanguis alia, si flavabilis alia, diversa a primis : maxima est inter 
has differentia, et tot Doctor urn sententise, quot ipsi numero sunt. * Tract, de mel. cap. 7. « Qusdam 

incipiens qusedam consumniiita. 'Cap. de humor, lib. de aniraa. varie aduritur et iniscetur ipsa melau^ 
chuiia, unde varise amentiaui species. eCap. 16. in y. liasis. tLaurentius, cap. 4. de mel. 



Mem. 3. Sabs. 4.] Species of Melancholy. 113 

three kinds. The first proceeds from the sole fault of the brain, and is called 
head melancholy; the second sym pathetically proceeds from the whole body, 
when the whole temperature is melancholy : the third ariseth from the bowels, 
liver, spleen, or membrane, called mesenterium, named hypochondriacal or 
windy melancholy, which ' Laurentius subdivides into three parts, from those 
three members, hepatic, splenetic, meseraic. Love melancholy, which Avicenna 
calls Ilisha: and Lycanthropia, which he calls cucubuthe, are commonly 
included in head melancholy; but of this last, which Gerardus de Solo calls 
amoreus, and most knight melancholy, with that of religious melancholy, vir- 
ginum et viduarum, maintained by K.od. a Castro and Mercatus, and the other 
kinds of love melancholy, I will speak of apart by themselves in my third par- 
tition. The three precedent species are the subject of my present discourse, 
which I will anatomize and treat of through all their causes, symptoms, cures, 
together and apart; that every man that is in any measure affected with this 
malady, may know how to examine it in himself, and apply remedies unto it. 
It is a hard matter, I confess, to distinguish these three species one from the 
other, to express their several causes, symptoms, cures, being that they are so 
often confounded amongst themselves, having such affinity, that they can 
scarce be discerned by the most accurate physicians ; and so often intermixed 
with other diseases that the best experienced have been plunged. Montanus 
consil. 26, names a patient that had this disease of melancholy and caninus 
appetitus both together; and consil. 23, with vertigo, ^Julius Cossar Claudi- 
nus, with stone, gout, jaundice. Trincavellius with an ague, jaundice, caninus 
appetitus, &c. "^ Paulas ilegoline, a great doctor in his time, consulted in this 
case, was so confounded with a confusion of symptoms, that he knew not to 
what kind of melancholy to refer it. ° Trincavellius, Fallopius, and Francan- 
zanus, famous doctors in Italy, all three conferred with about one party, at the 
same time, gave three different opinions. And in another place, Trincavellius 
being demanded what he thought of a melancholy young man to whom he was 
sent for, ingenuously confessed that he was indeed melancholy, but he knew 
not to what kind to reduce it. In his seventeenth consultation there is the like 
disagreement about a melancholy monk. Those symptoms, which others 
ascribe to misaffected parts and humours, * Here, de Saxonia attributes wholly 
to distempered spirits, and those immaterial, as I have said. „Sometimes they 
cannot well discern this disease from others. In Heinerus Solinander's coun- 
sels, (Seek consil. 5.) he and Dr. Brande both agreed, that the patient's disease 
was hypochondriacal melancholy. Dr. Matholdus said it was asthma, and 
nothing else. ° Solinander and Guarionius, lately sent for to the melancholy 
Duke of Cleve, with others, could not define what species it was, or agree 
amongst themselves. The species are so confounded, as in Csesar Claudinus his 
lorty-fourth consultation for a Polonian Count, in his judgment ^" he laboured 
of head melancholy, and that which proceeds from the whole temperature both 
at once. I could give instance of some that have had all three kinds semel et 
simul, and some successively. So that I conclude of oui* melancholy &pecies, 
as t many politicians do of their pure forms of commonwealths, monarchies, 
aristocracies, democracies, are most famous in contemplation, but in practice 
they are temperate and usually mixed, (so J Polybius informeth us) as the 
Lacedaemonian, the Roman of old, German now, and many others. What 
physicians say of distinct species in their books it much matters not, since that 
in their patients' bodies they are commonly mixed. In such obscurity, there- 
fore, variety and confused mixture of symptoms, causes, how difficult a thing is 



i Cap. 13. 1480. et 116. consult, consil. 12. m HildesTaeim, spicil. 2. fol. 166. » Trincavellius 

torn. 2. consil, 15. et 16. * Cap. 13. tract, posth. de raelan. <> Guarion. cons. med. 2. p liiiboravit 

per essentiam et a toto corpore. t Machiavel, &c. Smitlius de rep. Angl. cap. 8. lib. 1. Buscoldus 

discur. polit. discurs. 5. cap. 7. Arist. 1. 3. polit. cap. ult. Keckerm. alii, &c. $ Lib. 6. 

I 

\ 



11 4 Causes of 3Ielanclioly. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

it to' treat of several kinds apart ; to make any certainty or distinction among 
so many casualties, distractions, when seldom two men shall be like affected 
per oinnia .? 'Tis hard, I confess, yet nevertheless I will adventure through 
the midst of these perplexities, and, led by the clue or thread of the best 
writers, extricate myself out of a labyrinth of doubts and errors, and so pro- 
ceed to the causes. 



SECT. II. MEMB. I. 
SuBSECT. I. — Causes of Melancholy. God a cause. 

" It is in vain to speak of cures, or think of remedies, until such time as we 
have considered of the causes," so "^ Galen prescribes Glauco : and the com- 
mon experience of others confirms that those cures must be imperfect, lame, 
and to no purpose, wherein the causes have not first been searched, as ' Pros- 
per Calenius well observes in his tract de atrd bile to Cardinal Csesius. Inso- 
much that ^ "Fernelius puts a kind of necessity in the knowledge of the causes, 
and without which it is impossible to cure or prevent any manner of disease." 
Empirics may ease, and sometimes help, but not thoroughly root out ; suhlatd 
causa tollitur effecias, as the saying is, if the cause be removed, the effect is 
likewise vanquished. It is a most difficult thing (I confess) to be able to dis- 
cern these causes whence they are, and in such * variety to say what the begin- 
ning was. "^ He is happy that can perform it aright. I will adventure to 
guess as near as I can, and rip them all up, from the first to the last, general 
and particular, to every species, that so they may the better be descried. 

General causes, are either supernatural, or natural. " Supernatural are 
from God and his angels, or by God's permission from the devil" and his 
ministers. That God himself is a cause for the punishment of sin, and 
satisfaction of his justice, many examples and testimonies of holy Scriptures 
make evident unto us, Ps. cvii. 17. " Foolish men are plagtied for their 
offence, and by reason of their wickedness." Gehazi was strucken with 
leprosy, 2 Reg. v. 27. Jehoram with dysentery and flux, and gTeat diseases 
of the bowels, 2 Chron. xxi. 15. David plagued for numbering his people, 
1 Par. 21. Sodom and Gomorrah swallowed up. And this disease is pecu- 
liarly specified. Psalm cxxvii. 12. "He brought down their heart through 
heaviness." Deut. xxviii. 28. " He struck them with madness, blindness, and 
astonishment of heart." ^ " An evil spirit was sent by the Lord upon Saul, 
to vex him." ^ Nebuchadnezzar did eat grass like an ox, and his " heart was 
made like the beasts of the field." Heathen stories are full of such punish- 
ments. Lycurgus, because he cut down the vines in the country, was by 
Bacchus driven into madness : so was Pentheus and his mother Agave for 
neglecting their sacrifice. ^ Censor Fulvius ran mad for untiling Juno's 
temple, to cover a new one of his own, which he had dedicated to Fortune, 
*' ^ and was confounded to death, with grief and sorrow of heart." When 
Xerxes would have spoiled * Apollo's temple at Delphos of those infinite riches 
it possessed, a terrible thunder came from heaven and struck four thousand 
men dead, the rest ran mad. ^ A little after, the like happened to Brennus, 
lightning, thunder, earthquakes, upon such a sacrilegious occasion. If we 
may believe our pontifical writers, they will relate unto us many strange and 

^ Primo artis curativse. "" Nostri primura sit propositi affectloniim causas indagare ; res ipsa hortail 

videtixr, nam alioqui earum curatio manca et inutilis esset. » Path. 1 b 1. cap. 11. Rerum cognoscere 

causas, medicis imprimis necessarium, sine qua nee morbum curare, nee prsecavere licet. ' Tanta enim 

morbi varietas ac differentia, ut nou facile dignoscatur unde initium morbus sumpserit. Melanelius e Galeno, 
" Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. ^ 1 Sam. xvi. 14. y Dan. v. 21. * Lactant. instit. 

lib. 2. cap. 8. » Mente captus, et summo animi moerore consumptus. * Munster. cosmog. lib. 4. 

cap. 43. de coelo substernebantui", tanquam insani d3 saxis prsecipitati, &c. *> Livius lib. 38. 

\ 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Causes of Melancholy. 115 

prodigious punishments in tliis kind, inflicted by tlieir saints. How '"" Clodo- 
veiis, sometime King of France, the son of Dagobert, lost his wits for unco- 
vering the body of St. Denis : and how a *" sacrilegious Frenchman, that would 
have stolen a silver image of St. John, at Birgbiirge, became frantic on a sud- 
den, raging, and tyrannising over his o^vn flesh : of a ^ Lord of Rhadnor, that 
coming from hunting late at night, put his dogs into St. Avan's church, 
(Llan Avan they called it) and rising betimes next morning, as hunters use 
to do, found all his dogs mad, himself being suddenly stricken blind. Of 
Tyridates an ""Armenian king, for violating some holy nuns, that was punished 
in like sort, with loss of his wits. But poets and papists may go togther for 
fabulous tales; let them free their own credits : howsoever they feign of their 
Nemesis, and of their saints, or by the devil's means may be deluded ; we find 
it true, that ultor a tergo Deus, "^He is God the avenger," as David styles 
him; and that it is our crying sins that j)ull this and many other maladies 
on our own heads. That he can by his angels, which are his ministers, strike 
and heal (saith ^Dionysius) whom he will; that he can plague us by his 
creatures, sun, moon, and stars, which he useth as his instruments, as a hus- 
bandman (saith Zanchius) doth a hatchet : hail, snow, winds, &c. " ^ Et con- 
jurati veniunt in classica venti : " as in Joshua's time, as in Pharaoh's reign 
in Egypt; they are but as so man}'- executioners of his justice. He can make 
the proudest spirits stoop, and cry out with Julian the apostate, Vicisti, 
Galiloie : or with Apollo's priest in ' Chrysostom, caelum I 6 terra ! uncle 
Jiostis hie? What an enemy is this] And pray with David, acknowledging 
his power, " I am weakened and sore broken, I roar for the grief of mine 
heart, mine heart panteth," &c. Psalm xxxviii. 8. " O Lord rebuke me not 
in thine anger, neither chastise me in thy wrath," Psalm xxxviii. 1. "Make 
me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken, may 
rejoice," Psalm li. 8; and verse 12, "Hestore to me the joy of thy salvation, 
and stablish me with thy free spirit." For these causes belike ''^ Hippocrates 
would have a physician take special notice whether the disease come not from 
a divine supernatural cause, or whether it follow the course of nature. But 
this is farther discussed by Fran. Valesius de sacr. philos: cap. 8. ^Fernelius, 
and "J. Ccesar Claudinus, to whom I refer you, how this place of Hippocrates 
is to be understood. Paracelsus is of opinion, that such spiritual diseases 
(for so he calls them) are spiritually to be cured, and not otherwise. Ordinary 
means in such cases will not avail : JVoii est reluctanclum cum Deo (we must 
not struggle with God). When that monster-taming Hercules overcame all 
in the Olympics, Jupiter at last in an unknown shape wrestled with him; 
the victory was uncertain, till at length Jupiter descried himself, and Hercules 
yielded. No striving with supreme powers. Nil juvat imniensos Cratero 
^romittere montes, physicians and physic can do no good,* "we must submit 
ourselves unto the mighty hand of God," acknowledge our offences, call to him 
for mercy. If he strike us, unct eaclemque manus vidnus opemque feret, as it 
is with them that are wounded with the spear of Achilles, he alone must 
help; otherwise our diseases are incurable, and we not to be relieved. 

SuBSECT. II. — A Digression of the nature of Spirits, had Angels, or Devils, 
and how they cause Melancholy. 

How far the power of spirits and devils doth extend, and whether they 
can cause this, or any other disease, is a serious question, and worthy to be 

* Gaguin. 1. 3. c. 4. quod Dionysii corpus discooperuerat, in insaniam incidit. eldem lib. 9. sub. Carol. 6. 
sacrorum contemptor, templi foribus effractis, dum D. Johannis argenteum simulacrum rapere contendit, , 
simulacrum aversa facie dorsum ei versat, nee mora sacrilegus mentis inops, atque in semet insaniens in 
proprios artus desjevit. dGiraldus Cambrensis lib. 1. c. 1. Itinerar. CambriiB. eDelrio torn. 3. lib. 6. 
sect. 3, quaest. 3. f Psal. xliv. 1. sLib. 8. cap. de Hierar. ^ Claudian. 'De Babila Martyre. 

k Lib. cap. 5. prog. i Lib. 1. de Abditis rerum causis. "iRespons. med. 12. resp. * 1 Pet. v. 6. 



US Nature of Devils. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

considered: for the better Tinderstandino^ of which, I will make a brief digression 
of the nature of spirits. And although the question be very obscure, accord- 
ing to " Postellus, " full of controversy and ambiguity," beyond the reach of 
human capacity, y^^eor excedere vires intentionis mece, saith * Austin, I confess 
I am not able to understand it, finitum de iiifinito non potest statuere, we can 
sooner determine with Tully, de nat. deorum, quid non sint quam quid sint, 
our subtle schoolmen, Cardans, Scaligers, profound Thomists, Fracastoriana 
and Ferneliana acies, are weak, dry, obscure, defective in these mysteries, and 
all our quickest wits, as an owl's eyes at the sun's light, wax dull, and are not 
sufficient to apprehend them ; yet, as in the rest, I will adventure to say some- 
thing to this point. In former times, as we read Acts xxiii., the Sadducees 
denied that there were any such spirits, devils, or angels. So did Galen the 
j)hysician, the Peripatetics, even Aristotle himself, as Pomponatius stoutly 
maintains, and Scaliger in some sort grants. Though Dandinus the Jesuit, com. 
%n lib. 2. de animd, stiffly denies it ; substantice separatee and intelligences, are 
the same which Christians call angels, and Platonists devils, for they name all 
the spirits, dcemones, be they good or bad angels, as Julius Pollux Onomasticon, 
lib. 1. cap. 1 . observes. Epicures and atheists are of the same mind in general, 
because they never saw them. Plato, Plotinus, Porphyrins, Jamblichus, Proclus, 
insisting in the steps of Trismegistus, Pythagoras and Socrates, make no 
doubt of it : nor Stoics, but that there are such spirits, though much erring 
from the truth. Concerning the first beginning of them, the ° Talmudists 
say that Adam had a wife called Lilis, before he married Eve, and of her he 
begat nothing but devils. The Turks' ^ Alcoran is altogether as absurd and 
ridiculous in this point : but the Scripture informs us Christians, how Lucifer, 
the chief of them, with his associates, "^ fell from heaven for his pride and ambi- 
tion; created of God, placed in heaven, and sometimes an angel of light, now 
cast down into the lower aerial sublunary parts, or into hell, "and delivered 
into chains of darkness (2 Pet. ii. 4.), to be kept unto damnation." 

Nature of Devils^ There is a foolish opinion which some hold, that they 
are the souls of men departed, good and more noble were deified, the baser 
grovelled on the ground, or in the lower parts, and were devils, the which 
with Tertullian, Por2)hyrius the philosopher, M. Tyrius ser. 27 maintains. 
"These spirits," he t saith, "which we call angels and devils, are nought but 
souls of men departed, which either through love and pity of their friends yet 
living, help and assist them, or else persecute their enemies, whom they hated," 
as Dido threatened to persecute ^neas : 

" Omnibus umbra locis adero : dabis, improbe, poenas." 
"My angry ghost arising from the deep, 

Shall haunt thee waking, and disturb thy sleep ; 

At least my shade thy punishment shall know, 

And Fame shall spread the pleasing news below." 

They are (as others suppose) appointed by those higher powers to keep men 
from their nativity, and to protect or punish them as they see cause : and are 
called boni et raali Genii by the Romans. Heroes, lares, if good, lemures or 
larvae if bad, by the Stoics, governors of countries, men, cities, saith J Apuleius, 
Deos appellant qui ex hoininum numero juste ac prudenter vitoi ciirriculo guber- 
nato.,pro numine, postea ab hominibus proiditi fanis et cereriioniis vulgo admit- 
tuntur, ut in jEgypto Osyris, (&c. Prcestites, Capella calls them, " which 

n Lib. 1. c. 7. de orbis concordia. In nulla re major fuit altercatio, major obscuritas, minor opinionnra 
Concordia, quUm de dtemonibus et substantiis separatis. * Lib. 3. de Trinit. cap. L » Pererius in 

Genesin, lib. 4. in cap. 3. v. 23. PSee Strozzius Cicogna omnifarise. Mag. lib. 2. c. 15. Jo. Aubanus, 

Bredcnbachius. <i Angelus per superbiam separatus a Deo, qui in veritate non stetit. Austin. t Nihil 
aliud sunt Dremones quam nudse animas qu^ corpore deposito priorem miserati vitam, cognatis succurrnnt 
commoti misericordia, Ike. JDe Deo Socratis. All those mortals are called gods, who, the course of 

life being prudently guided and governed, are honoured by men with temples and sacrifices, as Osiris in 

^-gypt, &c. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Nature of Devils. 117 

protected particiilar men as well as princes," Socrates had liis DcEmonium 
Saturninum et igniuon, which of all spirits is best, ad sublimes cogitationes 
animum erigentem, as the Platonists supposed; Plotinus his, and we Christians 
our assisting angel, as Andreas Victorellus, a copious writer of this subject, 
Lodovicus de La-Cerda, the Jesuit, in his voluminous tract de Angela Custode, 
Zanchius, and some divines think. But this absurd tenet of Tyreus, Proclus 
confutes at large in his book de Animd et dcEinone. 

"■Psellus, a Christian, and sometimes tutor (saith Cuspinian) to Michael 
Parapinatius, Euiperor of Greece, a great observer of the nature of devils, holds 
they are ^ corporeal, and have " aerial bodies, that they are mortal, live and 
die," (which Martianus Capella likewise maintains, but our christian philoso- 
phers explode) " that Hhey are nourished and have excrements, they feel pain 
if they be hurt (which Cardan confirms, and Scaliger justly laughs him to 
scorn for; Si pascantur aere, cur non pugnant oh puriorem aera? <&c.) or 
stroken:" and if their bodies be cut, with admirable celerity they come 
together again. Austin, in Gen. lib. iii. lib, arbit., approves as much, mutata 
casu corpora in deteriorem qualitatem aeris spissioris, so doth Hierome. Com- 
ment, in epist. ad Ephes. cap. 3, Origen, TertuUian, Lactantius, and many 
ancient fathers of the Church : that in their fall their bodies were changed into 
a iQore aerial and gross substance. Bodine, lib. 4, Theatri NatursB, and David 
Crusius, Hermeticse Philosophise, lib. i. cap. 4, by several arguments proves 
angels and spirits to be corporeal: quicquid continetur in loco Gorporeum est; 
At spiritus continetur in loco, ergo.* Si spiritus sunt quanti, erunt Corporei: 
At sunt quanti, ergo. Sunt Jiniti, ergo quanti, djc. t Bodine goes farther 
yet, and will have these, '^?^^7?^ce sepa^-atce genii, spirits, angels, devils, and so 
likewise souls of men departed, if corporeal (which he most eagerly contends) 
to be of some shape, and that absolutely round, like Sun and Moon, because 
that is the most perfect form, quce nihil habet asperitatis, nihil angulis incisum, 
nihil anfractibus involutum, nihil eminens, sed inter corpora perfecta est perfec- 
tissimum; '^ therefore all spirits are corporeal he concludes, and in their proper 
shapes round. That they can assume other aerial bodies, all manner of shapes 
at their pleasures, appear in what likeness they will themselves, that they are 
most swift in motion, can pass many miles in an instant, and so likewise 
" transform bodies of others into what shape they please, and with admirable 
celerity remove them from place to place (as the Angel did Habakkuk to 
Daniel, and as Philip the deacon was carried away by the Spirit, when he had 
baptised the eunuch ; so did Pythagoras and ApoUonius remove themselves 
and others, with many such feats) ; that they can represent castles in the air, 
palaces, armies, spectrums, prodigies, and such strange objects to mortal men's 
eyes, % cause smells, savours, &c., deceive all the senses ; most writers of this 
subject credibly believe; and that they can foretel future events, and do many 
strange miracles. Juno's image spake to Camillus, and Fortune's statue to the 
Roman matrons, with many such. Zanchius, Bodine, Spondanus, and others, 
are of opinion that they cause a true metamorphosis, as Nebuchadnezzar was 
really translated into a beast. Lot's wife into a pillar of salt; Ulysses' com- 
panions into hogs and dogs, by Circe's charms; tui'n themselves and others, as 
they do witches into cats, dogs, hares, crows, &c. Strozzius Cicogna hath 
many examples, lib. iii. omnif. mag. cap. 4 and 5, which he there confutes, as 

» He lived 500 years since. s Apuleius : spiritus animalia sunt animo passibilia, inente rationalia, 

coi-pore aeria, tempore sempiterna. ' Nutriuntur, et excrementa habent, quod pulsata doleant solido 

percussa corpore. * Whatever occupies space is corporeal :— spirit occupies space, therefore, &c. &c. 

t 4. lib. 4. Tlieol. nat. fol. 535. u Wliicli lias no rouglmess, angles, fractures, prominences, but is the 

most perfect amongst perfect bodies. >• Cj'prianus in Epist. montes etiam et animalia transferri 

possunt : as the de\il did Christ to the top of the pinnacle; and witches are often translated. See more 
in Strozzius Cicogna, lib. 3. cap. 4. omnif. mag. Per aera subducere et in sublime corpora ferre possunt, 
Biarmanus. Percussi dolent et uruntur in conspicuos cineres, Agrippa, lib. 3. cap. de occult. Philos. 
% Agrippa de occult. PMlos. lib. 3. cap. 18. 



118 Nature of Devils. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

Austin likewise dotli, de civ. Dei lib. xviii. That they can be seen when and in 
what shape, and to whom they will, saith Psellus, Ta7netsi nil tale viderim, nee 
ojjtem videre, though he himself never saw them nor desired it ; and use some- 
times carnal copulation (as elsewhere I shall "" prove more at large) with women 
and men. Many will not believe they can be seen, and if any man shall say, 
swear, and stiffly maintain, though he be discreet and wise, judicious and 
learned, that he hath seen them, they account him a timorous fool, a melan- 
choly dizzard, a weak fellow, a dreamer, a sick or a mad man, they contemn 
him, laugh him to scorn, and yet Marcus of his credit told Psellus that he had 
often seen them. And Leo Suavius, a Frenchman, c. 8, in Commentar. 1. 1. 
Paracelsi de vita longd, out of some Platonists, will have the air to be as full of 
them as snow falling in the skies, and that they may be seen, and withal sets 
down the means how men may see them ; Si irreverberatis oculis sole splendente 
'Versus coelum continuaverini obtutus, <&c.,^ and saith moreover he tried it, 
2:)r(jemissoruin feci experimentimi, and it was true, that the Platonists said. 
Paracelsus confesseth that he saw them divers times, and conferred with them, 
and so doth Alexander ab ^ Alexandre, " that he so found it by experience, 
when as before he doubted of it." Many deny it, saith Lavater de spectris, 
part i. c. 2, and part ii. c. 11, ''because they never saw them themselves;" 
but as he reports at large all over his book, especially c. 19, part 1, they are 
often seen and heard, and familiarly converse with men, as Lod. Yives assureth 
lis, innumerable records, histories, and testimonies evince in all ages, times, 
places, and ^all travellers besides; in the West Indies and our northern climes, 
Nihil familiarius quam in agris et urbibus spiritus videre, audire qui vetenty 
jubeant, &c. Hieronimus vita Pauli, Basil ser. 40, Nicephorus, Eusebius, 
Socrates, Sozomenus, t Jacobus Boissardus in his tract de spirituum app)ari' 
tionibus, Petrus Loyerus 1. de spectris, Wierus 1. 1. have infinite variety of 
such examples of apparitions of spirits,for him to read that farther doubts, to his 
ample satisfaction. One alone I will briefly insert. A nobleman in Germany 
was sent ambassador to the King of Sweden (for his name, the time, and such 
circumstances, I refer you to Boissardus, mine * Author). After he had done 
his business, he sailed to Livonia, on set purpose to see those familiar spirits, 
which are there said to be conversant with men, and do their drudgery works. 
Amongst other matters, one of them told him where his wife was, in what 
room, in what clothes, what doing, and brought him a ring from her, which, at 
his return, non sine omnium admiratione, he found to be true ; and so believed 
that ever after, which before he doubted of. Cardan 1. 19. de subtil, relates of 
his father, Facius Cardan, that after the accustomed solemnities. An. 1491, 
13 August, he conjured up seven devils, in Greek apparel, about forty years 
of age, some ruddy of complexion, and some pale, as he thought ; he asked them 
many questions, and they made ready answer, that they were aerial devils, 
that they lived and died as men did, save that they were far longer lived (700 
or 800 ^ years) ; they did as much excel men in dignity as we do juments, and 
were as far excelled again of those that were above them ; our J governors and 
keepers they are moreover, which § Plato in Critias delivered of old, and 
subordinate to one another, Ut enim homo homini, sic dcemon dmmoni domina- 
tur, they rule themselves as well as us, and the spirits of the meaner sort had 
commonly such offices, as we make horse-keepers, neat-herds, and the basest 
of us, overseers of our cattle; and that we can no more apprehend their 
natures and functions, than a horse a man s. They knew all things, but might 

» Part. 3. Sect. 2. Mem. 1. Subs. 1 . Love Melancholy. * " By gazing steadfastly on the sun illuminated 
■w-ith his brightest rays." y Genial, dierum. Ita sibi visum ct compertuni quum prius an essent ambigeret : 
Fidem suam liberet. ^ Li. 1. de verit. Fidei. Benzo, &c. t Lib. de Divinatione et magia. » Cap. 8. 
Traiisportavit in Livoniam cupiditate videndi, &c. *> Sic llesiodus de Nymphis vivere dicit 10 tetates 

phoenicum vel 9. 7. 20. $ Custodes hominum et provinciaruni, &c. tanto meliores hominibus, quanto 

Jii bruti§ animantibus. § Trsesides, Pastores, Gubernatores hominum, et illi animalium. 



Hem. 1. Subs. 2.] N alure of Spirits. 119 

not reveal tliem to men ; and ruled and domineered over us, as we do over our 
horses; the best kings amongst us, and the most generous spirits, were not 
comparable to the basest of them. Sometimes they did instruct men, and 
communicate their skill, reward and cherish, and sometimes, again, terrify and 
punish, to keep them in awe, as they thought fit. Nihil magis cupientes (saith 
Lysius, Phis. Stoicorum) quam adorationem hominum.'^ The same Author, 
Cardan, in his Hyperchen, out of the doctrine of Stoics, will have some of these 
Genii (for so he calls them) to be "desirous of men's company, very aifable and 
familiar with them, as dogs are ; others, again, to abhor as serpents, and care 
not for them. The same belike Tritemius calls Ignios et suhlunaref,, qui 
oiunquam demergunt ad inferior a, aut vix ullum habent in terris commercium : 
" ^ Generally they far excel men in worth, as a man the meanest worm ; though 
some of them are inferior to those of their own rank in worth, as the black- 
guard in a prince's court, and to men again, as some degenerate, base, rational 
creatures, are excelled of brute beasts." 

That they are mortal, besides these testimonies of Cardan, Martianns, &c., 
many other divines and philosophers hold, post prolixu7n tempus moriuntur 
omnes; The ^Platonists, and some Kabbins, Porphyrins and Plutarch, as 
appears by that relation of Thamus: "^The great god Pan is dead;" Apollo 
Pythius ceased ; and so the rest, St. Hierome, in the life of Paul the Hermit, 
tells a story how one of them appeared to St. Anthony in the wilderness, and 
told him as much. ^ Paracelsus of our late writers stiffly maintains that they 
are mortal, live and die as other creatures do. Zozimus, 1. 2, further adds, that 
religion and policy dies and alters with them. The ^ Gentiles' gods, he saith, were 
expelled by Constantine, and together with them, Tm^perii Eomani majestas, 
et fortuna interiit, et profigata est; The fortune and majesty of the Poman. 
Empire decayed and vanished, as that heathen in t Minutius formerly bragged, 
when the Jews were overcome by the Pomans, the Jews' God was likewise 
captivated by that of Rome; and Pabsakeh to the Israelites, no God should 
deliver them out of the hands of the Assyrians. But these paradoxes of their 
power, corporeity, mortality, taking of shapes, transposing bodies, and carnal 
copulations, are sufficiently confuted by Zanch. c. 10, 1. 4. Pererius in his 
comment, and Tostatus questions on the 6th of Gen. Th. Aquin., St. Austin, 
Wierus, Th. Erastus, Delrio, tom. 2, 1. 2, qusest. 29; Sebastian Michaelis, 
c. 2, de spiritibus, D. Peinolds Lect. 47. They may deceive the eyes of men, 
yet not take true bodies, or make a real metamorphosis; but as Cicogna 
proves at large, they are ^Illusorice et prcestigiatrices transformationes, omnif 
'mag. lib. 4, cap. 4, mere illusions and cozenings, like that tale of Fasetis 
ohulus in Suidas, or that of Autolicus, Mercury's son, that dwelt in Parnassus, 
who got so much treasure by cozenage and stealth. His father Mercury, 
because he could leave him no wealth, taught him many fine tricks to get 
means, % for he could drive away men's cattle, and if any pursued him, turn 
them into what shapes he would, and so did mightily enrich himself, hoc astu 
macdmam prwdam est adsecutus. This, no doubt, is as true as the rest; yet 
thus much in general. Thomas, Durand, and others, grant that they have 
understanding far beyond men, can probably conjecture and ^ foretel many 
things; they can cause and cure most diseases, deceive our senses; they have 

* " Coveting nothing more than the admiration of mankind." <= Natura familiares nt canes hominihus 
multi aversantiir et abhorrent. ^X\> homine phis distant quam homo ah ignohilisslmo verne, et tainen 

quidam ex his ab hominibus superantur ut homines a feris, &c. e cibo et potu uti et venere cum 

hominibus ac tandem mori, Cicogna. 1. part. lib. 2. c. 3. f Plutarch, de defect, oraculorum. sLib. ' 

de Zilphis et Pigmeis. ^Dii gentium a Constantio profligati sunt, &c. f Octovian dial. JudEEorum 

deum fuisse Romanorum numinibus una cum genie captivum. 'Omnia spiritibus plena, et ex eorum 

Concordia et discordia omnes boni etmali ett'ectus promanant, omnia humana reguntur : paradoxa veterum 
de quo Cicogna. omnif. mag. 1. 2. c. 3. % Oves quas abacturus erat in quascunque formas vertebat Pausa- 
nias, Hyginus. ^ Austin in 1. 2, de Gen. ad literam cap. 17. Partim quia subtilioris sensus acumine, 

partim scientia calidiore vigent et experieutia propter magnam longitudinem vit«, partim ab Angelis 
Oiscuiit, &c. 



120 Nature of Sinr its. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

excellent skill in all Arts and Sciences; and tliat the most illiterate devil is 
Quovis homine scientior (more knowing than any man), as ' Oicogn a maintains 
out of others. They know the virtues of herbs, plants, stones, minerals, &c. ; 
of all creatures, birds, beasts, the four elements, stars, planets, can aptly apply 
and make use of them as they see good ; perceiving the causes of all meteors, 
and the like : Dant se colorihus (as * Austin hath it) accommodant sefiguris^ 
adhcerent sonis, subjiciunt se odorihus, hifundunt se saporibus, omnes sensus 
etiam ipsam iiitelliyentiam dcemones fallunt, they deceive all our senses, even 
our understanding itself at once. '"They can produce miraculous alterations 
in the air, and most wonderful effects, conquer armies, give victories, help, 
further, hurt, cross and alter human attempts and projects {Dei permissu) as 
they see good themselves, t When Charles the Great intended to make a chan- 
nel betwixt the Rhine and the Danube, look what his workmen did in the day, 
these spirits flung down in the night, Ut conatu Rex desisteret, pervicere. Such 
feats can they do. But that which Bodine, 1. 4, Theat. nat. thinks (following 
Tyrius belike, and the Platonists,) they can tell the secrets of a man's heart, 
aut cogitationes hominum, is most false ; his reasons are weak, and sufficiently 
confuted by Zanch. lib. 4, cap. 9. Hierom. lib. 2, com. in Mat. ad cap. 15, 
Athanasius qusest. 27, and Antiochum Principem, and others. 

Orders^ As for those orders of good and bad Devils, which the Platonists 
hold, is altogether erroneous, and those Ethnics honi et inali Genii, are to be 
exploded : these heathen writers agree not in this point among themselves, as 
Dandiniis notes, An sint "^mali non conveniunt, some will have all spirits good 
or bad to us by a mistake, as if an Ox or Horse could discourse, he would say 
the Butcher was his enemy because he killed him, the Grazier his friend 
because he fed him; a Hunter preserves and yet kills his game, and is hated 
nevertheless of his game; nee piscator em piscis amare potest, ike. But Jam- 
blichus, Psellus, Plutarch, and most Platonists acknowledge bad, et ah eorwrn 
maleficiis cavendum, and we should beware of their wickedness, for they are 
enemies of mankind, and this Plato learned in Egypt, that they quarrelled 
with Jupiter, and were driven by him down to Tiell. § That which "^ Apuleius, 
Xenophon, and Plato contend of Socrates' Da^monium, is most absurd : That 
which Plotinus of his, that he had likewise Deum pro Dcemonio; and that 
which Porphiry concludes of them all in general, if they be neglected in their 
sacrifice they are angry ; nay more, as Cardan in his Hyperchen will, they 
feed on men's souls, Elementa sunt plantis elementmn, aninialibus plantce, 
hominibus animalia, erunt et homines aliis, non autem diis, oiimis enim remota 
est eorum natura a nostra, quapropter dcemonibus : and so belike that we have 
so many battles fought in all ages, countries, is to make them a feast, and 
their sole delight : but to return to that I said before, if displeased they fret 
and chafe (for they feed belike on the souls of beasts, as we do on their 
bodies), and send many plagues amongst us; but if pleased, then they do much 
good; is as vain as the rest and confuted by Austin, 1. 9. c. 8. de Civ. Dei. 
Euseb. 1 . 4. prsepar. Evang. c. 6. and others. Yet thus much I find, that our 
Bchool-men and other " Divines make nine kinds of bad spirits, as Dionysius 
hath done of Angels. In the first rank are those false gods of the Gentiles, 
which were adored heretofore in several Idols, and gave Oracles at Delphos, 
and elsewhere; whose Prince is Beelzebub. The second rank is of Liars and 



iLib. 3. omnif. mag. cap. 3. * L. 18. quest. "> Quum tanti sit et tam profunda splritum scientia, 

mirum non est tot tantasque res visu admirabiles ab ipsis patrari, et quidem rerum naturalium ope quas 
multo melius intelligunt, multoque peritius suis locis et temporibus applicare norunt, quam homo, Cicogna. 
t Aventinus, quicquid interdiu exhauriebatur, noctu explebatur. mde pavefacti curatores, &c. % In lib. 2. 
de Anima text. 29. Homerus discriminatim omnes spiritus dsemones vocat. § A Jove ad inferos pulsi, 

&c. " De Deo Socratis. adest mihi divina sorte Dsemonium quoddam a prima pueritia me secutum, 

"siepe dissuadet, impellit nonnunquam instar ovis, Plato. " Agi'ippa lib. 3. de occult, ph. c. 18. Zanch. 

jPictorus, Pererius Cicogna, 1. 3. cap. 1. . ' 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Nature of Sinrils. 121 

^qiiivocators, as Apollo Pythius, and the like. The third are those vessels 
of anger, inventors of all mischief; as that Theutus in Plato; Esay calls them 
P vessels of fury; their Prince is Belial. The fourth are malicious revenging 
Devils; and their Prince is Asmodseus. The fifth kind are cozeners, such 
as belong to Magicians and Witches; their Prince is Satan. The sixth are 
those aerial devils that '^ corrupt the air and cause plagues, thunders, fires, &c. ; 
spoken of in the Apocalj^pse, and Paul to the Ephesians names them the 
Princes of the air; Meresin is their Prince, The seventh is a destroyer, 
Captain of the Furies, causing wars, tumults, combustions, uproars, mentioned 
in the Apocalypse; and called Abaddon. The eighth is that accusing or 
calumniating Devil, whom the Greeks call Aia/3oxof, that drives men to 
despair. The ninth are those tempters in several kinds, and their Prince is 
Mammon. Psellus makes six kinds, yet none above the Moon : Wierus in his 
Pseudomonarchia Dsemonis, out of an old book, makes many more divisions 
and subordinations, with their several names, numbers, offices, &c., but Gazseus 
cited by ""Lipsius will have all places fall of Angels, Spirits, and Devils, above 
and beneath the Moon,^ setherial and aerial, which Austin cites out of Varro 
1. vii. de Civ. Dei, c. 6. "The celestial Devils above, and aerial beneath," or, 
as some will, gods above, Semidei or half gods beneath, Lares, Heroes, Genii, 
which climb higher, if they lived well, as the Stoics held; but grovel on the 
ground as they were baser in their lives, nearer to the earth : and are Manes, 
Lemures, Lamise, &c. *They will have no place but all full of Spirits, 
Devils, or some other inhabitants; Fleniun Ccelum, aer,aqua, terra, et omnia 
sub terra, saith ""Gazseus; though Anthony Pusca in his book de Inferno, lib. 
V. cap. 7. would confine them to the middle Pegion, yet they will have them 
everywhere. " Not so much as a hair-breadth empty in heaven, earth, or 
waters, above or under the earth." The air is not so full of flies in summer, 
as it is at all times of invisible devils : this ''Paracelsus stiffly maintains, and 
that they have every one their several Chaos, others will have infinite worlds, 
and each world his peculiar Spirits, Gods, Angels, and Devils to govern and 
punish it. 

" Singula * nonnulli credunt quoque sidera posss 
Dici orbes, terramqiie appellant sidus opacum, 

Cui minimiis divum praisit." 

" Some persons believe each star to be a world, and this earth an opaque star, over which the least of the 
gods presides." 

^ Gregorius Tholsanus makes seven kinds of cetherial Spirits or Angels, 
according to the number of the seven Planets, Saturnine, Jovial, Martial, of 
which Cardan discourseth lib. xx. de subtil, he calls them substantias primas, 
Olympicos clcemones Tritemius, qui prcesunt Zodiaco, &c., and will have them 
to be good Angels above, Devils beneath the Moon, their several names and 
offices he there sets down, and which Dion3'sius of Angels, will have several 
spirits for several countries, men, offices. &c., which live about them, and as so 
many assisting powers cause their operations, will have in a word, innumerable, 
as many of them as there be Stars in the Skies, t Marcilius Eicinus seems 
to second this opinion, out of Plato, or from himself, I know not, (still ruling 
their inferiors, as they do those under them again, all subordinate, and the 
nearest to the earth rule us, whom we subdivide into good and bad angels, call 
gods or devils, as they help or hurt us, and so adore, love or hate) but it is 
most likely from Plato, for he relying wholly on Socrates, quern mori potius 
quam inentiri voluisse scribit, whom he says woidd rather die than tell a false- 
hood out of Socrates' authority alone, made nine kinds of them : which opinion 

P Vasa irre. c. 13. i Quibus datura est nocere terras et marl, &c. '' Physiol. Stoicorum e Senec. lib. 1. 
cap. 28. s Usque ad lunam animas esse gethereas vocavique heroas, lares, genios. 'Mart. Capella. 

"Nihil vacuum ab his ubi vel capillum in aere vel aqua jaceas. •== Lib. de Zilp. * Palingenius. 

7 Lib. 7. cap. 34 et 5. Syntax, art. mirab. t Comment in dial. Plat, de amore, cap. 5. Ut spha;ra quselibet 
super nos, ita preestantiores habent habitatores suaa sphasr* consortes, ut habet nostra. 



122 Digression of Spirits. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

belike Socrates took from Pythagoras, and he from Trismegistus, he from 
Zoroastes, first God, second idea, 3. Intelligences, 4. Arch- Angels, 5. Angels, 
6. Devils, 7. Heroes, 8. Principalities, 9. Princes : of which some were abso- 
lutely good, as gods, some bad, some indifferent inter deos et homines, as heroes 
and daemons, which ruled men, and were called genii, or as ''^"Proclus and 
Jamblichus will, the middle betwixt God and men. Principalities and Princes, 
which commanded and swayed Kings and countries; and had several places 
in the Spheres perhaps, for as every sphere is higher, so hath it more excellent 
inhabitants: which, belike is that Galilseus a Galileo and Kepler aims at in 
his Nuncio Syderio, when he will have ''Saturnine and Jovial inhabitants: 
and which Tycho Brahe doth in some sort touch or insinuate in one of his 
Epistles : but these things tZanchius justly explodes, cap. 3. lib. 4, P. Martyr, 
in 4. Sam. 28. 

So that according to these men the number of setherial spirits must needs 
be infinite : for if that be true that some of our mathematicians say : if a stone 
could fall from the starry heaven, or eighth sphere, and should pass every hour 
an hundred miles, it would be Q5 years, or more, before it would come to 
ground, by reason of the great distance of heaven from earth, which contains 
as some say 170 millions 803 miles, besides those other heavens, whether they 
be crystalline or watery which Maginus adds, which peradventure holds as 
much more, how many such spirits may it contain 1 And yet for all this 
® Thomas Albertus, and most hold that there be far more angels than devils. 

Sublunary devils, and their kinds.'\ But be they more or less. Quod supra, 
nos nihil ad nos (what is beyond our comprehension does not concern us). 
Howsoever as Martianus foolishly supposeth, JEtherii Dcemones non curant 
res humanas, they care not for us, do not attend our actions, or look for us, 
those setherial spirits have other worlds to reign in belike or business to follow. 
We are only now to speak in brief of these sublunary spirits or devils ; for 
the rest, our divines determine that the Devil had no power over stars, or 
heavens; ^Carminibus coelo possunt deducere lunam, Sc. (by their charms 
(verses) they can seduce the moon from the heavens). Those are poetical 
fictions, and that they can °sistere aquam Jluviis, et vertere sidera retro, &g., 
(stop rivers and turn the stars backwards in their courses) as Canadia in 
Horace, 'tis all false. ''They are confined until the day of judgment to this 
sublunary world, and can work no farther than the four elements, and as God 
permits them. Wherefore of these sublunary devils, though others divide them 
otherwise according to their several places and oflaces, Psellus makes six kinds, 
fiery, aerial, terrestrial, watery, and subterranean devils, besides those fairies, 
satyrs, nymphs, &c. 

Fiery spirits or devils are such as commonly work by blazing stars, fire- 
drakes, or ignes fatui; which lead men often influviina aut prcecipitia, saith 
Bodine, lib. 2. Theat. natui'se, fol. 221. Quos inquit arcere si volunt viatores, 
clardvoce Deum appellare, aut pronam facie terram contingente adorare oportet, 
et hoc amuletum majoribus nostris Ojcceptum ferre debemus, &c., (whom if tra- 
vellers wish to keep off they must pronounce the name of God with a clear 
voice, or adore him with their faces in contact with the ground, &c.); likewise 
they counterfeit suns and moons, stars oftentimes, and sit on ship masts: In 
navigiorum summitatibus visuntur; and are called dioscuri, as Eusebius 1. 
contra Philosophos, c. xlviii. informeth us, out of the authority of Zenophanes ; 
or little clouds, ad motum nescio quem volantes; which never appear, saith 

* Lib. de Arnica, et dsemone med. inter deos et homines, dicta ad nos et nostra sequaliter ad deos ferunt. 
«Saturninas et Joviales accolas. f In loca detrusi sunt infra cselestes orbes in aerem scilicet et infra ubi 
Judicio generali reservantur. aq. 36. art. 9. f* Virg. 8. Eg-. c^n. 4. ^ Austin : lioc dixi, ne 

qnis existimet habitare ibi mala dsemonia ubi Solem et Lunam et Stellas Deus ordinavit, et alibi nemo 
arbitraretur Dsemonem coelis habitare cuni Angelis suis unde lapsum credimus. Idem Zanch. 1. 4. c. 3. de 
Angel, malls. Pererius in Gen. cap. 6. lib. 8. in ver. 2. , . 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Digression of Spirits. 123 

Cardan, but tliey signify some mischief or other to come unto men, though some 
'again will have them to pretend good, and victory to that side they come 
towards in sea fights, St, Elmo's fires they commonly call them, and they do 
likely appear after a sea storm; Radzivillius, the Polonian duke, calls this 
apparition, Sancti Germani siclus; and saith moreover that he saw the same 
after in a storm as he was sailing, 1582, from Alexandria to Rhodes.* Our 
stories are full of such apparations in all kinds. Some think they keep their 
residence in that Hecla, a mountain in Iceland, ^tna in Sicily, Lipari, Vesu- 
vius, &c. These devils were worshipped heretofore by that superstitious 
UvpofAavTua ^and the like. 

Aerial spirits or devils, are such as keep quarter most part in the ^air, 
cause many tempests, thunder, and lightnings, tear oaks, fire steeples, houses, 
strike men and beasts, make it rain stones, as in Livy's time, wool, frogs, &c. 
Counterfeit armies in the air, strange noises, swords, &c., as at Vienna before 
the coming of the Turks, and many times in Rome, as Scheretzius 1. de spect. 
0. 1. part. 1. Lavater de spect. part. 1. c. 17. Julius Obsequens, an old 
Roman, in his book of prodigies, ab iirb. cond. 505. ^Machiavel hath illus- 
trated by many examples, and Josephns, in his book de bello Judaico, before 
the destruction of Jerusalem. All which Guil. Postellus, in his first book, c. 7, 
de orbis concordia, useth as an effectual argument (as indeed it is) to persuade 
them that will not believe there be spirits or devils. They cause whirlwinds on 
a sudden, and tempestuous storms; which though our meteorologists generally 
refer to natural causes, yet I am of Bodine's mind, Theat. Nat. 1. 2. they are 
more often caused by those aerial devils, in their several quarters; for Tem- 
pesfatibus se ingerunt, saith t Rich. Argentine ; as when a desperate man makes 
away with himself, w^hich by hanging or drowning they frequently do, as Korn- 
mannus observes, de mirac. mort. part. 7, c. 76. tripudium agentes, dancing 
and rejoicing at the death of a sinner. These can corrupt the air, and cause 
plagues, sickness, storms, shipwrecks, fires, inundations. At Mons Draconis 
in Italy, there is a most memorable example in ^ Jovianus Pontanus : and 
nothing so familiar (if we may believe those relations of Saxo Grammaticus, 
Glaus Magnus, Damianus A. Goes) as for witches and sorcerers, in Lapland, 
Lithuania, and all over Scandia, to sell winds to mariners, and cause tempests, 
which Marcus Paulus the Venetian relates likewise of the Tartars. These 
kind of devils are much 'delighted in sacrifices (saith. Porphiry), held all the 
world in awe, and had several names, idols, sacrifices, in Rome, Greece, Egypt, 
and at this day tyrannise over, and deceive those Ethnics and Indians, being 
adored and worshipped for ^gods, Por the Gentiles' gods were devils (as 
JTrismegistus confesseth in his Asclepius), and he himself could make them 
come to their images by magic spells : and are now as much '' resj)ected by 
our papists (saith ^Pictorius) under the name of saints." These are they 
which Cardan thinks desire so much carnal copulation with witches {Incuhi and 
Succubi), transform bodies, and are so very cold if they be touched ; and that 
serve magicians. His father had one of them (as he is not ashamed to relate"*), 
an aerial devil, bound to him fDr twenty and eight years. As Agrippa's dog 
had a devil tied to his collar; some think that Paracelsus (or else Erastus 
belies him) had one confined to his sword pummel ; others wear them in rings, 
&c. Jannes and Jambres did many things of old by their help; Simon Magus, 
Cinops, Apollonius Tianeus, Jamblichus, and Tritemius of late, that showed 



* Perigram. Hierosol. ^ Fire-worship, or divination by fire. ^ Domus cliruunt, mures dejiciunt, 

immiscent se turbinibus et procellis et pulverem instar columnai evehnnt. Cicogna 1. 5. c. 5. 

g Quest, in Liv. f De praestigiis dpemonum. c. 16. Convelli ciilmina vidcmus, prosterni sata, &c. 

hDe bello Neapolitano, lib. 5. >SujEfitibus gaudent. Idem Justin. Martyr Apolog. pro Cbristianis. 

^ In Dei imitationem, saith Eusebius. t ' '» gentium Dasmonia, &c. ego in eorura statuas pellexi. . 

»Et nunc sub divorum nomine coluntur a Pontiflciis. "^ Lib. 11. de rerum ver. 



124 Digression of Spirits. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

Maximilian tlie emperor liis wife, after she was dead ; Et verrucaTn in collo 
ejus (saith "Godolman) so much as the wart in her neck. Delrio, lib. ii. hath 
divers examples of their feats : Cicogna, lib. iii. cap. 3. and Wierus in his 
book de prcestig. dcemonum. Boissardus de Quagis et veneftcis. 

Water-devils are those Naiads or water nymphs which have been heretofore 
conversant about waters and rivers. The water (as Paracelsus thinks) is their 
chaos, wherein they live; some call them fairies, and say that Habundia is 
their queen; these cause inundations, many times shipwrecks, and deceive 
men divers ways, as Succuba, or otherwise, appearing most part (saith Trite- 
mius) in women's shapes. "Paracelsus hath several stories of them that have 
lived and been married to mortal men, and so continued for certain years with 
them, and after, upon some dislike, have forsaken them. Such a one as ^geria, 
with whom Numa was so familiar, Diana, Ceres, &c. ^ Olaus Magnus hath a 
long narration of one Hotherus, a king of Sweden, that having lost his com- 
pany, as he was hunting one day, met with these water nymphs or fairies, and 
was feasted by them; and Hector Boethius, of Macbeth, and Banquo, two 
Scottish lords, that as they were wandering in the woods, had their fortunes 
told them by three strange women. To these, heretofore, they did use to 
sacrifice, by that v^^ofxairtia, or divination by waters. 

Terrestrial devils are those "^ Lares, Genii, Fauns, Satyrs, * Wood-nymphs, 
Foliots, Fairies, Bobin Goodfellows, Trulli, &c., which as they are most con- 
versant with men, so they do them most harm. Some think it was they alone 
that kept the heathen people in awe of old, and had so many idols and temples 
erected to them. Of this range was Dagon amongst the Philistines, Bel amongst 
the Babylonians, Astartes amongst the Sidonians, Baal amongst the Sama- 
ritans, Isis and Osiris amongst the Egyptians, &c. ; some put our ffairies into 
this rank, which have been in former times adored with much superstition, 
with sweeping their houses, and setting of a pail of clean water, good victuals, 
and the like, and then they should not be pinched, but find money in their shoes, 
and be fortunate in their enterprises. These are they that dance on heaths 
and greens, as ""Lavater thinks with Tritemius, and as 'Olaus Magnus adds, 
leave that green circle, which we commonly find in plain fields, which others 
hold to proceed from a meteor falling, or some accidental rankness of the 
ground, so nature sports herself; they are sometimes seen by old women and 
children. Hierom. Pauli, in his description of the city of Bercino in Spain, 
relates how they have been familiarly seen near that town, about fountains and 
hills; Nonnunquam (saith Tritemius) in sua latihula montium siinj^liciores 
homines ducant, stupenda mirantibus ostendentes miracula, nolarum sonitus, 
sjjectacula, c^c.^ Giraldus Cambrensis gives instance in a monk of Wales that 
was so deluded. "Paracelsus reckons up many places in Germany, where they 
do usually walk in little coats, some two feet long. A bigger kind there is of 
them called with us hobgoblins, and Bobin Goodfellows, that w.ould in those 
superstitious times grind corn for a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner 
of drudgery work. They would mend old irons in those ^olian isles of Lipari, in 
former ages, and have been often seen and heard. ''Tholosanus calls them 
Trullos and Getulos, and saith, that in his days they were common in many places 
of France. Dithmarus Bleskenius, in his description of Iceland, reports for a 
certainty, that almost in every family they have yet some such familiar spirits ; 

n Lib. 3. cap. 3. de mag's et veneficis, &c. Nereides. <> Lib. de Zilphis. P Lib. 3. Q Pro salute 

hominura excubare se simulant, sed in eorum perniciem omnia moliuntur. Aust. * Dryades, Oriades, 

Hamadryades. f Elvas Olaus vocat lib. 3. " Part. 1. cap. 19. = Lib. 3. cap. 11. Elvarum 

•choreas Olaus lib. 3. vocat saltura adeo profunde in terras imprimunt. ut locus insigni deinceps virore' 
orbicularis sit, et gramen non pereat. « Sometimes they seduce too simple men into their mountain retreats, 
•where they exhibit wonderful sights to their marvelling eyes, and astonish their ears by the sound of bells, 
&c. » Lib. de Zilph. et Pigmaiis Olaus lib. 3. " Lib. 7. cap. 11. qui et in famulitio vlris et fseminis 

inserviunt, conclavia scopis purgant, patinas mundant, ligna portant, equos curant,&c. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] ' Digression of Spirits. 125 

and Foelix Malleolus, in his book de crudel. dmmon. affirms as mucli, tliat tliese 
TroUi or Telcliines are very common in Norway, "and 'seen to do drudgery 
■work;" to draw water, saith Wierus, lih. i. cap. 22. dress meat, or any such 
thing. Another sort of these there are, which frequent forlorn ^ houses, which 
the Italians call foliots, most part innoxious, * Cardan holds ; " They will make 
strange noises in the night, howl sometimes pitifully, and then laugh again, 
cause great flame and sudden lights, fling stones, rattle chains, shave men, 
open doors and shut them, fling down platters, stools, chests, sometimes appear 
in the likeness of hares, crows, black dogs, &c." of which read ^ Pet. Thyrseus 
the Jesuit, in his Tract, delocis in/estis, 2JCirt. 1. et cap. 4, who will have them 
to be devils or the souls of damned men that seek revenge, or else souls out of 
purgatory that seek ease; for such exam jdIcs peruse * Sigismundus Scheretzius, 
lib. de spectris, part 1. c. 1. which he saith he took out of Luther most part; 
there be many instances. ^PliuiusSecundus remembers such a house at Athens, 
which Athenodorus the philosopher hired, which no man durst inhabit for fear 
of devils. Austin, de Civ. Dei, lih. 22, cap. 1. relates as much of Hesperius 
the Tribune's house, at Zubeda, near their city of Hippos, vexed with evil 
spirits, to his great hindrance, Cum aJUctione animalium et servorum suorum. 
Many such instances are to be read in Niderius Formicar, lib. 5. cap. xii. 3. 
&c. Whether I may call these Zim and Ochim, which Isaiah, cap. xiii. 21. 
speaks of, I make a doubt. See more of these in the said Scheretz. lib. 1. de 
sped. cap. 4. he is full of examples. These kinds of devils many times appear 
to men, and aff'right them out of their wits, sometimes walking at ''noon-day, 
sometimes at nights, counterfeiting dead men's ghosts, as that of Caligula, 
which (saith Suetonius) was seen to walk in Lavinia's garden, where his body 
was buried, spirits haunted,. and the house where he died, ^ Nulla nox sine ter- 
voretransacta, donee incendio conswmpta ; every night this happened, there was 
no quietness, till the house was burned. About Tlecla, in Iceland, ghosts com- 
moidy walk, animas mortuorum simidantes, saith Joh. A nan. lib. 3. de nat. 
deem. Glaus, lib. 2. cap. 2. Natal. Tallopid. lib. de apparit. spir. Kornmannus 
de mirac. 7nort.part. 1. cap. 44. such sights are frequently seen circa sepulchra 
et monasteria, saith Lavat. lib. 1. cap). 19. in monasteries and about church- 
yards, loca paludinosa, ampla cedijicia, solitaria, et coide hominuni notata, d'c. 
(marshes, great buildings, solitary places, or remarkable as the scene of some 
murder). Thyi'eus adds, uhi gravius peccatmn est commissum, impii p)<^'>^- 
perum oppressores et 7iequiter insignes habitant (where some very heinous crime 
was committed, there the^impious and infamous generally dwell). These spirits 
often foretel men's deaths by several signs, as knocking, groanings, &c., t though 
Rich. Argentine, c. 18. de prcestigiis dcemonum, will ascribe these predictions 
to good angels, out of the authority of Ficinus and others; prodigia in obitu 
principum s(Ep)ius contingunt, c&c. (prodigies frequently occur at the deaths of 
illustrious men), as in the Lateran church in % Rome, the popes' deaths are 
foretold by Sylvester's tomb. Near Rupes Nova in Finland, in the kingdom 
of Sweden, there is a lake, in which, before the governor of the castle dies, a 
spectrum, in the habit of Arion with his harp, appears, and makes excellent 
music, like those blocks in Cheshire, which (they say) presage death to the 
master of the family ; or that ^ oak in Lanthadran park in Cornwall, which 
foreshows as much. Many families in Europe are so put in mind of their last 
by such prediction s, and many men are forewarned (if we may believe Paracelsus) 

* Ad ministeria utuntur. y Where treasure is hid (as some think) or some murder, or such like villany 
committed. * Lib. 16. de rerum varietat. ^ Vel spiritus sunt hujusmodi damnatorum, vel e purgatorio, 
vel ipsi dffimones, c. 4. « Quidara lemures domesticis instrumentis noctu ludunt : patinas, ollas, can- 

tharas, et alia vasa dejieiunt, et quidam voces emittunt, ejulant, risum emittunt, &c. ut canes nigri, feles, 
variis formis, &c. '^ Epist. lib. 7. = Meridionales Daamones Cicogna calls them or Alastores 1. 3 cap. 9. 
d Sueton. c. 69. in Caligula. f Strozzius Cicogna, lib. 3. mag. cap. 5. $ Idem c. IS. e ^. Care\y, 

Survey of Cornwall, lib. 2, folio 140. 



126 Digressmi of Sinrits. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

by familiar spirits in divers shapes, as cocks, crows, owls, which often hover 
about sick men's chambers, vel quia inorientiuni fo&ditatem sentiunt, as ^Bara- 
cellus conjectures, et ideo super tectum infirmorum crocitant, because they smell 
a corse; or for that (as ^ Bernardinns de Bustis thinketh) God permits the 
devil to appear in the form of crows, and such like creatures, to scare such as 
live wickedly here on earth. A little before Tully's death (saith Plutarch) the 
crows made a mighty noise about him, tumuUuose perstrepentes, they pulled the 
pillow from under his head. Kob. Gaguinus hist. Franc, lib. 8, telleth such 
another wonderful story at the death of Johannes de Monteforti, a French lord, 
anno 1345, tanta corvorum midtitudo cedibus morientis insedit, quantam esse in 
Gallia nemo judicdsset (a multitude of crows alighted on the house of the dying 
man, such as no one imagined existed in France). Such prodigies are very 
frequent in authors. See more of these in the said Lavater, Thy reus de locis 
infestis,2yctrt 3,cap.68. Pictorius, Delrio, Cicogna,lib.?),cap.^. Necromancers 
take uj)on them to raise and lay them at their pleasures : and so likewise 
those which Mizaldus calls Ambulones, that walk about midnight on great 
heaths and desert places, Avhich (saith ^Lavater) "draw men out of the way, 
and lead them all night a bye-way, or quite bar them of their w^ay;" these 
have several names in several places; we commonly call them Packs. In the 
deserts of Lop, in Asia, such illusions of walking spirits are often perceived, as 
you may read in M. Paulus, the Venetian his travels ; if one lose his company 
by chance, these devils will call him by his name, and counterfeit voices of his 
companions to seduce him. Hieronym. Pauli, in his book of the hills of Spain, 
relates of a great 'mount in Cantab ria, where such spectrums are to be seen; 
Lavater and Cicogna have variety of examples of spirits and walking devils in 
this kind. Sometimes they sit by the highway side, to give men falls, and make 
their horses stumble and start as they ride (if you will believe the relation of 
that holy man Ketellus in * Nubrigensis, that Imd an especial grace to see 
devils, Gratiam divinitus coUatam, and talk with them, Et imimvidus cum spi- 
ritibus sermonem iniscere, without offence, and if a man curse or spur his horse 
for stumbling, they do heartily rejoice at it; with many such pretty feats. 

Subterranean devils are as common as the rest, and do as much harm* 
Olaus Magnus, lib. 6, cap. 19, makes six kinds of them; some bigger, some 
less. These (saith ^ Munster) are commonly seen about mines of metals, and 
are some of them noxious; some again do no harm. The metal-men in many 
places account it good luck, a sign of treasure and rich ore when they se© 
them. Georgius Agricola in his book de subterraneis animantibus, cap. 37, 
reckons two more notable kinds of them, which he calls ^ Getuli and Cobali, 
both " are clothed after the manner of metal-men, and will many times 
imitate their works." Their office, as Pictorius and Paracelsus think, is to 
keep treasure in the earth, that it be not all at once revealed ; and besides, 
" Cicogna avers that they are the frequent causes of those horrible earth- 
quakes " which often swallow up, not only houses, but whole islands and 
cities;" in his third book, cap. 11, he gives many instances. 

The last are conversant about the centre of the earth to torture the souls 
of damned men to the day of judgment ; their egress and regress some sup- 
pose to be about ^tna, Lipari, Mons Hecla in Iceland, Vesuvius, Terra del 
Fuego, &c., because many shrieks and fearful cries are continually heard there- 
abouts, and familiar apparitions of dead men, ghosts and goblins. 

''Horto Geniali, folio 137. e Part. 1. c. 19. Abducunt eos a recta via, et viam iter facientibus inter- 

cludunt. •» Lib. 1. cap. 44. DtEmonum cernuntur et audiuntur ibi frequentes illusiones, unde viatoribus 
cavenduin ne se dissocient, aut k tergo maneant, voces enini fingunt sociorum, ut a recto itinere abducant, 
&c. » Mons sterilis et nivosus, iibi intempesta nocte umbrae apparent. * Lib. 2. cap. 21. Offendicula 
faciunt transeuntibus in via, et petulanter ridet cumvel hominem vel jumentum ejus pedes atterere faciant, 
et maxime si homo maledictis et calcaribus sasviat. ^ In Cosmogr. i Vestiti more metallicorum, gestus 
et opera eorum imitantur. m Immisso in terrse carceres vento horribiles terrie motus efficiunt, quibus 

ssepe non domus mode et tuiTes, sed civitates integrse et insulse hausta- sunt. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Digression of Spirits. 127 

Their Offices, Operations, Study^ Tims the devil reigns, and in a thousand 
several shapes, " as a roaring lion still seeks whom he may devour," 1 Pet. v., 
by earth, sea, land, air, as yet unconfined, though *some will have his proper 
place the air; all that space between us and the moon for them that trans- 
gressed least, and hell for the wickedest of them. Hie velut in carcere adjinem 
inundi, tunc in locum funestiorem trudeiidi, as Austin holds de Civit. Dei, c. 
22, lib. 14, cap. 3 et 23; but be where he will, he rageth while he may to 
comfort himself, as "* Lactantius thinks, with other men's falls, he labours all 
he can to bring them into the same pit of perdition with him. " For " men's 
miseries, calamities, and ruins are the devil's banqueting dishes." By many 
temptations and several engines, he seeks to captivate our souls. The Lord 
of Lies, saith ^ Austin, " As he was deceived himself, he seeks to deceive 
others, the ringleader to all naughtiness, as he did by Eve and Cain, Sodom 
and Gomorrah, so would he do By all the world. Sometimes he tempts by 
covetousness, drunkenness, pleasure, pride, &c., errs, dejects, saves, kills, pro- 
tects, and rides some men, as they do their horses. He studies our overthrow, 
and generally seeks our destruction ;" and although he pretend many times 
human good, and vindicate himself for a god by curing of several diseases, 
cegris sanitaiem, et ccecis luminis usum restituendo, as Austin declares, lib. 10, 
de Civit. Dei, cap. 6, as Apollo, -^sculapius, Isis, of old have done; divert 
plagues, assist them in wars, pretend their happiness, yet oiihil Ids impurius, 
scelestius, nihil humano generi infestius, nothing so impure, nothing so per- 
nicious, as may well appear by their tyrannical and bloody sacrifices of men 
to Saturn and Moloch, which are still in use among those barbarous Indians, 
their several deceits and cozenings to keep men in obedience, their false 
oracles, sacrifices, their superstitious impositions of fasts, penury, &c. Heresies, 
superstitious observations of meats, times, &c., by which they "^ crucify the souls 
of mortal men, as shall be showed in our Treatise of Religious Melancholy. 
Modico adhuc tempore sinitur malignari, as '' Bernard expresseth it, by God's 
permission he rageth a while, hereafter to be confined to hell and darkness, 
*• which is prepared for him and his angels," Mat. xxv. 

How far their power doth extend it is hard to determine ; what the ancients 
held of their efiects, force and operations, I will briefly show you : Plato in 
Critias, and after him his followers, gave out that these spirits or devils, " were 
men's governors and keepers, our lords and masters, as we are of our cattle." 
"^They govern provinces and kingdoms by oracles, auguries, dreams, rewards'* 
and punishments, prophecies, inspirations, sacrifices, and religious supersti- 
tions, varied in as many forms as there be diversity of spirits; they send wars, 
plagues, peace, sickness, health, dearth, plenty, ^ Adstantes hie jam nobis, spec- 
tantes, et arbitrantes, doc. as appears by those histories of Thucydides, Livius, 
pionysius Halicarnassus, with many others that are full of their wonderful 
stratagems, and were therefore by those Boman and Greek commonwealths 
adored and worshipped for gods with prayers and sacrifices, &c. " In a word. 
Nihil magis qucerunt quam metum et admirationem hominum; "^ and as another 
hath it. Did non potest, quam impotenti ardore in homines dominium, et 

♦Ilierom. in 3. Eplies. Idem Michaelis. c. 4. de spiritibus. Idem Thyreus de locis infestis. "Lactantius 
2. de origine erroris cap. 15. hi maligni spiritus per oranem terram vagantur, et solatium perditionis suce 
perdendis hominibus operantur. oMortalium calamitates epulas sunt malorum djemonura, Synesius. 

1' Doraiuus mendacii a seipso deceptus, alios decipere cupit, adversarius liumani generis, Inventor mortis, 
Buperbiffi institutor, radix malitice, scelerum caput, princeps omnium vitiorum, fuit inde in Dei contumeliam, 
hominum perniciem : de horum conatibus et operationibus lege Epiphanium. 2 Tom. lib. 2. Dionysium. 
c. 4. Ambros. Epistol. lib. 10. ep. et 84. August, de civ. Dei lib. 5. c. 9. lib. 8. cap. 22. lib. 9. 18. lib. 10. 21. 
Theophil. in 12. Mat. Pasil. ep. 141. Leonem Ser, Theodoret. in 11. Cor. ep. 22. Chrys. hom. 53. in 12. 
Gen. Greg, in 1. c. John. Barthol. de prop. 1. 2. c. 20. Zanch. 1. 4. de malis angelis. Perer. in Gen. 1. 8. in 
c. 6. 2. Origen. saspe prseliis intersunt, itinera et negotia nostra quoBcunquedirigunt, clandestinis subsidiis 
optatos s^pe praebent successus. Pet. Mar. in Sam. <kc. Ruscam de Inferno. <iEt velut mancipia circum- 
fert Psellus._ _ ^LiVo. de trans, mut. Malac. ep. • Custodes sunt hominum, et eorum, ut nos animalium : 
tum et provinciis praspositi regunt auguriis, somniis, oraculis, prsemiis, &c. 'Lypsius Physiol. Stoic. 

lib. 1 .cap. 19. " Leo Suavis. idem et Tritemius. ▼ " They seek nothing more earnestly than the fear 
and admiration of men." 



128 Digression ofSjjirits. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

Divinos cultos maligni spiritus offectent.'^ Tritemias in his book de septem 
secundis, assigns names to such angels as are governors of particular provinces, 
bj what authority I know not, and gives them several jurisdictions. Ascle- 
piades a Grecian, Rabbi Achiba the Jew, Abraham A venezra, and Rabbi Azariel, 
Arabians, (as I find them cited by ''Cicogna) farther add, that they are not our 
governors only, Sed ex eorum concordid et discordid, boni et mali affectus 'pro- 
Tiianant, but as they agree, so do we and our princes, or disagree; stand or 
fall. Juno was a bitter enemy to Troy, Apollo a good friend, Jupiter indiffer- 
ent, JEqua Venus Teucris, Pallas iniqua fuit; some are for us still, some 
against us, Premente Deo,fert Deus alter opem. Religion, policy, public and 
private quarrels, wars are procured by them, and they are ^delighted perhaps 
to see men fight, as men are v/ith cocks^ bulls, and dogs, bears, &c., plagues, 
dearths depend on them, our hene and inale esse, and almost all our other 
peculiar actions, tor (as Anthony Rusca contends, lib. 5,cap.l8, every man hath 
a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular, all his life long, which 
Jamblichus calls doimonem^ preferments, losses, weddings, deaths, rewards 
and punishments, and as "^Proclus will, all offices whatsoever, alii genetricem^ 
alii op)ificGm potestatem habent, d:c., and several names they give them according 
to their offices, as Lares Indegites, Pra^stites, &c, "When tlie Arcades in 
that battle at Cheronse, which was fought against King Philip for the liberty 
of Greece, had deceitfully carried themselves, long after, in the very same 
place, Diis (xrcecice ulioribus (saith mine author) they were miserably slain by 
Metellus the Roman : so likewise, in smaller matters, they will have things 
fall out, as these 5o?ii ajid inali genii favour or dislike us: Satii^rni non conve- 
niunt Jovicdibus, <hc. He that is Saturninus shall never likely be preferred. 
* That base fellows are often advanced, undeserving Gnathoes, and vicious para- 
sites, whereas discreet, wise, virtuous and worthy men are neglected and unre- 
warded ; they refer to those domineering spirits, or subordinate Genii ; as they 
are inclined, or favour men, so they thrive, are ruled and overcome; for as 
^'Libanius supposethinour ordinary conflicts and contentions. Genius Genio cedit 
et obtemperat, one genius yields and is overcome by another. All particular 
events almost they refer to these private spirits; and (as Paracelsus adds) they 
direct, teach, inspire, and instruct men. Never was any inan extraordinary 
ftimous in any art, action, or great commander, that had not famitiarem dcemo- 
nem to inform him, as Numa, Socrates, and many such, as Cardan illustrates, 
cap. 128, Arcanis p>rudentiai civilis, " Speciali siquideni gratia, si d Deo donari 
asserunt magi, d Geniis ccelestibus instrui, ab iis doceri. But these are most 
erroneous paradoxes, ineptce et fabulosce nugm, rejected by our divines and 
Christian churches. 'Tis true they have, by God's permission, power over 
us, and we find by experience, that they can '^ hurt not our fields only, cattle, 
goods, but our bodies and minds. At Hammel in Saxony, An. 1484, 20 
Junii, the devil, in likeness of a pied piper, carried away 130 children that 
were never after seen. Many times men are ^ affrighted out of their wits, 
carried away quite, as Scheretzius illustrates, lib. 1. c. iv., and severally molest- 
ed by his means. Plotinus the Platonist, lib. 14, advers. Gnos. laughs them to 
scorn, that hold the devil or spirits can cause any such diseases. Many think 
he can work upon the body, but not upon the mind. But experience pro- 
nounceth otherwise, that he can work both upon body and mind. TertuUian is 

^ "It is scarcely possible to describe tbe impotent ardour with which these malignant spirits aspire to the 
honour of being divinely worshipped." ^Omnif. mag. lib. 2. cap. 23. yLudus deorum sumus. ^ Lib. 
de anima et dsemone. ^ Quoties lit, ut Principes novitium aulicam divitiis et dignitatibus pene obruant, 
et multorum annorum ministrum, qui non semel pro hero periculum subiit, ne terantio donent, &c. 
Idem. Quod Philosophi non remxinerentur, cum scurra et ineptus ob insulsum jocuni scepe prsemium 
reportet, inde fit, &c. ^ Lib. de Crueat. Cadaver. « Boissardus c. 6. magia. <iGodelmanus cap. 3. 
lib. 1. de Magis. idem Zanchius lib. 4. cap. 10 et 11. de mails angells. « Nociva Melancholia furiosos 

efflcit, et quandoque penitus interficit. G. Picolomineus Idemqae Zanch. cap. 10. lib. 4. si Detis permittat, 
corpora nostra movere possunt, alterare, quovis morborum et malorum genere atficeve, imo et in ipsa 
penetrare et saevire. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Xature of Spirits. 129 

of this opinion, c. 22. "*"That lie can cause both sickness and health," and that 
secretly. ^Taurellus adds '-'by clancular poisons he can infect the bodies, and 
hinder the operations of the bowels, though we perceive it not, closely creep- 
ing into them," saith ^Lipsius, and so crucify our souLs: £t nociva riulan- 
cholia furiosos efficit. For being a spiritual body, he stiaiggles with our 
spiiits, saith Eogei*s, and suggests (according to 'Cardan, verba sine voce, 
smcies shie visa, envy, lust, anger, &c.) as he sees men inclined. 

The manner how he performs it, Biarmannus in his Oration against Bodine, 
sufliciently declares, '■'^He begins first with the phantasy, and moves that 
so strongly, that no reason is able to resist. iSTow the phantasy he moves by 
mediation of humours; although many physicians are of opinion, that the devil 
can alter the mind, and produce this disease of himself. Quibusdam medicoiiim 
visum, saith Llvicenna, quod JlelanclioUa contingat a dcemonio. Of the same 
mind is Psellus and Ehasis the Arab. lib. 1. Tract. 9. Cont. "'^Tliat this 
disease proceeds especially from the devil, and from him alone." Arculanus 
cap. 6. in 9. Rhasis, ^lianus Montaltus in his 9. cap. Daniel Sennertus lib, 1. 
part 2. cap. 11. confirm as much, that the devil can cause this disease; by 
reason many times that the parties afiected prophesy, speak strange language, 
but non sine interventu humor is, not without the humour, as he interprets liim- 
self ; no more doth Avicenua, si contingat a dcemonio, siifflcit nobis ut conver- 
tat complexionem ad cholera ni nigram, et sit causuj ejus propinqua cholera nigra; 
the immediate cause is choler adust, which '"'Pomponatius likewise labours to 
make o-ood : Galo-erandus of 3Iantua, a famous Phvsician. so cured a d^emoni- 
acal woman in his time, that spake all languages, by purging black choler, 
and thereupon belike this humour of Melancholy is called Balneum Diaboli, 
the Devil's Bath; the devil spying his opportunity of such humours drives 
them many times to despair, fury, rage, &c., mingling himself amongst these 
humours. This is that which Tertuilian avers, Corporibus infligunt acerbos 
casus, animcequerepentinos, membra distorquent, occulterepentes, dr. and which 
Lemnius goes about to prove, Immiscent se mali Genii pravis liumoribus, atque 
atrcB hili, djc. And "Jason Pratensis, '■' that the devil, being a slender incom- 
prehensible spirit, can. easily insinuate and wind himself into human bodies, and 
cunningly couched in our bowels vitiate our healths, terrify our souls with fear- 
ful dreams, and shake our mind with furies." And in another place, "These 
unclean spirits settled in our bodies, and now mixed with our melancholy 
humours, do triumph as it were, and sport themselves as in another heaven." 
Thus he argTies, and that they go in and out of our bodies, as bees do in a 
hive, and so provoke and tempt us as they perceive our temperature inchned 
of itself, and most apt to be deluded. ° Agrippa and ^Lavater are persuaded, 
that this humour invites the de^T.1 to it, wheresoever it is in extremity, and of 
all other, melancholy persons are most subject to diabolical temptations and 
illusions, and most apt to entertain them, and the Devil best able to work upon 
them. But whether by obsession, or possession, or otherwise, I will not deter- 
mine; 'tis a difficult question, Delrio the Jesuit, Tom. 3. lib. 6. Springer 
and his colleague, mall, nicdef. Pet. Thyreus the Jesuit, lib. de ckemoniacis,d3 
locis infestis, de Ternjlcationibics noctm-nis, Hieronimus Mengus FlageL deem. 



'Indncere potest mortos et sanitates. gVisceram actiones potest mhiljere lat enter, et venenis no'bis 

i^notis corpus inticere. ^ Irrepeuces corporibus occuito morbos fingunt, mentes ten-ent, membra distor- 
quent. Lips. Phil. Stoic. 1. 1. c. 19. 'De rerum var. 1. 16. c. 93. I'Quum mens immediate decipi 
nequit, primum movet phantasiam, et ita obSnnat vanis conceptibus aut ut ne quern facultati sestimativae 
rationi locum relinquat. Spii'itus mains invadit animam, tui-bat sensus, in furorem conjicit. Austin, de vit. 
Beat. iLib. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4. c. IS. ™ A Dsemone raaxime proficisci, et saepe solo. * Lib. de incant. 
"C^ep. de mania lib. de morbis cerebri; D:emones, quum sint tenues et incomprehensibiles spiritus, se in- 
sinuare coi-poribus humanis possunt, et occulte in- visceribus operti. valetudinem vitiare, somniis animaa 
terrere et mentes furoribus quatere. Insiuuant sts melancholicorum penetralibus. intus ibique considunt 
et deliciantm- tanquam in regioae clarissimorum siderum, coguntque animam furere. oLib. 1. cap. 6. 
occult. Piiilos. pare 1. cap. 1. de specuis, p Sine crace ct sanctificatione sic a dsmone obsessa. dial. 



130 Causes of Melancholy. \Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

and others of that rank of pontifical writers, it seems, by their exorcisms and 
conjurations approve of it, having forged many stories to that purpose. A nun 
did eat a lettuce ^without grace, or signing it with the sign of the cross, and 
was instantly possessed. Durand. lib. 6. Rationall. c. SQ. numb. 8. relates that 
he saw a wench possessed in Bononia with two devils, by eating an unhallowed 
pomegTanate, as she did afterwards confess, when she was cured by exorcisms. 
And therefore our Papists do sign themselves so often with the sign of the 
cross, Ne doemon ingredi ausif, and exorcise all manner of meats, as being 
unclean or accursed otherwise, as Bellarmine defends. Many such stories I 
find amongst pontifical writers, to prove their assertions, let them free their 
own credits ; some few I will recite in this kind out of most approved physicians. 
Cornelius Gemma lib. 2. de nat. mirac. c. 4, relates of a young maid, called 
Katherine Gualter, a cooper's daughter, A^i. 1571, that had such strange 
passions and convulsions, three men could not sometimes hold her; she purged 
a live eel, which he saw a foot and a half long, and touched it himself; but the 
eel afterwards vanished; she vomited some twenty-four pounds of fulsome 
stuff* of all colours, twice a day for fourteen days ; and after that she voided 
great balls of hair, pieces of wood, pigeons' dung, parchment, goose dung, coals; 
and after them two pounds of pure blood, and then again coals and stones, of 
which some had inscriptions bigger than a walnut, some of them pieces of 
glass, brass, &c. besides paroxysms of laughing, weeping and ecstasies, &c. Bt 
hoc {inquit) cum horrore vidi, this I saw with horror. They could do no good 
on her by physic, but left her to the clergy. Marcellus Donatus lib. 2. c. 1. 
de med. inirab. hath such another story of a country fellow, that had four 
knives in his belly, Insiar serrce dentatos, indented like a saw, every one a span 
long, and a wreath of hair like a globe, with much baggage of like sort, won- 
derful to behold : how it should come into his guts, he concludes, Certe non 
alio quam dceinonis astutid et dolo (could assuredly only have been through 
the artifice of the devil). Langius Epist. med. lib. 1. Epist. 38. hath many 
relations to this effect, and so hath Christopherus a Yega : Wierus, Skenkius, 
Scribonius, all agree that they are done by the subtilty and illusion of the 
devil. If you shall ask a reason of this, 'tis to exercise our patience ; for as 
*Tertullian holds, Virtus non est virtus, nisi comparem hcibet aliquem, in quo 
superando vim suam ostendat, 'tis to try us and our faith, 'tis for our offences, 
and for the punishment of our sins, by God's permission they do it, Carnijices 
mndictce justce Dei, as ""Tolosanus styles them, EKecutioners of his will; or 
rather as David, Ps, 78. ver. 49. "He cast upon them the fierceness of his 
anger, indignation, wrath, and vexation, by sending out of evil angels :" so did 
he afflict Job, Saul, the Lunatics and dsemoniacal persons whom Christ cured, 
Mat. iv. 8. Luke iv. 11. Luke xiii. Mark ix. Tobit viii. 3. &c. This, I say, 
happeneth for a punishment of sin, for their want of faith^ incredulity, weak- 
ness, distrust, &c. 

SuBSECT. III. — Of Witches and Magicians, how they cause Melancholy. 

You have heard what the devil can do of himself, now you shall hear what 
he can perform by his instruments, who are many times worse (if it be possible) 
than he himself, and to satisfy their revenge and lust cause more mischief, 
Multa enim mala non egisset dcemon, nisi provocatus a sagis, as ^Erastus 
thinks; much harm had never been done, had he not been provoked by witches 
to it. He had not appeared in Samuel's shape, if the Witch of Endor had 
let him alone; or represented those serpents in Pharo's presence, had not the 
magicians urged him unto it; Nee morbus vel horainibus^ vel brutis infligeret 
(Erastus maintains) si sagoi quiescerent; men and cattle might go free, if the 
a Greg. pag. c. 9, * Penult, de opific. Dei. '-Lib. 'JS,. cap. 23. torn. 2. "De Lamus. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] 



"Nature of B amis. 



131 



witclies would let him alone. Many deny witches at all, or if there be any 
they can do no harm; of this opinion is Wierus, lih, 3. cap. 53. deprcBstig. deem. 
Austin Lerchemer a Dutch writer, Biarmannus, Ewichius, Euwaldus, our 
countryman Scot; with him in Horace, 



« Somnia, terrores Magicos, miracula, sagas, 
Nocturnos Lemures, portentaque Thessala risu 
Excipiunt " 



Say, can you laugli indignant at the scliemea 
Of magic terrors, visionary dreams, 
Portentous wonders, witcliing imps of Hell, 
The nightly gohlin, and enchanting spell? 



They laugh at all such stories; but on the contrary are most lawyers, 
divines, physicians, philosophers, Austin, Hemingius, Danseus, Chytrseus, 
Zanchius, Aretius, &c. Delrio, Springer, *]Sriderius lib. 5. Fornicar. Cuiatius, 
Bartolus, consil. 6. torn. 1. Bodine dcemoniant. lib. 2. cap. 8. Godelman, Dam- 
hoderius, &c. Paracelsus, Erastus, Scribanius, Camerarius, &c. The parties 
by whom the devil deals, may be reduced to these two, such as command him 
in show at least, as conjurors, and magicians, whose detestable and horrid 
mysteries are contained in their book called t Arbatell; dcemmies enim advo^ 
cati prcEsto sunt, seque exorcismis et conjuraiionibus quasi cogi patiuntur, ut 
miserum magorum genus, in impietate detineant. Or such as are commanded, 
as witches, that deal ex parte implicite, or explicite, as the *king hath well 
defined; many subdivisions there are, and many several species of sorcerers, 
witches, enchanters, charmers, &c. They have been tolerated heretofore 
some of them; and magic hath been publicly professed in former times, 
in "Salamanca, J Cracow, and other places, though after censured by 
several ^Universities, and now generally contradicted, though practised 
by some still, maintained and excused, Tanquam res secreta quce non nisi 
viris magnis et peculiari beneficio de Godo instructis communicatur (I use 
§Boesartus his words) and so far approved by some princes, Ut nihil 
ausi aggredi in politicis, in sacris, in consiliis, sine eorum arbitrio; they 
consult still with them, and dare indeed do nothing without their advice. 
Nero and Heliogabalus, Maxentius, and Julianus Apostata, were never so 
much addicted to magic of old, as some of our modern princes and popes 
themselves are now-a-days. Erricus King of Sweden had aii * enchanted cap, 
by virtue of which, and some magical murmur or whispering terms, he 
CGuld command spirits, trouble the air, and make the wind stand which way he 
would, insomuch that when there was any great wind or storm, the common 
people were wont to say, the king now had on his conjuring cap. But such 
examples are infinite. That which they can do, is as much almost as the devil 
himself, who is still ready to satisfy their desires, to oblige them the more unto 
him. They can cause tempests, storms, which is familiarly practised by 
witches in Norway, Iceland, as I have proved. They can make friends 
enemies, and enemies friends by philters ; ^ Turjoes amores conciliare, enforce 
love, tell any man where his friends are, about wliat employed though in the 
most remote places; and if they will, t" bring their sweethearts to them by 
night, upon a goat's back flying in the air." Sigismund Scheretzius, part. 1. 
cap. 9. de sped., reports confidently, that he conferred with sundry such, that 
had been so carried many miles, and that he heard witches themselves confess 
as much; hurt and infect men and beasts, vines, corn, cattle, plants, make 
women abortive, not to conceive, J barren, men and women unapt and unable^ 
married and unmarried, fifty several ways, saith Bodine, lib. 2, c. 2, fly in the 
air, meet when and where they will, as Cicogna jjroves, and La vat. de spec, 
part. 2, c. 17, " steal young children out of their cradles, ministerio dcemonum, 

♦Et quomodo venefici fiant enarrat. •{* De quo plura legas in Boissardo lib. 1. de prsestig. * Res 

■Jacobus DjEmonol. 1. 1. c. 3. "An university in Spain in old Castile. $The chief town in Poland. 

» Oxford and Paris, see finem P. Lombardi. § Prtefat. de magis et veneficis. * Rbtatum Pileum 

habebat, quo ventos violentos cieret, aerem turbaret, et in quam partem, &c. y Erastus. f Ministerio hirai 
noctui'ni. J Steriles nuptos et iuhabiles, vide Petrum de Palude lib. 4. distinct. 34. Paulum Guiclaudum. 



132 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1, Sec. 2. 

fmd put deformed in tlieir rooms, wliich we call changelings, saith § Sclieretzius, 
^art. I, c. 6, make men victorious, fortunate, eloquent; and therefore in those 
ancient mononlachies and combats they were searched of old, ''they had no 
magical charms; they can make * stick frees, such as shall endure a rapier's 
point, musket shot, and never be wounded : of which read more in Boissardus, 
cap. 6, de Magici, the manner of the adjuration, and by whom 'tis made, where 
and how to be used in expeditionibus bellicis, prceliis, duellis, t&c, with many 
peculiar instances and examples; they can walk in tiery furnaces, make men 
feel no pain on the wrack, aut alias torturas sentire; they can stanch blood, 
^represent dead men's shapes, alter and turn themselves and others into several 
forms, at their pleasures. * Agaberta, a f:imous witch in Lapland, would do as 
nmch publicly to all spectators, Modb Pusilla, modb anus, modo procera ut 
quercus, modo vacca,avis, coluber, &c. Now young, now old, high, low, like a 
cow, like a bird, a snake, and what not? she could represent to others what 
forms they most desired to see, show them friends absent, reveal secrets, 
vnaxima omnium admiratione, &c. And yet for all this subtility of theirs, as 
Lypsius well observes, Physiolog. Stoicor. lib. 1, cap. 17, neither these magi- 
cians nor devils themselves can take away gold or letters out of mine or 
Crassus' chest, et Clientelis suis largiri, for they are base, poor, contemptible 
fellows most part; as tBodine notes, they can do nothing in Judicum decreta 
nut poenas, hi regum concilia vel arcana, niliil in rem nummariam aut thesau- 
ros, they cannot give money to their clients, alter judges' decrees, or councils 
of kings, these niinuti Genii cannot do it, altiores Genii hoc sibi adservdrunt, 
the higher powers reserve these things to themselves. Now and then perad- 
venture there may be some more famous magicians like Simon Magus, % Apol- 
lonius Tyaneus, Pasetes, Jamblicus, § Odo de Stellis, that for a time can build 
castles in the air, represent armies, &c., as they are ''said to have done, 
command Avealth and treasure, feed thousands with all variety of meats upon a 
sudden, protect themselves and their followers from all princes' persecutions, 
by removing from place to place in an instant, reveal secrets, future events, tell 
what is done in far countries, make them appear that died long since, and do 
many such miracles, to the world's terror, admiration and opinion of deity to 
themselves, yet the devil forsakes them at last, they come to wicked ends, and 
rarb aut nunquam such im posters are to be found. The vulgar sort of them 
can work no such feats. But to my purpose, they can, last of all, cure and 
cause most diseases to such as they love or hate, and this of "^melancholy 
amongst the rest. Paracelsus, jTow. 4, de morbis amentium. Tract. 1, in 
express words affirms ; Multifascinantur in melancholiam, many are bewitched 
into melancholy, out of his experience. The same saith Danseus lib. 3, de 
sortiariis. Vidi, inquif, qui MelanchoUcos morbos gravissimos induxerunt : I 
have seen those that have caused melancholy in the most grievous manner, 
^ dried up w^omen's paps, cured gout, palsy; this and apoplexy, falling sickness, 
which no physic could help, solo tactu, by touch alone. Ruland in his 3 Cent. 
Cura 91, gives an instance of one David Helde, a young man, who by eating 
cakes which a witch gave him, mox delirare coepit, began to dote on a sudden, 
and was instantly mad : F. H. D. in ^Hildesheim, consulted about a melan- 
choly man, thought his disease was partly magical, and partly natural, because 
he vomited pieces of iron and lead, and spake such languages as he had never 
been taught; but such examples are common in Scribanius, Plercules de 

§ Infantes matribus suffurantur, aliis suppositivis in locum verorum conjectis. =« Milles. » D. Luther, 
in primum praeceptmn, et Leon. Vavius lib. 1. de Fascino. ^ Lavat. Cicog. * Boissardus de Magis^ 
•}• Daemon, lib. 3. cap. 3. $ Vide Philostratum vita ejus, Boissardum de Magis. § Nubrigenses lege 

lib. 1. c. 19, Vide Suidam de Paset. De Crueiit. Cadaver. <= Erastus. Adolplius Scribanius. "^ Virg. 
.£neid. 4. Incantatricem describens: Hsec se carminibus promittit solvere mentes. Quas velit, ast aliis 
duras immittere curas. « Godelmannus cap. 7. lib. 1. nutricum mammas prsesiccant, solo tactu podagram, 
apoplexiam, paralysin, et alios morbos, quos medicina cm-are non poterat. - Tactus inde Maniacus, spec. 2. 
fol. 147. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 4.] Causes of Melancholy. 133 

Saxonia, and others. The means by which they work are usually charms, 
images, as that in Hector Boethius of King Duffe ; characters stamped of 
sundry metals, and at such and such constellations, knots, amulets, words, 
philters, &c., which generally make the parties affected, melancholy; as 
^ Monavius discourseth at large in an epistle of his to Acolsius, giving instance 
in a Bohemian baron that was so troubled by a philter taken. Not that there 
is any power at all in those spells, charms, characters, and barbarous words; 
but that the devil doth use such means to delude them. Utjideles indeniagos 
(saith * Libanius) in officio retineat, turn in consortium malefactorum voceL 

SuBSECT. IV. — fStars a cause. Signs from Physiognomy, Metoposcopy, 

Chiromancy. 

Natural causes are either primary and imiversal, or secondary and more 
particular. Primary causes are the heavens, planets, stars, &c., by their influ- 
ence (as our astrologers hold) producing this and such like effects. I will not 
here stand to discuss obiter, whether stars be causes, or signs; or to aj)ologise 
for judicial astrology. If either Sextus Empiricus, Picus Mirandula, Sextus 
ab Heminga, Pererius, Erastus, Chambers, &c., have so far prevailed with any 
man, that he will attribute no virtue at all to the heavens, or to sun, or moon, 
more than he doth to their signs at an innkeeper's post, or tradesman's shop, 
or generally condemn all such astrological aphorisms approved by experience : 
I refer him to Bellantius, Pirovanus, Marascallerus, Goclenius, Sir Christophei 
Heidon, &c. If thou shalt ask me what I think, I must answer, oiam et doctis 
hisce errorihus versatus sum (for I am conversant with these learned errors), 
they do incline, but not compel; no necessity at all: ^ agunt non cogunt: and 
so gently incline, that a wise man may resist them ; sapiens dominabitur astris : 
they rule us, but God rules them. All this (methinks) ' Joh. de Indagine hath 
comprised in brief, Qua^ris a me quantum in nobis operantur astra ? &c. 
" Wilt thou know how far the stars work upon us ? I say they do but incline, 
and that so gently, that if we will be ruled by reason, they have no power over 
us; but if we follow our own nature, and be led by sense, they do as much in 
us as in brute beasts, and we are no better." So that, I hope, I may justly 
conclude with ^ Cajetan, Coelum est vehiculum divince virtutis, d'c, that the 
heaven is God's instrument, by mediation of which he governs and disposetli 
these elementary bodies ; or a great book, whose letters are the stars (as one 
calls it), wherein are written many strange things for such as can read, " ^ or 
an excellent harp, made by an eminent workman, on which, he that can but 
play, will make most admirable music." But to the purpose. 

*" Paracelsus is of opinion, " that a physician without the knowledge of stars 
can neither understand the cause or cure of any disease, either of this or gout, 
not so much as toothache ; except he see the peculiar geniture and scheme of 
the party affected." And for this proper malady, he will have the j)rincipal 
and primary cause of it proceed from the heaven, ascribing more to stars than 
humours, " "and that the constellation alone many times produceth melancholy, 
all other causes set apart." He gives instance in lunatic persons, that are 
deprived of their wits by the moon's motion; and in another place refers all 
to the ascendant, and will have the true and chief cause of it to be sought from 
the stars. Neither is it his opinion only, but of many Galenists and philoso- 

g Omnia philtra etsi inter se differant, hoc habent commune, quod hominem efficiant melancholicum ; epist. 
231. Sclioltzii. * De Cruent. Cadaver. ^ Astra regiuit homines, et regit astra Dens. > Chirom. 

lib. quffiris a me quantum operantur astra? dico, in nos nihil astra urgere, sed aninios proclives trahere: 
qui sic tamen liheri sunt, ut si ducem sequantur rationem, nihil efficiant, sin vero naturam, id agei'e quod 
hi hrutis fere. i^ Coelum vehiculum divined virtutis, cujus mediante motu, lumine et inhuentia, Deus 

elementaria coi-pora ordmat et disponit, Th. de Vio. Cajetanus in Psa. 104. i Mundus iste quasi lyra 

ab excellentissimo quodam artifice concinnata, quem qui norit mirabiles eliciet harraonias. J. Dee. Apho- 
rismo 11. '" Mediciis sine coeli peritia nihil est, &c. nisi genesim sciverit, ne tantillum poterit, lib. de 

podag. " Constellatio in causa est ; et influentia coeli morbum hunc movet interdiun, omnibus aliia 

anjotis. Et alibi. Origo ejus a Coelo petenda est. Tr. de morbis amentium. 



134 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

phers, though they do not so peremptorily maintain as much. " This variety 
of melancholy symptoms proceeds from the stars," saith " Melancthon : the 
most generous melancholy, as that of Augustus, comes from the conjunction of 
Saturn and Jupiter in Libra : the bad, as that of Catiline's, from the meeting 
of Saturn and the moon in Scorpio. Jovianus Pontanus, in his tenth book, 
and thirteenth chapter de rebus codestihus, discourseth to this purpose at large, 
Ex atra bile varii generantur morbi, d&c, "^many diseases proceed from 
black choler, as it shall be hot or cold ; and though it be cold in its own 
nature, yet it is apt to be heated, as water may be made to boil, and burn as 
bad as fire ; or made cold as ice : and thence proceed such variety of symptoms, 
some mad, some solitary, some laugh, some rage," &c. The cause of all 
which intemperance he will have chiefly and primarily proceed from the 
heavens, " ** from the position of Mars, Saturn, and Mercury." His aphorisms 
be these, " " Mercury in any geniture, if he shall be found in Virgo, or Pisces 
his opposite sign, and that in the horoscope, irradiated by those quartile aspects 
of Saturn or Mars, the child shall be mad or melancholy." Again, " ^ He 
that shall have Saturn and Mars, the one culminating, the other in the fourth 
house, when he shall be born, shall be melancholy, of which he shall be cured 
in time, if Mercury behold them." •' ' If the moon be in conjunction or oppo- 
sition at the birth time with the sun, Saturn or Mare, or in a quartile aspect 
with them (e mala cceli loco, Leovitius adds), many diseases are signified, 
especially the head and brain is like to be misaffected with pernicious 
humours, to be melancholy, lunatic, or mad," Cardan adds, quartd lund natos, 
eclipses, earthquakes. Garcaeus and Leovitius will have the chief judgment 
to be taken from the lord of the geniture, or where there is an aspect between 
the moon and Mercury, and neither behold the horoscope, or Saturn and Mars 
shall be lord of the present conjunction or opposition in Sagittarius or Pisces, 
of the sun or moon, such persons are commonly epileptic, dote, dsemoniacal, 
melancholy : but see more of these aphorisms in the above-named Pontanus. 
Garcseus, cap. 23. de Jud. genitur. Schoner. lib. 1. cap. 8. which he hath 
gathered out of " Ptolemy, Alb abater, and some other Arabians, Junctine, 
Kanzovius, Lindhout, Origen,&c. But these men you will reject perad venture, 
as astrologers, and therefore partial judges; then hear the testimony of phy- 
sicians, Galenists themselves. ' Carto confesseth the influence of stars to have 
a great hand to this peculiar disease, so doth Jason Pratensis, Lonicerius 
prcsfat. de Apoplexid, Ficinus, Fernelius, &c. ^ P. Cnemander acknowledgeth 
the stars an universal cause, the particular from parents, and the use of the 
six non-natural things. Baptista Port. 7nag. I. 1, c. 10, 12, 15, will have them 
causes to every particular individium. Instances and examples, to evince the 
truth of these aphorisms, are common amongst those astrologian treatises. 
Cardan, in his thirty- seventh geniture, gives instance in Math. Bolognius. 
Camerar. hor. natalit. centur. 7. genit. 6. et 7. of Daniel Gare, and others; 
but see Garcaeus, cap. 33, Luc. Gauricus. Tract, 6. de Azemenis, <fcG. The 
time of this melancholy is, when the significators of any geniture are directed 
according to art, as the hor: moon, hylech, (fee. to the hostile beams or terms 

o Lib. de anima, cap. de humorib. Ea varietas in Melancholia, habet cselestes caasas 6 Tj et If in D (5 
C et (7 in TTL- p Ex atra bile varii generanttu* morbi, perinde ut ipse multum calidi aut frigidi in se 

habuerit, quura utrique suscipiendo quam aptissima sit, tametsi suSpte natura frigida sit. Annon aqua 
sic afBcitur a calore ut ardeat; et a frigore, ut in glaciem concrescat? et haec varietas distinctionum, alii 
flent, rident, &c. <i Hanc ad intemperantiam gignendam plurimum confert ^ et Tj positus, &c. 

"■ 5? Quoties alictijus genitura in tn, et X adverso signo positus, boroscopum partiliter tenr.srit atque etiam 
a $ vel ^2 n radio percussos fuerit, natus ab insania vexabitur. » Qui Tj et (J liabet, alterum in culmine, 
alteram imo coelo, cum in lucem venerit, melancholicus erit, a qua .< jinabitur, si ^ illos irradiarit. 
* Hac configuratione natus, aut lunaticus, aut meiite captus. " Ptolomjeus centiloquio, et quadripartite 
tribuit omnium melancholicorurasymptomata siderum influentiis. ^ Arte Mertica. Accedunt ad has 

causas aifectiones siderum. Plurimum incitant et provocant influentise cselestes. Velcui'io lib. 4. cap. 15. 
y Uildesheim, spicel. 2. de mel. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 4.] Causes of Melancholy. 135 

of T^ and ^ especially, or any fixed star of their nature, or if T? by his revolution, 
or transitus, shall offend any of those radical promissors in the geniture.^ 

Other signs there are tali en from physiognomy, metoposcopy, chiromancy, 
which because Joh. de Indagine, and Rotman, the landgrave of Hesse his 
mathematician, not long since in his Chiromancy; Baptista Porta, in his 
celestial Physiognomy, have proved to hold great affinity with astrology, to 
satisfy the curious, I am the more willing to insert. 

The general notions "^ physiognomers give, be these ; " black colour argues 
natural melancholy; so doth leanness, hirsuteness, broad veins, mucli hair on 
the brows," saith * Gratanarolus, caip. 7, and a little head, out of Aristotle, 
high sanguine, red colour, shows head melancholy ; they that stutter and are 
bald, will be soonest melancholy (as Avicenna sapposeth), by reason of the 
dryness of their brains; but he that will know more of the several signs of 
humour and wits out of physiognomy, let him consult with old Adamantas and 
Polemus, that comment, or rather paraphrase upon Aristotle's Physiognomy, 
Baptista Porta's four pleasant books, Michael Scot de seoretis naturcB, John de 
Indagine, Montaltus, Antony Zara. anat. ingeniorum, sect. \, memh. 13, et 
lib. 4. 

Chiromancy hath these aphorisms to foretel melancholy, Tasneir. lib. 5, 
cap. 2, who hath comprehended the sum of John de Indagine : Tricassus, 
Corvinus, and others in his book, thus hath it; "^The Saturnine line going 
from the rascetta through the hand, to Saturn's mount, and there intersected 
by certain little lines, argues melancholy ; so if the vital and natural make an. 
acute angle. Aphorism 100. The saturnine, epatic, and natural lines, making 
a gross triangle in the hand, argue as much;" which Goclenius, cap. 5. Chiros. 
repeats verbatim out of him. In general they conclude all, that if Saturn's 
mount be fidl of many small lines and intersections, "''such men are most part 
melancholy, miserable, and fall of disquietness, care and trouble, continually 
vexed with anxious and bitter thoughts, always sorrowful, fearful, suspicious; 
they delight in husbandry, bTiildings, pools, marshes, springs, woods, walks, &c.'* 
Thaddseus Kaggesius, in his Metoposcopia, hath certain aphorisms derived from 
Saturn's lines in the forehead, by which he collects a melancholy disposition ; 
and ° Baptista Porta makes observations from those other parts of the body, 
as if a spot be over the spleen; " ^ or in the nails; if it appear black, it signi- 
fieth much care, grief, contention, and melancholy;" the reason he refers to 
the humours, and gives instance in himself, that for seven years' space he had 
such black spots in his nails, and all that while was in perpetual law-suits, 
controversies for his inheritance, fear, loss of honour, banishment, grief, care, 
&c., and when his miseries ended, the black spots vanished. Cardan, in his 
book de libris propriis, tells such a story of his own person, that a little before 
his son's death, he had a black spot, which appeared in one of his nails; and 
dilated itself as he came nearer to his end. But I am over tedious in these 
toys, which howsoever, in some men's too severe censures, they may be held 
absurd and ridiculous, 1 am the bolder to insert, as not borrowed from circum- 
foranean rogues and gipsies, but out of the writings of worthy philosophers 
and physicians, yet living some of them, and religious professors in famous 
universities, who are able to patronize that which they have said, and vindicate 
themselves from all cavillers and ignorant persons. 



* Joh. de Indag. cap. 9. Montaltus cap. 22. * Caput parvr.m qui habent cerebrum et spiritus plertimque 
an£!:U'=tos, facile incident in Melanclioltara rubicundi. A'Xv.ii [".mn Montaltus c. 21. e Galeno. aSaturnina 
a Kascetta per mediam manmn decurrens, usque ad iradicem montis Saturni, a parvis lineis intersecta, ar- 
guit melancholicos. Aphorism. 78. b Agitantur raiseriis, continuis inquietudinibus, neque unquami 

solicitudine liberi sunt, anxie afdiguntur amarissimis intra cogitationibus, semper tristes. suspitiosi, meficu- 
losi : cogitationes sunt, velle agrum colere, stagna amaut et paludes, &c. Jo. de Indagine lib. 1. <:Ca3- 
lestis Pbysiognom. lib. 10. <* Cap, 14 lib. 5. idem : maculaj in ungulis nigrae, lites, rixas, melancboliam 
Bignificant, ab humore in corde tali. 



136 Causes ofMdancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

SuBSECT. "V. — Old age a cause. 
Secondary peculiar causes efficient, so called in respect of tlie other prece- 
dent, are either congenitce, internee, innatce, as they term them, inward, innate, 
inbred; or else outward and adventitious, which happen to us after we are 
born : congenite or born with us, are either natural, as old age, or prceter 
naturam (as ^Fernelius calls it) that distemperature, which we have from our 
parents' seed, it being an hereditary disease. The first of these, which is 
natural to all, and which no man living can avoid, is ^old age, which being 
cold and dry, and of the same quality as melancholy is, must needs cause it, 
by diminution of spirits and substance, and increasing of adust humours; 
therefore ^ Melancthon avers out of Aristotle, as an undoubted truth, Senes 
plerunque delirdsse in senectd, that old men familiarly dote, ob atrani bilem, for 
black choler, which is then superabundant in tliem : and Rhasis, that Arabian 
physician, in his Cont. lib. 1, cap. 9, calls it " *" a necessary and inseparable 
accident," to all old and decrepit persons. After seventy years (as the Psalmist 
saith) "* all is trouble and sorrow;" and common experience confirms the 
truth of it in "weak and old persons, especially such as have lived in action all 
their lives, had great employment, much business, much command, and many 
servants to oversee, and leave off ecc abrupto; as ' Charles the Fifth did to King 
Philip, resign up all on a sudden ; they are overcome with melancholy in an 
instant: or if they do continue in such courses, they idote at last (senex bis 
puer), and are not able to manage their estates through common infirmities 
incident in their age ; full of ache, sorrow and grief, children again, dizzards, 
they carle many times as they sit, and talk to themselves, they are angry, 
waspish, displeased with every thing, " suspicious of all, wayward, covetous, 
hard (saith TuUy), self-willed, superstitious, self- conceited, braggers and 
admirers of themselves," as ^ Balthasar Castalio hath truly noted of them. '' 
This natural infirmity is most eminent in old women, and such as are poor, 
solitary, live in most base esteem and beggary, or such as are witches; inso- 
much that Wierus, Baptista Porta, Ulricus Molitor, Edwicus, do refer all that 
witches are said to do, to imagination alone, and this humour of melancholy. 
And whereas it is controverted, whether they can bewitch cattle to death, ride 
in the air upon a coulstaff out of a chimney- top, transform themselves into 
cats, dogs, &c., translate bodies from place to place, meet in companies, and 
dance, as they do, or have carnal copulation with the devil, they ascribe all to 
this redundant melancholy, which domineers in them, to ""somniferous potions, 
and natural causes, the devil's policy. Non Icedunt omnino (saith Wierus) aut 
quid mirum faciunt {de Lamiis, lib. 3, cap. 36), ut putatur, solam vitiatam 
habent phantasiam; they do no such wonders at all, only their " brains are 
crazed. "°They think they are witches, and can do hurt, but do not." But 
this opinion Bodine, Erastus, Danseus, Scribanius, Sebastian Michaelis, Cam- 
panella de sensu rerum, lib. 4, cap. 9, * Dandinus the Jesuit, lib. 2, de 
Animd, explode ; ^ Cicogna confutes at large. That witches are melancholy, 
they deny not, but not out of corrupt phantasy alone, so to delude themselves 
and others, or to produce such effects. 

, SUBSECT. YI, — Parents a cause by Propagation. 

That other inward inbred cause of Melancholy is our temperature, in whole or 
part, which we receive from our parents, which tPernelius calls Procter naturam, 

e Lib. 1 . Path. cap. 11. ''VeTiit enim properata malis inopina senectus : et dolor Eetatem jussit inesse 

'meani. Boethius met. 1. de consol. Philos. s Cap. de humoribus, lib. de Anima. ''Necessarium 

accidens decrepitis, et inseparabile. *Psa. xc. 10. » Meteran. Belg. hist. lib. 1. ''Sunt morosi, 

anxii, et iracuudi et diflBciles senes, si quaerimus, etiam avari, TuU. de senectute. 'Lib. 2. de Aulic«. 

Series avari, morosi, jactabundi, philauti, deliri, superstitiosi, suspiciosi, &c. Lib. 3. de Lamiis, cap. 17. 
et 18. "> Solanum, opium, lupi adeps, lacr. asini, &c., sanguis infantum, &c. "Corrupta est iis ab 

humore Melancholico pliantasia. Nymanus. "Putant se Igedere quando non Itedunt. *Qui litec ia 

■ imaginationis vim reterre conati sunt, atrse bilis, inanem prorsus laborem susceperunt. i*Lib. 3. cap. 4. 
omnif. mag, f Lib. 1. cap. 11. path. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 6.] Causes of Melancholy. 137 

or unnatural, it being an hereditary disease ; for as he justifies ^ Quale pur entum 
maxime patris semen ohtigerit, tales evadunt similares sjoermaticceque partes, 
quocunque etiam morbo Pater quum generat tenetur, cum semine transfert in 
Prolem; such as the temperature of the father is, such is the son's, and look 
what disease the father had when he begot hira^ his son will have after him; 
'"^and is as well inheritor of his infirmities, as of his lands." And where the 
complexion and constitution of the father is corrupt, there ('saith Roger Bacon) 
the complexion and constitution of the son must needs be corrupt, and so the 
corruption is derived from the father to the son." Kow this doth not so much 
appear in the composition of the body, according to that of Hippocrates, " *in. 
habit, proportion, scars, and other lineaments; but in manners and conditions 
of the mind, Et patrum in natos aheunt cum semine tnores. 

Seleucus had an anchor on his thigh, so had his posterity, as Trogus records, 
1.15. Lepidus in Pliny 1. 7, c. 17, was purblind, so was his son. That famous 
family of ^nobarbi were known of old, and so surnamed from their red beards; 
the Austrian lip, and those Indian flat noses are propagated, the JBavariao. 
chin, and goggle eyes amongst the Jews, as " Buxtorfius observes; their voice, 
pace, gesture, looks, are likewise derived with all the rest of their conditions 
and infirmities; such a mother, such a daughter; the very ^affections Lem- 
nius contends "to follow their seed, and the malice and bad conditions of 
children are many times wholly to be imputed to their parents;" I need not 
therefore make any doubt of Melancholy, but tliat it is an hereditary disease, 
y Paracelsus in express words affirms it, lib. de morh. amentium, to. 4, tr. 1 ; 
so doth "^ Crato in an Epistle of his to Monavius. So doth Bruno Seidelius in 
his book de morbo encurab. Montaltus proves, cap. 11, out of Hippocrates and 
Plutarch, that such hereditaiy dispositions are frequent, et hanc {inquit) fieri 
reor ob piarticipatam melancholicam intemperantiam (speaking of a patient) I 
think he became so by participation of Melancholy. Daniel Sennertus, lib. 1, 
part 2, cap. 9, will have his melancholy constitution derived not only from the 
father to the son, but to the whole family sometimes ; Quandoque totis familiis 
liereditativam, ^Forestus, in his medicinal observations, illustrates this point, 
with an example of a merchant, his patient, that had this infirmity by inherit- 
ance; so doth Podericus a Fonseca, torn. 1, consul. 69, by an instance of a 
young man that was so affected ex matre melancholica,h?id a melancholy mother, 
et victu melancholico, and bad diet together. Lodovicus Mercatus, a Spanish 
physician, in that excellent Tract which he hath lately written of hereditary 
diseases, tom. 2, oper. lib. 5, reckons up leprosy, as those ^ Galbots in Gascony, 
hereditary lepers, pox, stone, gout, epilepsy, &c. Amongst the rest, this and 
madness after a set time comes to many, which he calls a miraculous thing in 
nature, and sticks for ever to them as an incurable habit. And that which is 
more to be wondered at, it skips in some families the father, and goes to the son, 
*' ''or takes every other, and sometimes every third in a lineal descent, and doth 
not always produce the same, but some like, and a symbolizing disease." These 
secondary causes hence derived, are commonly so powerful, that (as "^ Wolphius 
holds) smpe mutant deer eta siderum, they do often alter the primary causes, 
and decrees of the heavens. For these reasons, belike, the Church and com- 
monwealth, human and Divine laws, have conspired to avoid hereditary diseases, 

fl Ut arthritici, epilep. &c. r Ut filij non tam possessiomim qttam morborum hjeredes sint. ^ Epist. 
de secretis artis et naturae c. 7. nam in lioc quod patres corrupti sunt, generant filios corrupt^s complexionis, 
et compositionis, et filii eorum eadem de causa se corrumpunt, etsic derivatur corruptio apatribus ad iilios. 
* Non tam (inquit Hippocrates) gibbos et cicatrices oris et corporis habitum agnoscis ex iis, sed verum 
incessum, gestus, mores, morbos, &c. " Synagog. Jud. ■=' Affectus parentum in foetus transeunt, et 

putrorum malicia parentibus imputanda, lib. 4. cap. 3. de occult, nat. mirac. y Expituitosis pituitosi, ex 
biliosis biliosi, ex lienosis et melancholicis melancholici. ^ Epist. 174. in Scoltz. nascitur nobiscum ilia 

aliturque et una cum parentibus habemus malum hunc assem. Jo. Pelesius lib. 2. de cura humanorum 
affectuum. a Lib. 10. obser.vat. 15. b Maginus Geog. <= Sa^pe non eundem, sed similem producit 

effectum, et iUaeso parente transit in nepotem. ^ Dial, prtefix. genitui'is Leovitii, 



138 Causes of MelancJioly. [Part. 1. Sec, 2. 

forbicliHng siicTi marriages as are any whit allied; and as Mercatiis adviseth 
all families to take such, si fieri 2^ossit quce maxime distant natiira, and to 
make choice of those tliat are most differing in complexion from them; if they 
love their own, and respect the common good. And sure, I think, it hath been 
ordered by God's especial providence, that in all ages there should be (as 
usually there is) once in ^ 600 years, a transmigration of nations, to amend and 
purify their blood, as we alter seed upon our land, and that there should be as 
it were an inundation of those northern Goths and Yandals, and many such 
like people which came out of that continent of Scandia and Sarmatia) as some 
suppose) and over-ran, as a deluge, most part of Europe and Afric, to alter for 
our good, our complexions, which were much defaced with hereditary infirmi- 
ties, which by our lust and intemperance we had contracted. A sound 
generation of strong and able men were sent amongst us, as tliose northern men 
usually are, innocuous, free from riot, and free from diseases; to qualify and 
make us as those poor naked Indians are generally at this day; and those 
about Brazil (as a late ^ writer observes), in the Isle of Maragnan, free from 
all hereditary diseases, or other contagion, whereas without help of physic 
they live commonly 120 years or more, as in the Orcades and many other 
places. Such are the common effects of temperance and intemperance, but I 
will descend to particular, and show by what means, and by whom especially, 
this infirmity is derived unto us. 

Filii ex senihus nati, raro sunt fir mi temj)eramenti, old men's children are 
seldom of a good temperament, as Scoltzius supposeth, consult. 177, and 
therefore most apt to this disease ; and as ^ Levinus Lemnius farther adds, old 
men beget most part wayward, peevish, sad, melancholy sons, and seldom, 
merry. He that begets a child on a full stomach, will either have a sick child, 
or a crazed son (as ^ Cardan thinks), contradict, med. lib. 1, contradict. 18, or 
if the parents be sick, or have any great pain of the head, or megrim, headach, 
(Hieronimus Wolfius ' doth instance in a child of Sebastian Castalio's); if a 
drunken man get a child, it will never likely have a good brain, as Gellius 
argues, lib. 12, cap. 1. Ehrii gignunt Ebrios, one drunkard begets another, 
saith ^ Plutarch, symp. lib. 1, quest. 5, whose sentence ^ Lemnius approves, 1. 1, 
c, 4. Alsarius Crutius Gen. de qui sit med. cent. 3; fol. 1 82. Macrobius, 
lib. 1. Avicenna, lib. 3. Fen. 21. Tract 1, cap. 8, and Aristotle himself^ 
sect. 2, prov. 4, foolish, drunken, or hair-brain women, most part bring forth 
children like unto themselves, morosos et languidos, and so likewise he that lies 
with a menstruous woman. Intemperantia veneris, quam in nautis j^rcesertim 
insectatur " Lemnius, qui uxores ineunt, nulla menstrui decursus ratione habitd, 
nee observato interlunio, prcecipua causa est, noxia, pernitiosa, concubitum hunc 
exitialem ided, et pestiferum vocat. ''' Rodoricus a Castro Lusitanus, detestantur 
ad unum omnes medici, turn et quartd luna concepti, infcelices plerumque et 
amentes, deliri, stolidi, morbosi, impuri, invalidi, tetra lue sordidi, minime 
vitales, omnibus bonis corporis atque animi destituti: ad labor em nat%si senioreSy 
inquit Eustathius, ut Hercules, et alii. ° Judcei maxi?ne insectaiitur fcedum> 
hunc, et immundum apud Chri^tianos Concubitum^, ut illicitum abhorrent, et apud 
suosprohibent; et quod Christiani toties leprosi, amentes, tot morbili, impetigines, 
alphi, psorWy cutis et faciei decolorationes, tarn multi morbi epidemici, acerbi^ 
et venenosi sint, in hunc immundum concubitum rejiciunt, et crudeles inpignora 



" Bodin. de rep. cap. de periodis reip. f Claudius Abaville Capuchion in his voyage to Maragnan, 1614, 
cap. 4:5. Nemo fere segrotus, sano omnes et robusto coi-pore, vivunt annos 120, 140, sine mediciiia. Idem 
Hector Boethius de insulis Orchad. et Damianus a Goes le Scandia. s Lib. 4. c. 3. de occult, nat. mir, 

Tetricos plerumque filios senesprogeneraut et tristes, rarius exliilaratos. ^ Coitus super repletionem 

pessimus, et filii qui tum gignuntur, aut morbosi sunt, aut stolidi. ' Dial, prasfix. Leovito. ^ L. de 

ed. liberis. ^ De occult, nat. mir. temulentse et stolidte mulieres liberos plerumque producunt sibi 

similes. ™ Lib. 2. c. 8. de occult, nat. mir. Good Master Schoolmaster do not English this. * De nat. 
Biul. lib, 3. cap, 4, " Buxdorphius c. 31. Synag. Jud. Ezek. 18, 



Mem. 1. Subs. 6.] Causes of Melanclioly. 139 

vocant, qui quartd lund profluente hdc mensiuTn, illuvie concuhitum hunc non 
perhorresctint. Damnavit olim divina Lex et morte mulctavit hujusmodi homines , 
Lev. 18, 20, et inde nati, siqui deformes aut mutili, pater dilapidatus, quod 
non contineret ab °immunda muliere. Gregoi^iiis Magnus, peie/zif'i Augustino 
nunquid apud ^ BYitannos hujusmodi concubittcm toleraret, severe jyj-ohibuit viris 
suis turn fnisceri fcemmas in consuetis suis menstruis, (L'c. I spare to English 
this which I have said. Another cause some give, inordinate diet, as if a man 
eat garh'c, onions, fast overmuch, study too hard, be over-sorro\\^ul, dull, 
heavy, dejected in mind, perplexed in his thoughts, fearful, &c., " their 
children (saith "^Cardan subtil, lib. 18) will be much subject to madness and 
melancholy; for if the spirits of the brain be fusled, or misaffected by such 
means, at such a time, their children will be fusled in the brain : they will be 
dull, heavy, timorous, discontented all their lives." Some are of opinion, and 
maintain that paradox or problem, that wise men beget commonly fools ; Suidas 
gives instance in Aristarchus the Grammarian, duos reliquit fdios Aristarchum 
et Aristachorum, ambos stultos; and which "" Erasmus urgeth in his Morla, 
fools beget wise men. Card. subt. I. 12, gives this cause, Qaoniam spiritus 
sapientum ob studiuTn resolvuntur, et in cerebrum feruntur a corde : because 
their natural spirits are resolved by study, and turned into animal j drawn 
from the heart, and those other parts to the brain. Leranius subscribes to that 
of Cardan, and assigns this reason. Quod j^ersolvant debitum languide, et obsci- 
tanter, unde foetus a parentum generositate desciscit: they pay their debt (as 
Paul calls it) to their wives remissly, by which means their children are weak- 
lings, and many times idiots and fools. 

Some other causes are given, v/hich properly pertain, and do proceed from 
the mother: if she be over-dull, heavy, angry, peevish, discontented, and 
melancholy, not only at the time of conception, but even all the while she 
carries the child in her womb (saith Fernelius, path, 1. 1, 11) her son will be so 
likev/ise affected, and worse, as ^Lemnius adds, 1. 4, c. 7, if she grieve over 
much, be disquieted, or by any casualty be affrighted and terrified by some 
fearful object heard or seen, she endangers her child, and spoils the temperature 
of it ; for the strange imagination of a woman works effectually upon her infant, 
that as Baptista Porta proves, Physiog. cceledis 1. 5, c. 2, she leaves a mark 
upon it, which is most especially seen in such as prodigiously long for such and 
such meats, the child will love those meats, saith Fernelius, and be addicted to 
like humours : " *if a great-bellied woman see a hare, her child will often have 
a hare-lip," as we call it. Garcceus de Judiciis geniturarum, cap. 33, hath a 
memorable example of one Thomas Nick ell, born in the city of Brandeburg, 
1551, " "that went reeling and staggering all the days of his life, as if he 
would fall to the ground, because his mother being great with child saw a 
drunken man reeling in the street." Such another I find in Martin Wenrichius 
com. de ortu monstrorum, c. 17, I saw (saith he) at Wittenberg, in Germany, 
a citizen that looked like a carcass ; I asked him the cause, he replied,* " His 
mother, when she bore him in her womb, saw a carcass by chance, and was so 
sore affrighted with it, that ex eo foetus ei assimilatus, from a ghastly im^pres- 
sion the child was like it." 

So many several ways are we plagued and punished for our father's defaults ; 
insomuch that as Fernelius truly saith, " ^It is the greatest part of our felicity 



"Drasius obs. lib. 3. cap. 20. p Beda. Eccl. hist. lib. 1. c. 27. respons. 10. qNam spiritus cerebri 

si turn male afficiantur, tales procreant, et quales fuerint affectus, tales filiorum : ex tristibus tristes, ex 
jucundis jucundi nascuntur, &c. ^¥o\. 129. mer. Socrates' children Mere fools. Sabel. ^De occul. 

nat. mir. Pica morbus mulierum. * Baptista Porta loco prajd. Ex leporum intuitu plerique infantes 

edvmt bifido superiore labello. " Quasi mox in terram collapsurus per omnem vitam incedebat, cum mater 
gravida ebriura hominem sic incedentem viderat. * Civem facie cadaverosa, qui dixit, inc. * Optimum 
bene nasci, maxima pars fielicitatis nostrse bene nasci; quamobrem prteclare humane generi consultum 
videretui-, si soli parentes bene habiti et sani, liberis operam darent. 



140 Causes of Melanclioly. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

to be well born, and it were happy for human kind, if only such parents as are 
sound of body and mind should be suffered to marry." An husbandman will 
sow none but the best and choicest seed u])on his land, he will not rear a bull 
or a horse, except he be right shapen in all parts, or permit him to cover a 
mare, except he be well assured of his breed; we make choice of the best 
rams for our sheep, rear the neatest kine, and keep the best dogs, Quanto id 
diligentius in procreandis llberis observandum ? And how careful then should 
we be in begetting of our children? In former times some ^countries have been 
so chary in this behalf, so stern, that if a child were crooked or deformed in 
body or mind, they made him away; so did the Indians of old by the relation 
of Curtius, and many other well-governed commonwealths, according to the 
discipline of those times. Heretofore in Scotland, saitli ''Hect. Boethius, "if 
any were visited with the falling sickness, madness, gout, leprosy, or any such 
dangerous disease, which was likely to be propagated from the father to the 
son, he was instantly gelded; a woman kept from all company of men; and if 
by chance having some such disease, she were found to be with child, she 
with her brood were buried alive:" and this was done for tlie common good, 
lest the whole nation should be injured or corrupted. A severe doom you will 
say, and not to be used amongst Christians, yet more to be looked into than it 
is. For now by our too much facility in this kind, in giving way for all to 
marry that will, too much liberty and indulgence in tolerating all sorts, there 
is a vast confusion of hereditary diseases, no family secure, no man almost free 
from some grievous infirmity or other, when no choice is had, but still the 
eldest must marry, as so many stallions of the race ; or if rich, be they fools or 
dizzards, lame or maimed, unable, intemperate, dissolute, exhaust through riot, 
as he said, "^jure hcereditario sapere jubentur ; they must be wise and able by 
inheritance : it comes to pass that our generation is corrupt, we have many 
weak persons, both in body and mind, many feral diseases raging amongst us, 
crazed families, parentes peremptores ; our fathers bad, and we are like to be 
worse. 



MEMB. II. 

SuBSECT. I. — Bad Diet a cause. Substance. Quality of Meats. 

AccOKDiNG to my proposed method, having opened hitherto these secondary 
causes, which are inbred with us, I must now proceed to the outward and 
adventitious, which happen unto us after we are born. And those are either 
evident, remote, or inward, antecedent, and the nearest : continent causes some 
call them. These outward, remote, precedent causes are subdivided again into 
necessary and not necessary. ISTecessary (because we cannot avoid them, but 
they will alter us, as they are used, or abused) are those six nou-natural things, 
so much spoken of amongst physicians, which are principal causes of this 
disease. For almost in every consultation, whereas they shall come to speak 
of the causes, the fault is found, and this most part objected to the patient; 
Peccavit circa res sex non naturales : he hath still offended in one of those six. 
Montanus, consil. 22, consulted about a melancholy Jew, gives that sentence, 
so did Frisemelica in the same place; and in his 244 counsel, censuring a 
melancholy soldier, assigns that reason of his malady, " ^he offended in all 

y Infantes infirmi prsecipitio necati. Bohemus lib. 3. c. 3. Apud Lacones olim. Lypsius epist. 85. cent, ad 
Belgas, Dionysio Villerio, si quos aliqua membrorum parte inutiles notaverint, necari jubent. =Lib. 1. 

De veteram Scotorum moribus. Morbo coraitiali, dementia, mania, lepra, ifec. aut simili labe, quae facile in 
prolem transmittitur, laborantes inter eos, ingenti facta indagine, inventos, ne gens foedfi contagione 
Isederetur ex iis nata, castraverunt, mulieres hujusmodi procul a virorura consortio ablegai'unt, quod si 
harum aliqua concepisse inveniebatur, simul cum foetu nondum edito, defodiebatur viva. a Euphormio 

'Satyr. ^ Fecit omnia delicta quae fieri possunt circa res sex non naturales, et e« fuerunt causse exlrinsecae, 
ex quibus postea ortte sunt obstructiones. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 1.] Causes of Melanclioly. -141 

tliose six non-natural things, which were the outward causes, from which 
came those inward obstructions; and so in the rest. 

These six non-natural things are diet, retention and evacuation, which are 
more material than the other because they make new matter, or else are con- 
versant in keeping or exjoelling of it. The other four are air, exercise, sleeping, 
waking, and perturbations of the mind, which onlj alter the matter. The first 
of these is diet, which consists in meat and drink, and causeth melancholy, as 
it offends in substance, or accidents, that is quantity, quality, or the like. And 
well it may be called a material cause, since that, as " Fernelius holds, " it 
hath such a power in begetting of diseases, and yields the matter aud suste- 
nance of them ; for neither air, nor perturbations, nor any of those other 
evident causes take place^ or vv ork this effect, except the constitution of body^ 
and preparation of humours, do concur. That a man may say, this diet is the 
mother of diseases, let the father be what he will, and from this alone, melan- 
choly and frequent other maladies arise," Many physicians, I confess, have 
written copious volumes of this one subject, of the nature and qualities of all 
manner of meats; as namely, Galen, Isaac the Jew, Halyabbas, Avicenna, 
Mesne, also four Arabians, Gordonius, Yillanovanus, Wecker, Johannes 
Bruerinus, sitologia de Esculentis et Poculentis, Michael Savanarola, Tract. 2,- 
c. 8, Anthony Fumanellus, lib. de regimine senum, Curio in his Comment on 
Schola Salerna, Godefridus Sfcekius ai^te med., Marsilius cognatus, Ficinus, 
Ranzovius, Fonseca, Lessius, Magninus, regim. sanitatis, Frietagius, Hugo 
Fridevallius, &c., besides many other in ^ English, and almost every peculiar 
l^hysician, discourseth at large of all peculiar meats in his chapter of melan- 
choly : yet because these books are not at hand to every man, I will briefly 
touch what kind of meats engender this humour, through their several species, 
and which are to be avoided. How they alter and change the matter, spirits 
first, and after humours, by which we are preserved, and the constitution of 
our body, Fernelius and others will show you. I hasten to the thing itself: 
and first of such diet as offends in substance. 

Beef.] Beef, a strong and hearty meat (cold in the first degree, dry in the 
second, saith Gal. I. 3, c. 1., de alim. fac.) is condemned by him and all suc- 
ceeding authors, to breed gross melancholy blood : good for such as are sound, 
and of a strong constitution, for labouring men if ordered aright, corned, yonng, 
of an ox (for all gelded meats in every species are held best), or if old, "such 
as have been tired out with labour, are preferred. Aubanus and Sabellicus 
commend Portugal beef to be the most savoury, best and easiest of digestion ; 
w^e commend ours: but all is rejected, and unfit for such as lead a resty life, 
any ways inclined to Melancholy, or dry of complexion : Tales (Galen thinks) 
de facile melancholicis cegritudimbus capiuntur. 

Pork^ Pork, of all meats, is most nutritive in his own nature, *but alto- 
gether unfit for snch as live at ease, are any ways unsound of body or mind : 
too moist, full of humours, and therefore noxia delicatls, saith Savanarola, ex 
eariim usu ut dubitetur an febris quartana generetur : naught for queasy 
stomachs, insomuch that frequent use of it m-ay breed a quartan ague. 

Goat.'\ Savanarola discommends goat's flesh, and so doth ^Bruerinus, I. 13, 
c. 19, calling it a filthy beast, and rammish: and therefore supposeth it will 
breed rank and filthy substance; yet kid, such as are young and tender, 
Isaac accepts, Bruerinus and Galen, I. \, c. \, de alimentorum facultatibus. 

Hart.] Hart and red dieer ^hatli an evil name : it yields gross nutriment : 

ePath. 1. 1. c. 2. Maximam in gignendis morbis vim obtinet, pabulum, materiamque morbi suggerens : 
nam nee ab aere, nee a perturbationibus, vel aliis evidentibus causis morbi sunt, nisi eonsentiat corporis 
prceparatio, et humorum eonstitutio. Ut serael dicam, una gula est omnium niorborum mater, etiamsi alius 
est genitor. Ab hac morbi sponte ssepe emanant, luilla alLA eogente causa. ^ Cogan, Eliot, Vauhan, 

Yener. « Frietagius. * Isaac. »'Non laudatur, quia melancholicum pr?ebet alimentum, e ilale 
alit cervina (inquit Fri.tagius), crassisslmum et atribilarium suppeditat alimentum. 



14:2 Causes of Melancholy. [Part, 1. Sec. 2. 

a strong and great grained meat, next nnto a horse. Which although some 
countries eat, as Tartars, and they of China; yet ^ Galen condemns. Young 
foals are as commonly eaten in Spain as red deer, and to furnish their navies, 
about Malaga especially, often used ; but such meats ask long baking, or 
seething, to qualify them, and yet all will not serve. 

Venison, Fallow Deer.] All venison is melancholy, and begets bad blood; 
a pleasant meat : in great esteem with us (for we have more parks in England 
than there are in all Europe besides) in our solemn feasts. 'Tis somewhat 
better hunted than otherwise, and well prepared by cookery ; but generally 
bad, and seldom to be used. 

Hare.] Hare, a black meat, melancholy, and hard of digestion, it breeds 
incubus, often eaten, and causeth fearfal dreams, so doth all venison, and is con- 
demned by a jury of physicians. Mizaldus and some others say, that hare is 
a merry meat, and that it will make one fair, as Martial's Epigram testifies to 
Gellia; but this is >er accidens, because of the good sport it makes, merry 
company and good discourse that is commonly at the eating of it, and not 
otherwise to be understood. 

Conies.] 'Conies are of the nature of hares. Magninus compares them to 
beef, pig, and goat, Reg. sanit. 'part. 3, c. 17; yet young rabbits by all men 
are approved to be good. 

Generally, all such meats as are hard of digestion breed melancholy. 
Areteus, lih. 7, cap. 5, reckons up heads and feet, ^bowels, brains, entrails, 
marrow, fat, blood, skins, and those inward parts, as heart, lungs, liver, sjDleen, 
&c. They are rejected by Isaac, lih. 2, part. 3. Magninus, pari. 3. cap. 17, 
Bruerinus, lih. 12, Savanarola, Rub. 32, Tract. 2. 

Milk.] Milk, and all that comes of milk, as butter and cheese, curds, &c., 
increase melancholy (whey only excepted, which is most wholesome): ^some 
except asses' milk. The rest, to such as are sound, is nutritive and good, 
especially for young children, but because soon turned to corruption, '" not 
good for those that have unclean stomachs, are subject to headache, or have 
green wounds, stone, &c. Of all cheeses, I take that kind which we call 
Banbury cheese to be the best, ex vetustis pessimus, the older, stronger, and 
harder, the worst, as Langius discourseth in his Epistle to Melancthon, cited 
by Mizaldus, Isaac, p. 5, Gal. 3, cle cibis boni sued, <&c. 

Fowl.] Amongst fowl, "peacocks and pigeons, all fenny fowl are forbidden, 
as ducks, geese, swans, herons, cranes, coots, didappers, waterhens, with all 
those teals, curs, sheldrakes, and peckled fowls, that come hither in winter out 
of Scandia, Muscovy, Greenland, Friezland, which half the year are covered 
all over with snow, and frozen up. Though these be fair in feathers, pleasant 
in taste, and have a good outside, like hypocrites, white in plumes, and soft, 
their flesh is hard, black, unwholesome, dangerous, melancholy meat; Gravant 
et putrefaciunt stomachum, saith Isaac, ijart. 5, de vol., their young ones are 
more tolerable, but young pigeons he quite disapproves. 

Fishes.] Rhasis and ° Magninus discommend all fish, and say, they breed 
viscosities, slimy nutriment, little and humourous nourishment. Savanarola 
adds, cold, moist: and phlegmatic, Isaac; and therefore unwholesome for all 
cold and melancholy complexions : others make a difference, rejecting only 
amongst fresh-water fish, eel, tench, lamprey, crawfish (which Bright approves, 
cap. 6), and such as are bred in muddy and standing waters, and have a taste 
of mud, as Franciscus Bousuetus poetically defines, Lih. de aquatilibas. 

" Nam pisces omnes, qui stagna, lacusque frequentant, I "All fish, that standing pools, and lakes frequent, 
Semper plus succi deterioris habent." | Do ever yiel.l bad juice and nouris iment." 

^ Lib. de subtiliss. dieta. Equina caro et asinina equinis danda est hominibus et asininis. ' Parum 

obsunt a natura Leporum. Bruerinus, 1. 13. cap. 25. pullorum tenera et optima. kii]^ix(jabilis succi 

nauseam provoeant. ' Piso. Alromar. «' Curio. Frietagius, Maginus. part. 3. cap. 17. Mercurialis, 

de affect, lib. 1. c. 10. excepts all milk meats in Hypochondriacal Melancholy. » Wecker Syntax, theoi*. 
p. 2. Isaac, Bruer. lib. 15. cap. 30. et 31 « Cap. 18. part, 3. 



Mem. 2. Sabs. 1.] 



Causes of Melancholy. 



143 



Lampreys, Paulus Jovius, c. 34, de piscihus fluvial, highly magnifies, and 
saith, None speak against them, but inepti et scrupulosi, some scrupulous 
persons; but ^eels, c. 33, "he abhorreth in all places, at all times, all phy- 
sicians detest them, especially about the solstice." Gomesius, lib. 1. c. 22, 
de sale, doth immoderately extol sea-fish, which others as much vilify, and 
above the rest, dried, soused, indurate fish, as ling, fumados, red-herrings, 
sprats, stock-fish, haberdine, poor-john, all shell-fish, "^ Tim. Bright excepts 
lobster and crab. Mesarius commends salmon, which Bruerinus contradicts, 
lib. 22, c. 17. Magninus rejects conger, sturgeon, turbot, mackerel, skate. 

Carp is a fish of which I know not what to determine. Franciscus Bon- 
suetus accounts it a muddy fish. Hippolitus Salvianus, in bis Book dePiscium 
naturd et prceparatione, which was printed at Rome in folio, 1554, with most 
elegant pictures, esteems carp no better than a slimy watery meat. Paulus 
Jovius on the other side, disallowing tench, approves of it ; so doth Dupravius 
in his Books of Fish-ponds. Frietagius "" extols it for an excellent wholesome 
meat, and puts it amongst the fishes of the best rank; and so do most of our 
country gentlemen, that store their ponds almost with no other fish. But this 
controversy is easily decided, in my judgment, by Bruerinus, I. 22, c. 13. 
The diflierence riseth from the site and nature of pools, ^ sometimes muddy, 
sometimes sweet; they are in taste as the place is from whence they be taken. 
In like manner almost we may conclude of other fresh fish. But see more in 
Rondoletius, Bellonius, Oribasius, lib. 7, cap. 22, Isaac, 1. 1. especially Hippo- 
litus Salvianus, who is instar omnium solus, d'c. Howsoever they may be 
wholesome and approved, much use of them is not good; P. Forestus, in his 
medicinal observations, * relates, that Carthusian friars, whose living is most 
part fish, are more subject to melancholy than any other order, and that 'he 
found by experience, being sometimes their physician ordinary at Delft, in 
Holland. He exemplifies it with an instance of one Buscodnese, a Carthusian 
of a ruddy colour, and well liking, that by solitary living, and fish-eating, 
became so misafiected. 

Herbs.] Amongst herbs to be eaten I find gourds, cucumbers, coleworts, 
melons, disallowed, but especially Ccibbage. It causeth troublesome dreams, 
and sends up black vapours to the bi'ain. Galen, loc. offset. I. 3, c. 6, of all 
herbs condemns cabbage; and Isaac, lib. 2, c. 1, Animce gravitatem facit, it 
brings heaviness to the soul. Some are of opinion that all raw herbs and 
salads breed melancholy blood, except bugloss and lettuce. Crato, consil. 21, 
lib. 2, speaks against all herbs and worts, except borage, bugloss, fennel, 
parsley, dill, balm, succory. Magninus, regim. sanitatis, part. 3, cap. 31. 
Omnes herbce simjjUciter malm, via cibi; all herbs are simply evil to feed ou 
(as he thinks). So did that scoffing cook in " Plautus hold : 



"Non ego coenam condio nt alii coqui solent, 
Qui mihi condita prata in patinis proferuiit, 
Boves qui con vivas faciunt, lierliasque aggerunt. 



'Like other cooks I do not supper dress, 

Tliut put wliole meadows into a platter, 
And make no better of their guests than beeves. 
With herbs and grass to feed them tatter." 



Our Italians and Spaniards do make a whole dinner of herbs and salads 
(which our said Plautus calls coenas terre^tres, Horace, ccenas sine sanguine)^ 
by which means, as he follows it, 



»"Hic homines tam brevem vitam colunt- 



Qui herbashujusmodi In alvum suum congerunt, 
Fonnidolosum dietu, non esu modo 
Quasherbas pecudesnon eduut, homines edunt." 



** Their lives, that eat such herbs, must needs be short. 
And 'tis a fearful thing for to repoi-t, 
That men should feed on such a kind of meat, 
■\Vhich very juments would refuse to eat," 



P Omni loco et omni tempore medici detestantur anguillas, prsesertim circa Solstitiura, Damnantur turn 
sanis turn agris. q Cap. '6. in liis Tract of .Mtlanclioly. •■ Optime nutrit omnium judicio inter priraai 
nota; pisces gustu praistanti. « Non est dubiani quin, pro variorum situ ac natura, magnas alimentorum 
soriiantur ditterentias, alibi suaviores, alibi lutuleniiores, t Observat, 16, lib, 10. « Pseudolus, 

act. 3, seen, 2. ^ Plautus, ibid. 



144 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

^ They are windy, and not fit therefore to be eaten of all men raw, thongh 
qualified with oil, but in broths, or otherwise. See more of these in every 
^ husbandman and herbalist. 

Roots^ Koots, Etsi quorundam gentium opes sint, saith Bruerinus, the 
wealth of some countries, and sole food, are windy and bad, or troublesome 
to the head : as onions, garlic, seal! ions, turnips, carrots, radishes, parsnips : 
Crato, lib. 2. consil. 11, disallows all roots, though "some approve of parsnips 
and potatoes. ^ Magninus is of Crato's opinion, " ^ They trouble the mind, 
sending gross fumes to the brain, make men mad, especially garlic, onions, 
if a man liberally feed on them a year together." Guianerius, tract 15, cap. 2, 
complains of all manner of roots, and so doth Bruerinus, even parsnijis 
themselves, which are the best, Lib. 9. cap. l4. 

Fruits^ Pastinacarum usus succos gignit improbos. Crato, consil. 21, 
lib. 1, utterly forbids all manner of fruits, as pears, apples, plums, cherries, 
strawberries, nuts, medlars, serves, &c. Sanguinem inficiunt, saith Yiliano- 
vanus, they infect the blood, and putrefy it, Magninus holds, and must not 
therefore be taken via cibi, aut quantitate magna, not to make a meal of, or in 
any great quantity. ^ Cardan makes that a cause of their continual sickness 
at Fessa in Africa, " because they live so much on fruits, eating them thrice 
a day." Laurentius approves of many fruits, in his Tract of Melancholy, which 
others disallow, and amongst the rest apples, which some likewise commend, 
sweetings, pairmains, pippins, as good against melancholy ; but to him that is 
any way inclined to, or touched with this malady, ^ Nicholas Piso in his 
Practics, forbids all fruits, as windy, or to be sparingly eaten at least, and not 
raw. Amongst other fruits, ^Bruerinus, out of Galen, excepts grapes and figs, 
but I find them likewise rejected. 

Pidse.'] All pulse are naught, beans, peas, vetches, &c., they fill the brain 
(saith Isaac) with gross fumes, breed black thick blood, and cause trouble- 
some dreams. And therefore, that which Pythagoras said to his scholars of 
old, may be for ever applied to melancholy men, Afabis abstinete, eat no peas, 
nor beans; yet to such as will needs eat them, I would give this counsel, to 
prepare them according to those rules that Arnoldus Yilianovanus, and Frie- 
tagius prescribe, for eating, and dressing, fruits, herbs, roots, pulse, &c. 

S'pices.'j Spices cause hot and head melancholy, and are for that cause for- 
bidden by our physicians to such men as are inclined to this malady, as 
pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, mace, dates, &c., honey and sugar. ^ Some 
except honey; to those that are cold, it may be tolerable, but ^ Dulcia se.in 
bilem vertunt (sweets turn into bile), they are obstructive. Crato therefore 
forbids all spice, in a consultation of his, for a m^elancholy schoolmaster, Om^iia 
aromatica, et quicquid sanguinem adurit: so doth Fernelius, consil. 45. 
Guianerius, tract. 15, cap. 2. Mercurialis, cons. 189. To these I may add all 
sharp and sour things, luscious, and over-sweet, or fat, as oil, vinegar, verjuice, 
mustard, salt; as sweet things are obstructive, so these are corrosive. Gomesius, 
in his books, de sale, I. 1, c. 21, highly commends salt; so doth Codronchus in 
his tract, de sale Absynthii, Lemn. I. 3, c. 9. de occult, nat. mir. yet common 
experience finds salt, and salt-meats, to be great procurers of this disease. 
And for that cause belike those Egyptian priests abobaiued from salt, even so 
much, as in their bread, ut sine perturbatione anima esset, saith mine author, 
that their souls might be free from perturbations. 



yQuare I'ectius valetudini suib quisque consulet, qui lapsus priorum parentura memor, eas plane vel 
omiserit vel parce degustarit. Kevsleius cap. 4. de vevo.usa mod. ^In MizaJdo de Iiorto P. Crescent. 

Herbastein, &c. "Cap. 13. part. 3. Bright in liis Tract, of MeL b intellectual turbant, producunt 

iiisaniam. " Audivi (inquit Magnin.) quod si quis ex lis per annum continue comedat, in insaniana 

caderet. cap. 13. Improbi succi sunt, cap. 12. ^De. rerum varietat. In Fessa plerumque morbosi, quod 

fructus comedant ter in die. eCap.de Mel. ^Lib. ll.c. 3. 6 Briglit, c. 6, excepts honey, »»Hor. 
apad Scoltzium consil. 186. - . --■ 



Mem. 2. Subs. 1.] 



Causes of Melancholy. 



145 



JBread.'] Eread tliat is made of baser grain, as peas, beans, oats, rje, or 
^over-hard baked, crusty, and black, is often spoken against, as causing 
melancholy juice and wind. Job. Mayor, in the first book of his History of 
Scotland, contends much for the wholsomeness of oaten bread : it was objected 
to him then living at Paris in France, that his countrymen fed on oats, and 
base grain, as a disgrace; but he doth ingenuously confess, Scotland, Wales, 
and a third part of England, did most part use that kind of bread, that it was 
as wholesome as any grain, and yielded as good nourishment. And yet Wecker 
out of Galen calls it horse-meat, and fitter for juments than men to feed on. 
But read Galen himself, lib. 1. De cihis honi et mali sued, more largely dis- 
coursing of corn and bread. 

Wine.] All black wines, over-hot, compound, strong thick drinks, as Mus- 
cadine, Malmsey, Alicant, Kumney, Brownbastard, Metheglen, and the like, 
of which they have thirty several kinds in Muscovy, all such made drinks are 
hurtful in this case, to such as are hot, or of a sanguine choleric complexion, 
young, or inclined to head-melancholy. For many times the drinking of wine 
alone causeth it. Arculanus, c. 16. in 9. Ehasis, puts in '^wine for a great 
cause, especially if it be immoderately used. Guianerius, tract. 15. c. 2. tells 
a story of two Dutchmen, to whom he gave entertainment in his house, "that 4n 
one month's space were both melancholy by drinking of wine, one did nought 
but sing, the other sigh. Galen, I. de causis morh. c. 3. Matthiolus on Dio- 
scorides, and above ail other Andreas Bachius, I. 3. 18, 19, 20, have reckoned 
upon those inconveniences that come by wine : yet notwithstanding all this, 
to such as are cold, or sluggish melancholy, a cup of wine is good physic, and 
so doth Mercurialis grant, consil. 25, in that case, if the temperature be cold, as 
to most melancholy men it is, wine is much commended, if it be moderately used. 

Cider, Perry.'] Cider and perry are both cold and windy drinks, and for 
that cause to be neglected, and so are all those hot spiced strong drinks. 

Beer.] Beer, if •it be over-new or over-stale, over-strong, or not sodden_, 
smell of the cask, sharp, or sour, is most unwholesome, frets, and galls, &c. 
Henricus Ayrerus, in a ™ consultation of his, for one that laboured of hypochon- 
driacal melancholy discommends beer. So doth "* Crato in that excellent counsel 
of his. Lib. 2. consil. 21. as too windy, because of the hop. But he means 
belike that thick black Bohemian beer used in some other parts of ° Germany^ 



nil spissius ilia 



Dum bibitur, nil clarius est dum mingitar, uncle 
Constat, quod multas faeces in corpore linquat." 



"N'othing comes in so thick, 
Notliing goes out so thin, 
It must needs follow then 
The dregs are left within." 



As that Pold poet scoffed, calling it Stygice monstrum confornie palludi, a mon- 
strous drink, like the river Styx. But let them say as they Ust, to such as 
are accustomed unto it, " 'tis a most wholesome (so "^ Poly dor Virgil calleth it) 
and a pleasant drink," it is more subtile and better, for the hop that rarefies 
it, hath an especial virtue against melancholy, as our herbalists confess, Fuch- 
sius approves. Lib. 2. sec. 2. instit. cap. 11. and many others. 

Waters^ Standing waters, thick and ill-coloured ; such as come forth, of 
pools, and moats, where hemp hath been steeped, or slimy fishes live, are most 
unwholesome, putrefied, and full of mites, creepers, slimy, muddy, unclean, 
corrupt, impure, by reason of the sun's heat, and still-standing; they cause 
foul distemperatures in the body and mind of man, are unfit to make drink 
of, to dress meat with, or to be ''used about men inv^ardly or outwardly. They 
are good for many domestic uses, to vrash horses, water cattle, &c., or in time 



'Necomedascrustam, choleram quia gignit adustam. Scol. Sal. *^Vinum tarbidum. 'Exvini 

patentis bibitione, duo Alemani in uno mense melancholici fact! sunt. >" Hildesheim, spicel. fol. 273. 

" Crassum general sanguinem. « About Dantzic in Spruce, Hamburgh, Leipsic. p Henricus Abrin- 

censis. q Potus turn salubris turn jucundus, 1. 1. >" Galen, 1. J. de san, tuend. Cavendae sunt a(iua3 

quae ex stagnis hauriuntur, et quae turbidae ct male olentes, &c. 



14:5 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

of necessity, but not otherwise. Some are of opinion, tliat such fat standing 
waters make the best beer, and that seething doth defecate it, as 'Cardan 
holds, Lib. 13. subtil. "It mends the substance, and savour of it," but it is 
a paradox. Such beer may be stronger, but not so wholesome as the other, 
as *Jobertns truly justifieth out of Galen, Paradox, dec. 1. Paradox 5. that the 
seething of such impure waters doth not purge or purify them, Pliny, lib. 31. 
c. 3. is of the same tenet, and P. Crescentius, agricult. lib. 1. et lib. 4. c. \1. et 
c. 45. Pamphilius Herilachus, I. 4. cle nat. aquarum, such waters are naught, 
not to be used, and by the testimony of "Galen, "breed agues, dropsies, pleu- 
risies, splenetic and melancholy passions, hurt the eyes, cause a bad tempe- 
rature, and ill disposition of the whole body, with bad colour." This Jobertus 
stiffly maintains, Ptiradox, lib. 1. part. 5. that it causeth blear eyes, bad colour, 
and many loathsome diseases to such as use it : this which they say, stands 
with good reason ; for as geographers relate, t]ie water of Astracan breeds 
worms in such as drink it. ""Axius, or as now called Yerduri, the fairest river 
in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, 
another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si potui ducas. 
L. Aubanus Pohemus refers that ^struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians 
to the nature of their waters, as ^ Munster doth that of the Valesians in the 
Alps, and ^Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, 
about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, " and that the tilth is derived 
from the water to their bodies." So that they that use filthy, standing, ill- 
coloured, thick, muddy water, must needs have muddy, ill-coloured, impure, 
and infirm bodies. And because the body works upon the mind, they shall 
have grosser understandings, dull, foggy, melancholy spirits, and be really 
subject to all manner of infirmities. 

To these noxious simples, we may reduce an infinite number of compound, 
artificial, made dishes, of which our cooks afil)rd us a great variety, as tailors 
do fashions in our apparel. Such are ''puddings stuff'ed with blood, or other- 
wise composed ; baked meats, soused indurate meats, fried and broiled buttered 
meats; condite, powdered, and over=»dried, ''all cakes, simnels, buns, cracknels 
made with butter, spice, &c., fritters^ pancakes, pies, sausages, and those 
several sauces, sharp, or over-sweet, of which scientia popincE, as Seneca calls 
it, hath served those "^ Apician tricks, and perfumed dishes, which Adrian the 
sixth Pope so much admired in the accounts of his predecessor Leo decimus; 
and which prodigious riot and prodigality have invented in this age. These do 
generally engender gross humours, fill the stomach with crudities, and all those 
inward parts with obstructions. Montanus, consil. 22, gives instance, in a 
melancholy Jew, that by eating such tart sauces, made dishes, and salt meats, 
with which he was overmuch delighted, became melancholy, and was evil 
affected. Such examples are familiar and common. 

SuBSECT. II. — Quantity of Diet a Cause. 

These is not so much harm proceeding from the substance itself of meat, 
and quality of it, in ill-dressing and preparing, as there is from the quantity, 
disorder of time and place, unseasonable use of it, ^intemperance, overmuch, 
or overlittle taking of it. A true saying it is, Plures crapula quam gladius. 
This gluttony kills more than the sword, this omiiivorantia et homicida gula, 

' Innoxium reddit et bene olentem. * Contetidit hsec vitia coctione non emendari. " Lib. de bonitate 
aquae, hydropem auget, febres putridas, splenem, tusses, nocet ociilis, malum habitum corporis et colorem, 
» Mag. Nigritatem inducit si pecora biberint. y Aquse ex nivibus coactse strumosos faciunt. ==Cosmog. 1. 3. 
cap. 36. a Method, hist. cap. 5. balbutiunt Labdoni in Aquitania ob aquas, atque lii morbi ab aquis in 

corpora derivantur. ^ Edulia ex sanguine et sutTocato parta. Uildesheim. « Cupedia vero, placent.'B, 

bellaria, commentaque alia curiosa pistorum et coquorum, gustui servientium conciliant morbos tum corpori 
turn animo insanabiles. Philo Judaeus lib. de victimis. P. Jov. vita ejus. '^ As lettuce steeped in wine, 

birds fed with fennel and sugar, as a Pope's concubine used in Avignon, Stephan. e Animae negotium 

ilia facessit, et de templo Dii immundum stabulum facit, Paletius, 10. c. 



l\Iem. 2. Subs. 2,] Diet, a Cause. 147 

this all devouring and murdering gufc. And that of ^ Pliny is truer, " Simple 
diet is the best; heaping ujo of several meats is pernicious, and sauces worse; 
many dishes bring many diseases." ^Avicen cries out, '" That nothing is 
worse than to feed on many dishes, or to protract the time of meats longer than 
ordinary; from thence proceed our infirmities, and 'tis the fountain of all 
diseases, which arise out of the repugnancy of gross humours." Thence, saith 
^Eernelius, come crudities, wind, oppilations, cacochymia, plethora, cachexia, 
bradiopepsia, ^ Ilinc subitce mortes, atque intestata senectus, sudden death, 
&c., and what not. 

As a lamp is choked with a multitude of oil, or a little fire with overmuch 
wood quite extinguished, so is the natural heat with immoderate eating, stran- 
gled in the body. Pernitiosa sentina est abdomen insaturahile: one saith, 
An insatiable paunch is a pernicious sink, and the fountain of all diseases, both 
of body and mind. 'Mercurialis will Iiave it a peculiar cause of this private 
disease; Solenander, consil. 5. sect. 3, illustra^tes this of Mercurialis, with an 
example of one so melancholy, ah intempestivis commessationibics, unseasonable 
feasting. ^Crato confirms as much, in that often cited Counsel, 21, lib. 2. 
putting superfluous eating for a main cause. But vfhat need I seek farther 
for proofs? Hear ^Hippocrates himself, Lib. 2, Aphor. 10, " Impure bodies 
the more they are nourished, the more they are hurt, for the nourishment is 
putrefied with vicious humours." 

A.nd yet for all this harm, which apparently follows surfeiting and drunken- 
ness, see how we luxuriate and rage in this kind ; read what Johannes Stuckius 
hath written lately of this subject, in his great volume Be Antiquorum Convi- 
viis, and of our present age; Quam ^ portentosce ccenm, prodigious suppers, 
^Qiii dum invitant ad ccenam efferunt ad sepidchrum, what Fagos, Epicures, 
Apetios, Heliogables, our times afibrdl Lucullus' ghost walks still, and every 
man desires to sup in Apollo; j35sop's costly dish is ordinarily served up. 
'^Magis ilia juvant, quce jjlui^is emuntur. The dearest cates are best, and 'tis 
inordinary thing to bestow twenty or thirty pounds upon a dish, some thousand 
crowns upon a dinner : ^ Midly-Hamet, king of Fez and Morocco, spent three 
pounds on the sauce of a capon : it is nothing in our times, we scorn all that is 
cheap. " We loathe the very '^ light (some of us, as Seneca notes) because it 
comes free, and we are offended with the sun's heat, and those cool blasts, 
because we buy them not." This air we breathe is so common, we care not 
for it; nothing pleaseth but what is dear. And if we be "■ witty in anything, 
• it is ad gulam : If we study at all, it is erudito luxu, to please the palate, and 
to satisfy the gut. "A cook of old was a base knave (as ^Livy complains), 
but now a great man in request ; cookery is become an art, a noble science : 
cooks are gentlemen:" Venter Deus: They wear "their brains in their 
bellies, and then' guts in their heads," as *AgTip])a taxed some parasites of his 
time, rushing on their own destruction, as if a man should run upon the point 
of a sword, w.que dum rumpantur comedunt, " They eat till they burst :" "All 
day, all night, let the physician say what he will, imminent danger, and feral 
diseases are now ready to seize upon them, that will eat till they vomit, Edunt 
ut vomant, vomunt ut edant, saith Seneca; which Dion relates of Vitellius, Solo 

f Lit). 11. c. 52. Homini cibiis Titilissinras simplex, acervatio ciborum pestifefa, et condiraenta perniciosaj 
multos movbos multa fercula ferant. s 31. Dec. 2. c. Nihil deterius quam si tempiis .justo longius 

comedendo protraliatiir, et varia cibovum genera conjmigantur : inde morborum scaturigo, qiisTS ex repug- 
nantia humorum oritur, ^ Path. 1. 1. c. 14. * Juv. Sat. 5. JNimia repletio ciborum facit melancho- 
licum. ^ Comestio superflua cibi, et potfis quantitas nimia. ' Impuva corpora quanto magis nutris, 

tauto magis Isedis : putrefacit enim alimentura vitiosus humor. ™ Vid. Goclen. de portentosis coenis, &c. 
Puteani Com. « Amb. lib. de Jeju. cap. 14. " They who invite us to our supper, only conduct us to our 
tomb." o Juvenal. "The highest-priced dishes afford the greatest gratification." p Guiccardin, 

q Na. qusest. 4. ca. ult. fastidio est lumen gratuitura, dolet quod sole, quod spiritura emere non possimu?, 
quod hie aiir non emptus ex facili, &c. adeo nihil placet, nisi quod carum est. ''Ingeniosi ad Gulain. 

*01im vile manciinum, nunc in orani jEStimatione, nunc ars habcri c^ pta, &.c. tEpibt. 28^ 1. 7. (luormu 

in ventre injjenium, in putinis, <&c. « In lucem ccenat. Serturius. 



^^3 Diet, a Cause. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

transitu cihorum nutriri judicatus : His meat did pass throiTgh and away, or till 
they burst again. ^ Strage animantium ventrem onerant, and rake over all the 
world, as so many ''slaves, belly- gods, and land-serpents, Et totus orUs ventri 
nimis angustus, the whole world cannot satisfy their appetite. "^ Sea, land, rivers, 
lakes, &c., may not give content to their raging guts." To make up the mess, 
what immoderate drinking in every place? Senem potum pota trahebat anus, 
how they flock to the tavern: as if they were fruges consumere nati, born to 
no other end but to eat and drink, like Ofiellius Bibulus, that famous Roman 
parasite, Qui dum vixit, aut libit aut minxit; as so many casks to hold wine, 
yea worse than a cask, that mars wine, and itself is not marred by it, yet these 
are brave men, Silenus Ebrius was no braver. Et quce faerunt vitia, mores 
sunt: 'tis now the fashion of our times, an honour: N'unc verb res ista eo 
rediit (as Chrysost. serm. 30, in v. Ephes. comments) Ut efeminatce ridendceque 
ignavice loco habeatur, nolle inebriari; 'tis now come to that pass that he is no 
gentleman, a very milk-sop, a clown of no bringing up, that will not drink; fit 
for no company; he is your only gallant that plays it off finest, no disparage- 
ment now to stagger in the streets, reel, rave, &c., but much to his fame and 
renown ; as in like case Epidicus told Thesprio his fellow-servant, in the ^Poet. 
JEdipol /acinus inijjrobum, one urged, the other replied, At jam aliifecere idem, 
erit illi ilia res honori, 'tis now no fault, there be so many brave examples 
to bear one out ; 'tis a credit to have a strong brain, and carry his liquor well; 
the sole contention who can drink most, and fox his fellow the soonest. 'Tis 
the summitm boniim of our tradesmen, their felicity, life, and soul, Tanta dul- 
cedine ajfectant, saith Pliny, lib. 14. cap, 12, ut magna pars non aliud vitce 
prcemium intelligat, their chief comfort, to be merry together in an alehouse 
or tavern, as our modern Muscovites do in their mede-inns, and Turks in their 
cofiee-houses which much resemble our taverns ; they will labour hard all day, 
long to be drunk at night, and spend toiius anni labores, as St. Ambrose adds, 
in a tippling feast ; convert day into night, as Seneca taxes some in his times, 
Fervertunt officia noctis et lucis; when we rise, they commonly go to bed, like 
our antipodes, 

•' Xosqite ubi primus eqttis oriens afflavit anhelis, 
Illis sera rubens accendit lumina vesper." 

So did Petronius in Tacitus, Heliogabalus in Lampridius. 

" " Noctes vigilabat ad ipsum j — " He drank the night away 

Mane, diem totum stertebat. " | Till rising dawn, then snored out all the day." 

Snymdiris the Sybarite never saw the sun rise or set so much as once in twenty 
years. Verres, against whom TuUy so much inveighs, in winter he never w.as 
extra tectum vix extra ledum, never almost out of bed, '^ still wenching and 
drinking ; so did he spend his time, and so do myriads in our days. They 
have gymnasia bibonum, schools and rendezvous; these centaurs and lapithse 
toss pots and bowls as so many balls ; invent new tricks, as sausages, anchovies, 
tobacco, caviare, pickled oysters, herrings, fumadoes, &c. : innumerable salt 
meats to increase their appetite, and study how to hurt themselves by taking 
antidotes '•''to carry their drink the better; ''and when nought else serves, 
they will go forth, or be conveyed out, to empty their gorge, that they may 
return to drink afresh." They make laws, insanas leges, contra bibendifallacias, 
and *brag of it when they have done, crowning that man that is soonest gone, 

as their drunken predecessors have done, ^quid ego video? Ps. Cum 

corona Pseudolum ebrium tuurn , And when they are dead, will have 

a can of wine with ^Maron's old woman to be engraven on their tombs. So 

v Seneca, ^ Mancipia gulae, dapes non sapore sed surapta aestiraantes. Seneca consol, ad Helvidium. 

y Sasvientia guttura satiare non possunt fluvii et maria. ^neas Sylvius de miser, curial. ^piautus. 

" Hor. lib. 1. Sat. 3. *> Diei brevitas conviviis, noctis longitude stupris conterebatur. « Et quo plus 

capiant, irritamenta excogitantur. <* Fores portantur ut ad convivium reportentur, repleri ut exhauriant, 
et exhauriri ut bibant. Ambros. eingentia vasa velut ad ostentatiouern, &c. Tlautus. e Lib. 3. 
AnthoL c, 20. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] 



Diet, a Cause. 



149 



they triumph in villainy, and justify their wickedness; with Babelais, that 
French Lucian, drunkenness is better for the body than physic, beca,use there 
be more old drunkards than old physicians. Many such frothy arguments 
they have, ^ inviting and encouraging others to do as they do, and love them 
dearly for it (no glue like to that of good fellowship). So did Alcibiades in 
Greece; Nero, Bonosus, Heliogabalus in Rome, or Alegabalus rather, as he 
was styled of old (as ' Ignatius proves out of some old coins). So do many 
great men still, as ^ Heresbachius observes. When a prince drinks till his 
eyes stare, like Bitias in the Poet, 



-" (1 ille impiger hansit 



Spumautem vino pateram)." 



-*' a thirsty soul ; 



He took challenge and embraced the howl : 

With pleasure swill'd the gold, nor ceased to draw 

TiU he the bottom of the brimmer saw," 



and comes off clearly, sound trumpets, fife and drums, the spectators will 
applaud him, " the ™ bishop himself (if he belie them not) with his chaplain, 
will stand by and do as much," dignum principe haustum, 'twas done like a 
prince. " Our Dutchmen invite all comers with a pail and a dish," Velut 
infundihula integras obhas exhauriunt, et in 'inonstrosis poculis, ipsi monstrosi 
monstrosius epotant, " making barrels of their bellies," Tncredihile dictu, as 
^ one of their own countrymen complains : ° Quantum liquoris irmnodestissima 
gens cajnat, (kc. " How they love a man that will be drunk, crown him and 
honour him for it," hate him that will not pledge him, stab him, kill him; a 
most intolerable offence, and not to be forgiven. '' ^ He is a mortal enemy 
that will not drink with him," as Munster relates of the Saxons, So in Poland, 
he is the best servitor, and the honestest fellow, saith Alexander Gaguinus, 
" "^that drinketh most healths to the honour of his master, he shall be rewarded 
as a good servant, and held the bravest fellow that carries his liquor best,'* 
when a brewer's horse will bear much more than any sturdy drinker, yet for 
his noble exploits in this kind, he shall be accounted a most valiant man, for 
*■ Tarn inter epulas fortis vir esse p)otest ac in hello, as much valour is to be 
found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains, and carpet 
knights will make this good, and prove it. Thus they many times wilfully 
pervert the good temperature of their bodies, stifle their wits, strangle nature, 
and degenerate into beasts. 

Some again are in the other extreme, and draw this mischief on their heads 
by too ceremonious and strict diet, being over-precise, cockney-like, and curious 
in their observation of meats, times, as that Medicina statica prescribes, just so 
many ounces at dinner, which Lessius enjoins, so much at supper, not a little 
more, nor a little less, of such meat, and at such hours, a diet-drink in the 
morning, cock-broth, China-broth, at dinner, plum-broth, a chicken, a rabbit, 
rib of a rack of mutton, wing of a capon, the merry-thought of a hen, &c. • to 
sounder bodies this is too nice and most absurd. Others offend in over-much 
fasting : pining adays, saith ' Gnianerius, and waking anights, as many Moors 
and Turks in these our times do. " Anchorites, monks, and the rest of that 
superstitious rank (as the same Guianerius witnesseth, that he hath often seen 
to have happened in his time) through immoderate fasting, have been fre- 
quently mad." Of such men belike Hippocrates speaks, 1 Aphor. 5, when as 

'i Gratiana conciliantpotando. ilSTotis ad Caasares. ^ Lib. de educandis principnm liberis. 

1 Virg. jE. 1. ™ Idem strenui potatoris tpiscopi Sacellanus, ctim ingentem pateram exhaurit princeps! 

n Bohemusin Saxonia. Adeo immoderate et immodeste ab ipsis bibitur, ut in compotationibus suis noii 
cyathis solum et cantharis sat infundere possint, sed impletum mulctrale apponant, et ?cutella injecta 
hortantur quemlibet ad libitum potare. <> Dictu incredibile, quantum hujusce liquoris immodesta gens 

capiat, plus potantem amicissimum habent, et serto coronant, inimicissimum e contra qui non vult, et cade 
et fustibus expiant. p Qui potare recusat, hostis habetur, et csade nonnunquam res expiatur. q bui 

melius bibit pro salute doraini, melior habetur minister. r Grjec. Poeta apud Stobceum, ser. 18.' ' Qui 
de die jejunant, et nocte vigilant, facile cadunt in melancholiam; et qui iiaturre modum excedunt c. 5. 
tract. 15. c. 2. Longa faniis tolerantia, ut iis stepe accidit qui tanto cum fervore Deo servire cupiunt per 
jejunium, quod maniaci efflciantur, ipse vidi Sicpe. 



150 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

lie saitli, " * They more offend in too sparing diet, and are worse damnifier], 
than they that feed liberally, and are ready to surfeit. 

SuBSECT. III. — Custom of Diet, Delight, Appetite, Necessity, how they cause 

or hinder. 
jSTo rule is so general, which admits not some exception ; to this, therefore, 
which hath been hitherto said (for I shall otherwise put most men out of 
commons), and those inconveniences which proceed from the substance of meats, 
an intemperate or unseasonable use of them, custom somewhat detracts and 
qualifies, according to that of Hippocrates 2, Aphorism. 50, " " Such things as 
we have been long accustomed to, tliough they be evil in their own nature 
yet they are less oifensive." Otherwise it might well be objected that it were 
a mere ^ tyranny to live after those strict rules of physic ; for custom ^ doth 
alter nature itselt, and to such as are used to them it makes bad meats whole- 
some, and unseasonable times to cause^ no disorder. Cider and perry are 
windy drinks, so are all fruits v\^indy in themselves, cold most part, yet in 
some shires of ^England, Normandy in France, Guipuscoa in Spain, 'tis their 
common drink, and they are no whit offended with it. In Spain, Italy, and 
Africa, they live most on roots, raw herbs, camel's ^ milk, and it agrees well 
with them : v/hich to a stranger will cause much grievance. In V/ales, lacti- 
ciniis vescuntur, as Humphrey Llwyd confesseth, a Cambro-Briton himself, in 
his elegant epistle to Abraham Ortelius, they live most on white meats : in 
Holland on fish, roots, ^butter; and so at this day in Greece, as '"" Bellonius 
observes, they had much rather feed on fish than fiesh. With us, Ifaxima pars 
victus in came consistit, we feed on flesh most part, saith "" Polydor Yirgil, as 
all northern countries do; and it would be very oflensive to us to live after their 
diet, or they to live after ours. We drink beer, they wine; they use oil, we 
butter; we in the north are '^ great eaters; they most sparing in those hotter 
countries; and yet they and we following our own customs are well pleased. 
An Ethiopian of old seeing an European eat bread, Vv^ondered, quomodo ster- 
corihus vescentes viverimus, how we could eat such kind of meats : so much 
differed his countrymen from ours in diet, that as mine t author infers, si quis 
illorum victum apud nos (Emulari vellet; if any man should so feed with us, it 
would be all one to nourish, as Cicuta, Aconitum, or Hellebore itself At this 
day in China, the common people live in a manner altogether on roots and 
herbs, and to the wea,lthiest, horse, ass, mule, dogs, cat-fiesh, is as delightsome 
as the rest, so*' Mat. Kicciusthe Jesuit relates, who lived many years amongst 
them. The Tartars eat raw meat, and most commonly ^horse-flesh, drink milk 
and blood, as the Nomades of old. Et lac concretum cum sanguine potat equina. 
They scoff at out Europeans for eating bread, which they call tops of weeds, 
and horse meat, not fit for men; and yet Scaliger accounts them a sound and 
witty nation, living a hundred years ; even in the civilest country of them 
they do thus, as Benedict the Jesuit observed in his travels, from the great 
Mogul's Court by land to Pekin, which Piccius contends to be the same 
with Cambula in Cataia. In Scandia their bread is usually dried fish, and so 
likewise in the Shetland isles; and their other fare, as in Iceland, saith 

t In ternii victu segri delinciuimt, ex quo fittitraajori afficianturdetrimento, majorqne fit errortenui quam 
pleniore victu. " Quss longo tempore consueta sunt, etiamsi deteriora, minus in assuetis molestai-e soleiit. 
X Qui medice viA'it, misere vivit. y Consuetudo altera natura. => Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcester- 
sliire. a Leo Afer. 1. 1. solo cameloi'um lacte contenti, nil prseterea deliciarum amhiunt. *> Flandri vinum 
hutyro dilutum bihunt (nauseo referens) ubique biityrum inter omnia fercula et bellaria locum obtinet. 
Steph. prtefat. Herod. * Delectantur GriBci piscibus magis quam carnibais. « Lib. L hist. Aug. ^ P. Jovius 
descript. Britonum. They sit, eat and drink all day at dinner in Iceland, Muscovy, and those northern 
parts. t Suidas vict. Herod, nihilo cum eo melius quam si quis Cicutam, Aconitum, &c. ^ Expedit. iii 
Sinas lib. I.e. 3. hortensiura herbarum et olerum, apud Sinas quam apud nos longe frequentior usus, com- 
plures quippe de vulgo reperias nulla alia re vel tenuitatis, vel religionis causS, vescentes. Equas, Mulus, 
Asellus, &c. «que fere vescuntur ac pabula omnia. Mat. Riccius, lib. 5. cap. 12. ^ Tartari mulis, equis 

vescuntur et crudis carnibus, et fruges coiitemnunt, dici^ntes, hoc jumentorum pabulum et bourn, noa 
iiominum. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Causes of Melaiiclioly. 151 

^Dithnianis Bleskenius, butter, cheese, and fisb ; their drink water, their 
lodging on the ground. In America in many places their bread is roots, tlieir 
meat palmitos, pinas, potatoes, &c., and such fruits. There be of them too that 
familiarly drink * salt sea- water all their lives, eat t raw meat, gi-ass, and that 
with delight. With some, fish, serpents, spiders ; and in divers places they 
^ eat man's flesh, raw and roasted, even the Emperor ' Montezuma himself. In 
some coasts, again, "^one tree yields them cocoa-nuts, meat and drink, fire, 
fuel, apparel ; with his leaves, oil, vinegar, cover for houses, &c., and yet these 
men going naked, feeding coarse, live commonly a hundred years, are seldom 
or never sick ; all which diet our physicians forbid. In AVestphalia they 
feed most part on fat meats and wourts, knuckle deep, and call it i cerebrum 
lovis : in the low countries with roots, in Italy frogs and snails are used. The 
Turks, saith Busbequius, delight most in fried meats. In Muscov}?-, garlic 
and onions are ordinary meat and sauce, which would be pernicious to such as 
are unaccustomed to them, delightsome to others ; and all is "" because they 
have been brought up unto it. Husbandmen, and such as labour, can eat fat 
bacon, salt gross meat, hard cheese, &c. (0 dura messoru7)i ilia), coarse 
bread at all times, go to bed and labour upon a full stomach, which to some 
idle persons would be present death, and is against the rules of physic, so that 
custom is all in all. Our travellers find this by common experience when they 
come in far countries, and use their diet, they are suddenly ofiended," as our 
Hollanders and Englishmen when they touch upon the coasts of Africa, those 
Indian capes and islands, are commonly molested with calentures, fluxes, and 
much distempered by reason of their fruits. ° Feregrina, etsi suavia, solent 
vescentibus perturbationes insignes adferre, strange meats, though pleasant, 
cause nota,ble alterations and distempers. On the other side, use or custom 
mitigates or makes all good again. Mithridates by often use, which Pliny 
wonders at, was able to drink poison ; and a maid, as Curtius records, sent to 
Alexander from K. Porus, v/as brought up with poison from her infancy. The 
Turks, saith Bellonius, lib. 3, c. 15, eat opium familiarly, a drachm at once, 
which we dare not take in grains. ^ Garcius ab Horto vrrites of one whom 
he saw at Goa in the East Indies, that took ten drachms of oj)ium in three 
days ; and yet consulto loquebatitr, spa.ke imderstandingiy, so much can custom 
do. "^ Theophrastus speaks of a shepherd that could eat hellebore in substance. 
And therefore Cardan concludes out of Galen, Consuetudinem utcunque feren' 
dam, Qiisi valde malam. Custom is howsoever to be kept, except it be ex- 
tremely bad : he adviseth all men to keep their old customs, and that by the 
authority of * Hippocrates himself, Dandum aliquid tempori, cetati, regiord, 
consuetudini, and therefore to ' continue as they began, be it diet, bath, exer^ 
cise, &c., or whatsoever else. 

• Another exception is delight, or appetite, to such and such meats ; though 
they be hard of digestion, melancholy ; yet as Euchsius excepts cap, 6. lib. 2. 
Institut. sect. 2. "^The stomach doth really digest, and willingly entertain 
such meats we love most, and are pleasing to us, abhors on the other side such 
as we distaste." "Which Hippocrates confirms, Aphorism. 2, 38. Some can- 
not endure cheese out of a secret antipathy, or to see a roasted duck, which 
to others is a Vlelightsome meat. 

The last exception is necessity, poverty, want, hunger, vv'hich drives men 

gislandiss descriptione. victus eorum 'buhTO, laete, caseo consistit; pisces loco panis habent, potus, aqua 
aut serum, sic -sivimt sine medi«na multi ad aiiuos 200. * Laet. Occident. Ind. descript. lib. 11. cap. 10. 
Aquam mavinam bibere, sueti absque noxa. f Davies 2. voyage. ^ Patagones. » Benzo et 

Fei". Cortesius lib. novus orbis iuscrip. kLinscoiten, c. 56. palma; instar totius orbis arboribus longe 

pra?stantior. i Lips, epist. ™ Teneris assuescere nuiltum. » Eepentinaj mutationes noxam pariunt. 
Hippocrat. Aphorism. 21. Epist. 6. sect. 3. » Bruerinus, lib. 1- cap. 23. p Simpl. med. c. 4. 1. I. 

<) Heurnius, 1. 3. c. 19. prax. med. * Aphorism. 17. ' In diibiis consuetudinem sequatur adolcscens, et 
^inccptis perseveret. ^ Qui cum voluptate assunnmtur cibi, ventriculus avidius complectitur, expeditiusque 
'concoquitj et qute displiceut aversatur. «Is'othing against a good stomach, as the sajiiig is. 



152 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

many times to do that which otherwise they are loth, cannot endure, and 
thankfully to accept of it : as beverage in ships, and in sieges of great cities, 
to feed on dogs, cats, rats, and men themselves. Three outlaws in " Hector 
Boethius, being driven to their shifts, did eat raw flesh, and flesh of such fowl 
as they could catch, in one of the Hebrides for some few months. These 
things do mitigate or disannul that which hath been said of melancholy 
meats, and make it more tolerable ; but to such as are wealthy, live plenteously, 
at ease, may take their choice, and refrain if they will, these viands are to 
be forborne, if they be inclined to, or suspect melancholy, as they tender their 
healths : Otherwise if they be intemperate, or disordered in their diet, at their 
peril be it. Qui monet arjiat, Ave et cave. 

He who advises is your friend, 
Farewell and to your health attend. 

SuBSECT. IV. — detention and Evacuation a cause, and how. 

Op retention and evacuation, there be divers kinds, which are either con- 
comitant, assisting, or sole causes many times of melancholy. "" Galen re- 
duceth defect and abundance to this head ; others "^Ali that is separated, or 
remains." 

Costiveness^ In the first rank of these, I may well reckon up costiveness, 
and keeping in of our ordinary excrements, which as it often causeth other 
diseases, so this of melancholy in particular. '^Celsus, lib. 1. cap. 3. saith, 
" It produceth inflammation of the head, dulness, cloudiness, headache, &c." 
Prosper Calenus, lib. de atrd bile, will have it distemper not the organ only, 
" * but the mind itself by troubling of it :" and sometimes it is a sole cause 
of madness, as you may read in the first book of ^Skenkius's Medicinal Obser- 
vations. A young merchant going to ISTordeling fair in Germany, for ten days' 
space never went to stool ; at his return he was ''grievously melancholy, think- 
ing that he was robbed, and would not be persuaded but that all his money 
was gone ; his friends thought he had some philtrum given him, but Cnelius, 
a physician, being sent for, found his "^costiveness alone to be the cause, and 
thereupon gave him a clyster, by which he was speedily recovered. Trincavel- 
lius, consult. 35 lib. 1. saith as much of a melancholy lawyer, to whom he 
administered physic, and E-odericus a Fonseca, consult. d>5. torn. 2.* of a 
patient of his, that for eight days was bound, and therefore melancholy 
afiected. Other retentions and evacuations there are, not simply necessary, 
but at some times j as Fernelius accounts them. Path. lib. 1. cap. 15. as 
suppression of haemorrhoids, or monthly issues in women, bleeding at nose, 
immoderate or no use at all of Yenus : or any other ordinary issues. 

^Detention of haemorrhoids, or monthly issues, Villanovanus Breviar. lib. 1. 
cap. 18. Arculanus, cap. 16. in 9. Rhasis, Yittorius Faventinus, pract. mag. 
Tract. 2. cap. 15. Bruel, &c. put for ordinary causes. Fuchsius, 1. 2. sect. 5. c. 
30. goes farther, and saith, "^ That many men unseasonably cured of the 
haemorrhoids have been corrupted with melancholy, seeking to avoid Scylla, 
they fall into Charybdis. Galen, I. dehum. commen. 3. ad text. 26. illustrates this 
by an example of Lfucius Martins, whom he cured of madness, contracted by this 
means : And ^Skenkius hath two other instances of two melancholy and mad 
women, so caused from the suppression of their months. The same may be 
said of bleeding at the nose, if it be suddenly stopped, and have been formerly 
used, as ^ Yillanovanus urgeth : And ^Fuchsius, lib. 2. sect. 5. cap. 33. 

■ Lib. 7. Hist. Scot. «30. artis. yQuse excernuntur aut subsistunt. ^^Ex ventre suppress©, 

inflammationes, capitis dolores, caligines crescunt. ^ Excrementa retenta mentis agitationem parere 

solent. *> Cap. de Mel. c Tarn delirus, ut vix se hominem agnosceret. <* Alvus astrictus causa. 

* Per octo dies alvum siccum habet, et nihil reddit. eSive per nares, sive haaraorrhoides. ^ Multi 

intempestive ab hfemnrrlioidibus curati, melancholia corrupti sunt. Incidit in Scyllam, &c. g Lib. 1. 

-de Mania. h Breviar. 1 7. c. 18. 'jN'on sine magno incommodo ejus, cui sanguis a naribuspromanat, 

noxii sanguinis vacuatio impediri potest. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4.] Eetentioii and Evacuation. Causes. 1 53 

stiffly maintains, " That without great danger, such an issue may not be 
stayed." 

Venice omitted produceth like effects. Mathiolus, episU 5. 1. penult, 
"'^avoucheth of his know] edo-e, that some through bashfulness abstained from 
venery, and thereupon became very heavy and dull; and some others that 
were very timorous, melancholy, and beyond all measure sad." Oribasius, med. 
collect. I. 6. c. 37. speaks of some, " ^ That if they do not use carnal copula- 
tion, are continually troubled with heaviness and headache ; and some in the 
same case by intermission of it," Not use of it hurts many, Arculanus, c. 6. 
in 9. Rhasis, et Magninus, part. 3. cap. 5. think, because it ""sends up 
poisonous vapours to the brain and heart. And so doth Galen himself hold, 
" That if this natural seed be over-long kept (in some parties) it turns to 
poison." Hieronymus Mercurialis, in his chapter of Melancholy, cites it for 
an especial cause of this malady, ° Priapismus, Satyriasis, &c., Haliabbas, 5. 
Theor. c. 36. reckons up this and many other diseases. Yillanovanus Breviar. 
I. 1. c. 18. saith, "He knew "many monks and widows grievously troubled 
with melancholy, and that for this sole cause." ^ Lodovicus Mercatus, I. 2. de 
Tiiulierum affect, cap. 4. and Hodericus a Castro, de morhis inulier. I. 2. c. 3. 
treat largely of this subject, and will have it produce a peculiar kind of melan- 
choly in stale maids, nuns, and widows, Ob suppo^essionem mensium et venerem 
omissam, timidce, moestce, anxice, verecundce, supiciosce, languentes, consilii in- 
opes, cum summa vitce et rerum meliorum desperatione, &c., they are melancholy 
in the highest degree, and all for want of husbands, ^lianus Montaltus, cap. 
37. de melanchol, confirms as much out of G-alen ; so doth Wierus, Christoferus 
a Vega de art. med. lib. 3. c. 14, relates many such examples of men and 
women, that he had seen so melancholy. Foeiix Plater in the first book of his 
Observations, " '^ tells a story of an ancient gentleman in Alsatia, that mar- 
ried a young wife, and was not able to pay his debts in that kind for a long 
time together, by reason of his several infirmities : but she, because of this 
inhibition of Venus, fell into a horrible fury, and desired every one that came 
to see her, by words, looks, and gestures, to have to do with her," &c. "^ Eer- 
nardus Paternus, a physician, saith, " Pie knew a good honest godly priest, 
that because he would neither willingly marry, nor make use of the stews, 
fell into grievous melancholy fits." Hildesheim, spicel. 2. hath such another 
example of an Italian melancholy priest, in a consultation had Anno 1580. 
Jason Pratensis gives instance in a married man, that from his wife's death 
abstaining, " ^ after marriage, became exceedingly melancholy," Rodericus a 
Ponseca in a young man so misaffected, Tom. 2. consult, 85. To these you 
may add, if you please, that conceited tale of a Jew, so visited in like sort, 
and so cured, out of Poggius Plorentinus. 

Intemperate Venus is all but as bad in the other extreme. Galen. I. 6. de 
morbis popida.r. sect. 5. text. 26, reckons up melancholy amongst those diseases 
which are "'exasperated by venery:" so doth Avicenna, 2, 3, c. 11. Oribi- 
sius, loc. citat. Ficinus, lib. 2. de sanitate tuenda. Marsilius Cognatus, Mon- 
taltus, cap. 27. Guianerius, Tract. 3. cap. 2. Magninus, cap. 5, part. 3. 
" gives the reason, because " "" it infrigidates and dries up the body, consumes 

i^Novi quosdam pr^ pudore a coitu abstinentes, torpidos, pigrosque factos; nonnuUos etiam melan- 
cholicos, prseter inodum mcestos, timidosque. ' Nonnulli nisi coeant, assidue capitis gravitate infestantur. 
Dicit se novisse quosdam tristes et ita factos ex intermissione Veneris. "i Vapores venenatos mittit 

sperma ad cor et cerebrum. Sperma plus diu retentum, transit in venenum. « Graves producit 

corporis et animi yegi'itndines. « Ex spermate supra modum retento monachos et viduas melancholicos 
ssepe fieri vidi. p Melancholia orta a vasis seminai'iis in utero. i Nobilis senex Alsatus juvenem 

uxorem duxit, at ille colico dolore, etmultis mortis correptus, non potuitprtestareoificium mariti, vix inito 
matrimonio segrotus. Ilia in liorrendum furorem incidit, ob Venerem cohibitam, ut omnium earn invisen- 
tium congressum, voce, vultu, gestu expeteret, et quum non consentirent, molossos Anglicanos magno 
expetiit clamore. ■" vidi sacerdotem optimum et piuni, qui quod nollet uti Venere, in nielancholica 

symptomata incidit. ^ ob abstinentiam a concubitu incidit in melancholiam. t Qute a coitu exacer- 

"bantur. "* Supei-fluum coitum causam ponunt. ^ Exsiccat corpus, spiritus poiiBumit, &c., caveant ab 
hoc sicci, velut inimico mortali. 



154 Meteiition and Evacuation, Causes. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

the spirits, and would therefore have all such as are cold and dry to take heed 
of and to avoid it as a mortal enemy." Jacchinus in 9. Rhasis, cap. 15, 
ascribes the same cause, and instanceth in a patient of his, that married a 
young wife in a hot summer, "^and so dried himself with chamber-work, that 
he became in short space from melancholy, mad : " he cured him by moisten- 
ing remedies. The like example I find in L^lius a Fonte Eugubinus, consult. 
129. of a gentleman of Venice, that upon the same occasion v/as first melan- 
choly, afterwards mad. Kead in him the story at large. 

Any other evacuation stopped will cause it, as well as these above named, 
be it bile, ^ ulcer, issue, &c. Hercules de Saxonia, lib. 1. c. 16. and Gor- 
donius, verify this out ol their experience. They saw one wounded in the 
head, who as long as the sore v/as open, Lucicla haouit mentis intervalla, was 
well ; but when it was stopped, Rediit 7nelancholia, his melancholy fit seized 
on him again. 

Artificial evacuations are much like in effect, as hot houses, baths, blood- 
letting, purging, unseasonably and immoderately used. " Baths dry too much, 
if used in excess, be they natural or artificial, and oftend extreme hot or cold ; 
''one dries, the other refrigerates over much. Montanus, consil. 137, saith, 
they over-heat the liver. Joh. Struthius, Stigmat. artis. I. 4. c. 9, contends, 
" *" that if one stays longer than ordinary at the bath, go in too oft, or at 
unseasonable times, he putrefies the humours in his body." To this purpose 
writes Magninus, I. 3. c. 5. Guianerius, Tract. 15. c. 21, utterly disallows all 
hot batlis in melancholy adust. " ^ I saw (saith he) a man that laboured of 
the gout, who to be freed of his malady came to the bath, and was instantly 
cured of his disease, but got another worse, and that was madness." But this 
judgment varies as the humour doth, in hot or cold: baths may be good for 
one melancholy man, bad for another; that which will cure it in this party, 
may cause it in a second. 

Phlebotomy.'] Phlebotomy, many times neglected, may do much harm to 
the body, when there is a manifest redundance of bad humours, and melan- 
choly blood ; and when these humours heat and boil, if this be not used in time, 
the parties affected, so inflamed, are in great danger to be mad ; but if it be 
unadvisedly, importunely, immoderately used, it doth as much harm by refri- 
gerating the body, dulling the spirits, and. consuming them: as Joh. ^ Curio in 
his 10th Chapter well reprehends, such kind of letting blood doth more hurt 
than good: "*'The humours rage much more than they did before, and is so 
far from avoiding melancholy, that it increaseth it, and weaken eth the sight." 
^Prosper Calenus observes as much of all phlebotomy, except they keep a very 
good diet after it; yea, and as ^ Leonartus Jacchinus speaks out of his own 
experience, " ' The blood is much blacker to many men after their letting of 
blood than it was at first." For this cause belike Salust. Salvinianus, I. 2. 
c. 1. will admit or hear of no blood-letting at all in this disease, except it be 
manifest it proceed from blood : he was (it appears) by his own words in that 
place, master of an hospital of mad men, "^and found by long experience, 
that this kind of evacuation, either in head, arm, or any other part, did more 
harm than good." To this opinion of his, * Felix Plater is quite opposite, 

y Ita exsiccatus ut e melancholico statim fuerit insanus, ab humectantibus curatus. ^ Ex cauterio et 

■ulcere exsiccato. " Gord. c. 10. lib. 1. Discommeiuls cold baths as noxious. bsiccum reddunt 

corpus. cSi quis longius moretur in iis, aut niniis frequenter, aut importune utatur, humores 

putreiacit. "■ Kgo aimo superiore, quendam guttosum vidi adustum, qui ut liberaretur de gutta, 

ad balnea accessit, et de gutta liberatus, maiiiacus factus est. ^On Scliola Salernitana. fCalefactio et 
ebullitio per venai incisionera, magis ssepe incitatur et augetur, majore impetu humores per corpus discur- 
runt. sLib. de tiatulenta Melancholia. Frequens sanguinis missio coi-pus extenuat. ^ jn 9 Rhasis. atram 
bilem parit, et visum debilitat. 'ilulto nigrior spectatur sanguis post dies quosdam, quam fuit ab 

initio. ^ Non laudo eos qui in desipientia docent secandam esse venam frontis, quia spiritus debilitatur 
inde, et ego longa experientia observavi in proprio Xenodochio, quod desipientes ex phlebotomia magis 
lajduntur, et magis desipiunt, et melancholici sa'pe fiunt inde pejores. *I)e mentis alienat. cap. 3. etsi 

multos hoc improbas.se sciajn, innumeros hac ratione sanatos longa observatione cognovi, qui vicies, sex- 
agies renas tundendo, &c. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 5.] Bad Air, a Cause. 155 

'' tliongli some wink at, disallow aud quite contradict all plilebotomy in melan- 
choly, yet by long experience I Lave found innumerable so saved, after they had 
been twenty, nay, sixty times let blood, and to live happily after it. It was 
an ordinary thing of old, in Galen's time, to take at once from such men six 
pounds of blood, which now we dare scarce take in ounces : sed viderint 
77iedici;'" great books are written of this subject. 

Purging upward and downward, in abundance of bad humours omitted, may 
be for the worst ; so likewise as in the precedent, if overmuch, too frequent 
or violent, it ^ weaken eth their strength, saith Fuchsius, I. 2. sect. 2. c. 17. or 
if they be strong or able to endure physic, yet it brings them to an ill habit, 
they make their bodies no better than apothecaries' shops, this and such like 
infirmities must needs follow. 

SuBSECT. Y. — Bad Air, a Cause of Melancfioly. 

Air is a cause of great moment, in producing this, or any other disease, 
being that it is still taken into our bodies by respiration, and our more inner 
parts. ""'If it be impure and foggy, it dejects the spirits, and causeth dis- 
eases by infection of the heart," as Paulus hath it, lih. 1. c. 49. Avicenna 
lib. 1. Gal. de. seen, tuendd. Mercurialis, Montaltus, &c.. "" Fernelius saith, " A 
thick air thickeneth the blood a.nd humours." ° Leninius reckons up two main 
things most profitable, and most pernicious to our bodies; air and diet : and 
this peculiar disease, nothing sooner causeth (^ Jobertus holds) " than the air 
wherein we bl'eathe and live." * Such as is the air, such be our spirits; and 
as our spirits, such are our humours. It offends commonly if it be too *^ hot and 
dry, thick, fuliginous, cloudy, blustering, or a tempestuous air. Bodine in his 
fifth Book, De repuh. caj). 1, 5. of his Method of History, proves that hot 
countries are most troubled with melancholy, and that there are therefore in 
Spain, Africa, and Asia Minor, great numbers of mad men, insomuch that they 
are compelled in all cities of note, to build peculiar hospitals for them. Leo 
' Afar, lih. 3. d^e Fessa urhe, Ortelius and Zuinger, confirm as much : they are 
ordinarily so choleric in their speeches, that scarce two words pass without 
railing or chiding in common talk,: and often quarrelling in the streets. 
* Gordonius will have every man take notice of it : " Note this (saith he) that 
in hot countries it is far more familiar than in cold." Although this we have 
now said be not continually so, for as * Acosta truly saith, under the Equator 
itself, is a most tem|)erate habitation, wholesome air, a paradise of pleasure : 
the leaves ever green, cooling showers. But it holds in such as are intem- 
perately hot, as " Johannes a Meggen found in Cyprus, others in Malta, 
Apulia, and the tHoly Land, where at some seasons of the year is nothing 
but dust, their rivers dried up, the air scorching hot, and earth inflamed; 
insomuch that many pilgrims going barefoot for devotion sake, from Joppa to 
Jerusalem ujdou the hot sands, often run, mad, or else quite overwhelmed with 
sand, profandis arenis, as in many parts of Africa, Arabia Deserta, Bactriana, 
now Charassan, when the west wind blows :|: Involuti arem's franseuntes ^lecan- 
tur. ^ Hercules de Saxonia, a professor in Venice, gives this cause why so 
many Venetian women are melancholy. Quod dm sub sole degant, they tarry too 
long in the sun.. Montanus, consil. 21. amongst other causes assigns this; 
Why that Jew his patient was mad. Quod tarn inidtum exposuit se calori et 

1 Vires clel)ilitat. "> Impurus aer spiritus dejicit, inlecto corde gignit morbos. " Sanguinem 

densat, et Immores, F. 1. c. 13.. <> Lib. 3. cap. 3. p Lib. de quartana. Ex aere ambiente 

con tralii tur humor melancholicusv * Qualis aer, talis spiritus : et cujusmodi spiritus, humores. 

q yKlianus .Montaltus, cap. 11. calidus et siccus, frigidus et siccus, paludinosus, crassus. ■" Multa hie in 

Xcnodochiis fanaticorum millia qu.^ strictissime cateiiata servantur. « ljij, mgd, part. 2. cap. 19. Intellige, 
quod in calidis regionibus, frequenter accidit mania, in frigidis autem tardfe. t Lib. 2. " Hodopericon, 
c"P; '''• _ t-'^P^^lia Eestivo calore maxime fervet, ita ut ante finem Mail pene exusta sit. % "They 

perisli in clouds of sand." JIaginus Pers. « Pantheo seu Pract. med. 1. 1. cap. 16. Venetce mulieres, 

ause diu sub sole vivivat, aliquando melancliollcEe evadiint. 



156 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

frigori : he exposed himself so much to heat and cold, and for that reason in 
Venice, there is little stirring in those brick paved streets in summer about 
noon, they are most part then asleep : as they are likewise in the great Mogol's 
countries, and all over the East Indies. At Aden in Arabia, as ^ Lodovicus 
Vertomannus relates in his travels, they keep their markets in the night, to 
avoid extremity of heat j and in Ormus, like cattle in a pasture, people of all 
sorts lie up to the chin in water all daylong. At Braga in Portugal; Burgos 
in Castile ; Messina in Sicily, all over Spain and Italy, their streets are most 
part narrow, to avoid the sunbeams. The Turks wear great turbans adfugan- 
dos solis radios, to refract the sunbeams; and much inconvenience that hot 
air of Bantam in Java yields to our men, that sojourn therefor traffic; where 
it is so hot, " "^ that they that are sick of the pox, lie commonly bleaching in 
the sun to dry up their sores." Such a complaint I I'ead of those isles of Cape 
Verde, fourteen degrees from the Equator, they do male audire: * One calls 
them the unhealthiest clime of the world, for fluxes, fevers, frenzies, calentures, 
which commonly seize on seafaring men that touch at them, and all by reason 
of a hot distemperature of the air. The hardiest men are offended with this 
heat, and stiffest clowns cannot resist it, as Constantine affirms, Agricult, 
I. 2. c. 45. They that ai'e naturally born in such air, may not ^ endure it, as 
Niger records of some part of Mesopotamia, now called Diarbecha : Quibusdam 
in locis scevienti cestui adeo subjecta est, ut pleraque animalia fei'vore solis et 
codi extinguantur, 'tis so hot there in some places, that men of the country and 
cattle are killed with it; and t Adricomius of Arabia Eelix, by reason of 
myrrh, frankincense, and hot spices there growing, the air is so obnoxious to 
their brains, that the very inhabitants at some times cannot avoid it, much 
less weaklings and strangers. J Amatus Lusitanus, cent. 1. curat. 45, reports 
of a young maid, that was one Vincent a curiier's daughter, some thirteen 
years of age, that would wash her hair in the heat of the day (in July) and 
so let it dry in the sun, " ^ to make it yellow, but by that means tarrying too 
long in the heat, she inflamed her head, and made herself mad." 

Cold air in the other extreme is almost as bad as hot, and so doth Montaltus 
esteem of it, c. 11. if it be dry withal. In those northern countries, the people 
are therefore generally dull, heavy, and many witches, which (as I have before 
quoted) Saxo Grammaticus, Glaus, Baptista Porta ascribe to melancholy. But 
these cold climes are more subject to natural melancholy (not this artificial) 
which is cold and dry : for which cause ° Mercurius Britannicus belike puts 
melancholy men to inhabit just under the Pole. The worst of the three is a 
^ thick, cloudy, misty, foggy air, or such as come from fens, moorish grounds, 
lakes, muckhills, draughts, sinks, where any carcasses or carrion lies, or from 
"whence any stinking fulsome smell comes : Galen, Avicenna, Mercurialis, new 
and old physicians, hold that such air is unwholesome, and engenders melan- 
choly, plagues, and what not ? ^ Alexandretta an haven-town in the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, Saint John de Ulloa, an haven in Nova-Hispania, are much con- 
demned for a bad air, so are Durazzo in Albania, Lithuania, Ditmarsh, Pomp- 
tinse Paludes in Italy, the territories about Pisa, Ferrara, &c., Eomney Marsh 
with us ; the Hundreds in Essex, the fens in Lincolnshire. Cardan, de rerum, 
varietate, I. 17. c. 96. finds fault with the sight of those rich, and most 
populous cities in the Low Countries, as Bruges, Ghent, Amsterdam, Leyden, 
Utrecht, &c., the air is bad; and so at Stockholm in Sweden; Regium in 
Italy, Salisbury with us, Hull and Lynn : they may be commodious for naviga- 

y Navig. lib. 2. cap. 4. commercia nocte hora secunda, ob nimios qui sseviunt interdiu £estus, exercent. 
z Morbo Gallico laborantes, exponunt ad solem ut morbos exsiccent, * Sir Richard Hawkins in his 

Observations, sect. 13. <^ Hippocrates, 3. Aphorismorum idem ait. f Idem Maginus in Persia. 

4; Descript. Ter. sanct-e. ^ Quum ad solis radios in leone longam moram traheret, ut capillos flavos 

redderet, in maniara incidit. <= Mundas alter et idem, seu Terra Australis incognita. ^ Crassus et 

turbidus aer, tristeni efficit animam. ^ Commonly called Scandaroon in Asia Minor. 



-Mem. 2. Subs, o.] 



Bad Air, a Cause. 



157 



tion, this new kind of fortification, and many other good necessary uses; but 
are they so wholesome? Old Rome hath descended from the hills to the 
valley, 'tis the site of most of our new cities, and held best to build in plains, 
to take the opportunity of rivers. Leander Albertus pleads hard for the air 
and site of Venice, though the black Moorish lands appear at every low 
water: the sea, fire, and smoke (as he thinks) qualify the air; and ''some 
suppose, that a thick foggy air helps the memory, as in them of Pisa in Italy; 
and our Cambden, out of Plato, commends the site of Cambridge, because it 
is so near the fens. But let the site of such places be as it may, how can they 
be excused that have a delicious seat, a pleasant air, and all that nature can 
afford, and yet through their own nastiness, and sluttishness, immund and 
sordid manner of life, suifer their air to putrefy, and themselves to be 
choked up? Many cities in Turkey do raale audire in this kind : Constanti- 
nople itself, where commonly carrion lies in the stre 3t. Some find the same 
fault in Spain, even in Madrid, the king's seat, a most excellent air, a pleasant 
site; but the inhabitants are slovens, and the streets uncleanly kept. 

A troublesome tempestuous air is as bad as impure, rough and foul wea- 
ther, impetuous winds, cloudy dark days, as it is commonly with us, Codum 
visu foddum,, ^Polydore calls it a filthy sky, etin quo facile generantur oiuhes; 
as Tully's brother Quintus wrote to him in Rome, being then Qusestor in 
Britain. " In a thick and cloudy air (saith Lemnius) men are tetric, sad, 
and peevish : And if the western winds blow, and that there be a calm, or a 
fair sunshine day, there is a kind of alacrity in men's minds; it cheers up 
men and beasts : but if it be a turbulent, rough, cloudy, stormy weather, men 
are sad, lumpish, and much dejected, angry, waspish, dull, and melancholy." 
This was ^ Virgil's experiment of old, 



■ Verum ubi tempestas, et coeli mobilis liumor 
Mutavere vices, et Jupiter liumidas Austro, 
Vertuntur species animorum, et pectore aiotus 
Concipiuut alios" 



"But when the face of heaven changed is 
To tempests, rain, from season fair: 
Our minds are altered, and in our breasts 
Forthwith some new conceits appear." 



And who is not weather-wise against such and such conjunctions of planets, 
moved in foul weather, dull and heavy in such tempestuous seasons 1 * Gelidum 
contristat Aquarius annum: the time requires, and the autumn breeds it; 
winter is like unto it, ugly, foul, squalid, the air works on all men, more or 
less, but especially on such as are melancholy, or inclined to it, as Lemnius 
holds, ^ " They are most moved with it, and those which are already mad, rave 
downright, either in, or against a tempest. Besides, the devil many times 
takes his opportunity of such storms, and when the humours by the air be 
stirred, he goes in with them, exagitates our spirits, and vexeth our souls ; as 
the sea waves, so are the spirits and humours in our bodies tossed with tem- 
pestuous winds and storms." To such as are melancholy therefore, Montanus, 
consil. 24, will have tempestuous and rough air to be avoided, and consil. 27, 
all night air, and would not have them to walk abroad, but in a pleasant day. 
Lemnius, I. 3. c. 3. discommends the south and eastern winds, commends the 
north. Montanus, consil. 31, "Hvills not any windows to be opened in the 
night." Consil. 229. et consil. 230, he discommends especially the south wind, 
and nocturnal air : So doth ™ Plutarch. The night and darkness makes men 
sad, the like do all subterranean vaults, dark houses in caves and rocks, de- 
sert places cause melancholy in an instant, especially such as have not been 

'Atlas geographicus. Memoria Talent Pisaui, quod crassiore fruantur aere. s Lib. 1. hist. lib. 2. cap. 
41. Aura densa ac caliginosa tetrici homines existunt, et subtristes, et cap. 3. stante subsolano et Zephyro, 
maxima in mentibus hominum alacritas existit, mentisque erectio ubi telum solis splendore nitescit, 
Maxima dejectio moerorque siquando aura caliginosa est. ''Geor. ^Hor. ^jviens quibus vacillat 

ab aere cito offenduntur, et multi insani apud Belgas ante tempestates sasviunt, aliter quieti. Spiritus 
quoqae aeris et mali genii aliquando se tempestatibus ingerunt, et menti liumanse se lateuter insinuant, 
eamque vexant, exagitant, et ut fluctus marini, humanum corpus ventis agitatur. > Aer noctu den^atua*, 
et cogit inoestitiam. ™Lib. de Iside et Osyride. 



158 Causes of Melancholy, [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

used to it, or otherwise accnstonied. Read more of air in Hippocrates, 
j^tius, I. 3. a c l7l. ad 175. Oribasius, a c 1. ad 21. Avicen. I. 1. can. Fen, 
2, doc. 2, Fen. 1. c. 123. to tlie 12, &c. 

SuBSSCT. VI. — Immoderate Exercise a Cause, and how. Solitariness, Idleness. 

Nothing so good but it may be abused : nothing better tlian exercise (if 
opportunely used) for the preservation of the body : nothing so bad if it be 
unseasonable, violent, or overmuch. Fernelius out of Galen, Path. lib. I.e. 16, 
saith, " "^ That much exercise and weariness consumes the spirits and sub- 
stance, refrigerates the body: and such humours which ISra.ture would have 
otherwise concocted and expelled, it stirs up and makes them rage : which 
being so enraged, diversely afiect and trouble the body and mind." So doth it, 
if it be unseasonably used, upon a fall stomach, or when the body is full of 
crudities, which Fuchsius so much inveighs against, lib. 2. instil, sect. 2. c. 4. 
giving that for a cause why school-boys in Germany are so often scabbed, 
because they use exercise presently after meats. ''Bayerus puts in a caveat 
against such exercise, because " it ^ corrupts the meat in the stoma,ch, and 
carries the same juice raw, and as yet undigested, into the veins (saith Lem- 
nius), which there putrefies and confounds the animal spirits." Crato, consil. 
21. I. 2. ^protests against all such exercise after meat, as being the greatest 
enemy to concoction that may be, and cause of corruption of humours, which 
produce this, and many other diseases. Not without good reason then doth 
Salust. Salvianus, 1. 2. c, 1. and Leonartus Jacchinus, in 9, Rhasis. Mercuri- 
alis, Arcubanus, and many other, set down '"immoderate exercise as a most 
forcible cause of melancholy. 

Opposite to exercise is idleness (the badge of gentry) or want of exercise, 
the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, stepmother of discipline, 
the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, and a sole cause 
of this and many other maladies, the devil's cushion, as ^ Gualter calls it, his 
pillow and chief reposal. " For the mind can never rest, but still meditates 
on one thing or other, except it be occupied about some honest business, of his 
own accord it rusheth into melancholy. * As too much and violent exercise 
offends on the one side, so doth an idle life on the other (saith Crato), it fills 
the body full of phlegm, gross humours, and all manner of obstructions, 
rheums, catarrhs," &c. Rhasis, cont. lib. 1 . tract. 9, accounts of it as the 
greatest cause of melancholy. " " I have often seen (saith he) that idleness 
begets this humour more than anything else." Montaltus, c. 1, seconds him 
out of his experience, "^They that are idle are far more subject to melancholy 
than such as are conversant or employed about any office or business." ^Plu- 
tarch reckons up idleness for a sole cause of the sickness of the soul : " There 
are they (saith he) troubled in mind, that have no other cause but this." 
Homer, Iliad. 1, brings in Achilles eating of his own heart in his idleness, 
because he might not fight. Mercurialis, consil. 86, for a melancholy young 
man urgeth ''it is a chief cause; why was he melancholy 1 because idle. 

"Multa deftitigatio, spiritiis, viriumqtie substantiam exhaurit, et corpus refrigerat. Humores corrnptos 
qui aliter a natura concoqui, et domari possint, et derauni blande excliidi, irritat, et quasi in furorem agit, 
qui postea mota camerina, tetro vapore corpus variu lacessunt, aiiimumque. "In Veni mecum : Libro 

sic inscripto. Pinstit. ad vit. Clirist. cap. 44. cibos crudos in venas rapit, qui putrescentes illic spiritus 

animales inficiunt. i Crudi haec liinnoris copia per venas aggreditur, unde morbi multiplices. "■ Immo- 
dicum exercitium. sHom. 31. in 1. Cor. vi. Nam qua mens hominis quiescere non possit, sed continub 

circa varias cogitationes discurrat, nisi honesto aliquo negotio occupetur, ad melancholiain sponte delabitur. 
♦Crato consil. 21. Ut immodica corporis exercitatio nocet corporibus, ita vita deses et otiosa: otium 
animal pituitosum reddit, viscerum obstructiones et crebras fluxiones, et morbos concitat. " Et vidi 

quod una de rebus quae magis generat melancholiam, est otiositas. ^Reponitur otium ab aliis causa, et 

hoc a nobis observatum eos huic malo magis obnoxios qui plane otiosi sunt, quam eos qui aliquo munere 
versantur exequendo. y De Tranquil. anima3. Sunt quos ipsum otium in animi conjicit segritudinem. 

' Nihil est quod reque melancholiam alat ac augeat, ac otium et abstinentia ^ corporis et animi excrcita- 
tiouibus. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 6.] Idleness, a Cause. 159 

Notliing begets it sooner, increaseth. and contlnnetli it oftener than idleness.* 
A disease familiar to all idle persons, an inseparable companion to such as live 
at ease, Pliigui otio desidiosc agentes, a life out of action, and have no calling 
or ordinary employment to busy themselves about, that have small occasions; 
raid though they have such is their laziness, dulness, they will not compose 
themselves to do aught ; they cannot abide work, though'it be necessary ; easy 
as to dress themselves, write a letter or the like ; yet as he that is benumbed 
with cold sits still shaking, that might relieve himself with a little exercise or 
stirring do they complain, but will not use the facile and ready means to do 
themselves good; and so are still tormented wdth melancholy. Especially if 
they have been formerly brought up to business, or to keep much company, and 
upon a sudden come to lead a sedentary life ; it crucifies their souls, and 
seizeth on them in an instant ; for v/hilst they are any ways employed, in 
action, discourse^ about any business, sport or recreation, or in compa^ny to 
their liking ; they are very well ; but if alone or idle, tormented instantly again ; 
one day's solitariness, one hour's sometimes, doth them more harm, than a 
week's physic, labour, and company can do good. Melancholy seizeth on 
them forthwith being alone, and is such a torture, that as wise Seneca well 
saith, Malo mihimcde quam molliter esse, I had rather be sick than idle. This 
idleness is either of body or mind. That of body is nothing but a kind of 
benumbing laziness, intermitting exercise, which if we may believe ^Fernelius, 
" causeth crudities, obstructions, excremental humours, quencheth the natural 
heat^ dulls the spirits, and makes them unapt to do any thing v/hatsoever." 

" "> Neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris." I "for, a negrlected field 

I Shall for the fire its thorns a;id thistles yield." 

As fern grows in unfilled grounds, and all manner of weeds, so do gross humours 
in an idle body, Ignavum corrmnpuni otia corpus. A horse in a stable that 
never travels, a hawk in a mew that seldom flies, are both subject to diseases ; 
which left unto themselves, are most free from any such incumbrances. An 
idle dog will be mangy, and how shall an idle person think to escape ? Idle- 
ness of the mind is much worse than this of the body ; wit without employ- 
ment is a disease, *^ ^77^(70 animi, ruhigo ingenii : the rust of the soul, ^a 
plague, a hell itself. Maximum animi nocumentuin, Galen calls it. " ^ As 
in a standing pool, worms and filthy creepers increase {et vitium capiunt ni 
moveantur aquce, the water itself putrefies, and air likewise, if it be not con- 
tinually stirred by tlie wind), so do evil and corrupt thoughts in an idle person," 
the soul is contaminated. In a commonwealth, where is no public enemy, 
there is likely civil wars, and they rage upon themselves : this body of ours, 
when it is idle, and knows not how to bestow itself, macerates and vexeth itself 
with cares, griefs, false fears^, discontents, and suspicions ; it tortures and 
preys upon his own bowels, and is never at rest. Thus much I dare boldly 
say, " He or she that is idle, be they of what condition they will, never so 
rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy, let them have all things in abundance 
and felicity that heart can wish and desire, all contentment, so long as he or 
she or they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well in body and mind, 
but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, griev- 
ing, suspecting, offended with the world, vvdth every object, wishing themselves 
gone or dead, or else carried away with some foolish phantasy or other. And 
this is the true cause that so many great men, ladies, and gentlewomen, labour 
of this disease in country and city ; for idleness is an appendix to nobility ', 

•Nihil magis excaecat intellectum, quam otium. Gordonius de ohservat. vit. hura. lib. 1. •» Path. lib. 1. 
cap. 17. exercitationis intermissio, inertem colorem, languidos spiritus, et ignavos, et ad omnes actiones 
seuniores reddit, cruditates, obstructiones, et excrementorum proventus facit. c Hor. Ser. 1. Sat. 3. 

d Seneca. « Mcsrorem anirai, et maciem, Plutarch calls it. ' Sicut in stagno generantur vermes, sic 

et otioso malai cogitationes. Sen. 



-ICO Causes of Melancholy. [Part. l.Sec. 2, 

they count it a disgrace to work, and spend all their days in sports, recreations, 
and pastimes, and will therefore take no pains ; be of no vocation ; they feed 
liberally, fare well, want exercise, action, employment (for to work, I say, they 
may not abide), and company to their desires, and thence their bodies become 
full of gross humours, wind, crudities ; their minds disquieted, dull, heavy, 
&c. care, jealocisy, fear of some diseases, sullen fits, weeping fits seize too ^'fami- 
liarly on them. For what will not fear and phantasy work in an idle body? 
what distempers will they not cause ? when the children of * Israel murmured 
against Pharaoh in Egypt, he commanded his officers to double their task, and 
let them get straw themselves, and yet make their full number of bricks ; for 
the sole cause why they mutin3^ and are evil at ease, is, "they are idle." 
When you shall hear and see so many discontented persons in all places where 
you come, so many several grievances, unnecessary complaints, fear, suspi- 
cions, t the best means to redress it is to set them awork, so to busy their 
minds : for the truth is, they are idle.^ Well they may build castles in the 
air for a time, and soothe up themselves with phantastical and pleasant humours, 
but in the end they will prove as bitter as gall, they shall be still I say discon- 
tent, suspicious, ^ fearful, jealous, sad, fretting and vexing of themselves ; so 
long as they be idle, it is impossible to please them, Otio qui nescit uti, plus 
habet negotii quam qui negotimn in negotio, as that 'Agellius could observe : 
He that knows not how to spend his time, hath more business, care, grief, 
anguish of mind, than he that is most busy in the midst of all his business, 
Otiosus animus nescit quid volet : An idle person (as he follows it) knows not 
when he is well, what he would have, or whither he would go, Qtium illuc 
ventum est illinc luhet, he is tired out with everything, displeased with all, 
weary of his life : Nee bene domi, nee militice neither at home nor abroad, 
errat, et propter vitam vivitur, he wanders and lives besides himself. In a word. 
What the mischievous effects of laziness and idleness are, I do not find any 
where more accurately expressed, than in these verses of Philolaches in the 
J Comical Poet, which for their elegancy I will in part insert. 

" Novarum sedium esse arbitror similem ego hominem, 
Quanclo hie iiatus est : Ei rei argumenta dicani. 
jEdes quando sunt ad amussim expolitte, 
Quisque laudat fabrum, atqiie exempluni, expetil, &c. 
At ubi illo migrat nequam homo Indiligcnsque, &c. 
Tempestas venit, confrhigit tegulas, imbi'icesque, 
Putrifacit aer operani fabri, &c. 
Dicani ut homines similes esse sediura arbitremini, 
Fabri parentes fundamentum substruunt liberoruin, 
Expoliunt, docent literas, nee parcunt sumptui, 
Ego autem sub fabrorum potestate frugi fui, 
Postquam autem migravi in ingenium meum, 
Perdidi operam fabrorum illico, oppido, 
Venit ignavia, ea mihi tempestas fuit, 
Adventuqiie suo grandinem et imbrem attuUt, 
Ilia mihi virtutem deturbavit, &e." 

" A vouno' man is like a fair new house, the carpenter leaves it well builfc, in 
good" repair of solid stuff" ; but a bad tenant lets it rain in, and for want of 
reparation, fall to decay, &c. Our parents, tutors, friends, spare no cost to 
brino- us up in our youth, in all manner of virtuous education; but when we 
are left to ourselves, idleness as a tempest drives all virtuous motions out of 
our minds, et nihili sumus, on a sudden, by sloth and such bad ways, we come 
to nought." 

Cousin german to idleness, and a concomitant cause, which goes hand in 
hand with it, is^nimia solitudo, too much solitariness, by the testimony of all 
physicians, cause and symptom both ; but as it is here put for a cause it is 

B Now this leg, now that arm, now their head, heart, &c. * Exod. v. f (For they cannot well 

tell what aileth them, or what they would have themselves) my heart, my head, my husband, my son, &c. 
h Prov. xviii. Pigrum dejicit timer. Heautontimorumenon. 'Lib, 19. c. 10. $Plautus, Prol. Mostel. 
* Piso, Montaltus, Mercurialis, &c. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 6.] Idleness, a Cause. 161 

either coact, enforced, or else voluntarilj. Enforced solitariness is commonly 
seen in students, monks, friars, anchorites, that by tlieir order and course of 
life must abandon all company, society of other men, and betake themselYes 
to a private cell : Otio superstitioso seclusi, as Bale and Hospinian well term 
it, such as are the Carthusians of our time, that eat no flesh (by their order), 
keep perpetual silence, never go abroad. Such as live in prison, or some desert 
place, and cannot have company, as many, of our country gentlemen do in 
solitary houses, they must either be alone without companions, or live beyond 
their means, and ectertain all comers as so many hosts, or else converse with 
their servants and hinds, such as are unequal, inferior to them, and of a con- 
trary disposition : or else as some do, to avoid solitariness, spend their time 
with lewd fellows in taverns, and in alehouses, and thence addict themselves 
to some unlawful disports, or dissolute courses. Divers again are cast upon 
this rock of solitariness for want of means, or out of a strong apprehension of 
some infirmity, disgrace, or through bashfulness, rudeness, simplicity, they 
cannot apply themselves to others' company. Nullum solum infelici gratius 
solitudine, ubi nullus sit qui miser iam exprohret ; this enforced solitariness 
takes place, and produceth his effect soonest in such as have spent their time 
jovially, perad venture in all honest recreations, in good company, in some great 
family or populous city, and are upon a sudden confined to a desert country 
cottage far off, restrained of their liberty, and barred from their ordinary 
associates ; solitariness is very irksome to such, most tedious, and a sudden 
cause of great inconvenience. 

Voluntary solitariness is that which is familiar with melancholy, and gently 
brings on like a syren, a shoeing-horn, or some sphinx to this irrevocable gulf, 
^ a primary cause, Piso calls it ; most pleasant it is at first, to such as are 
melancholy given, to lie in bed whole days, and keep their chambers, to walk 
alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook side, to 
meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect them 
most; amahilis insania, et mentis gratissimus error: a most incomparable 
delight it is so to melancholize, and build castles in the air, to go smiling to 
themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose and strongly 
imagine they represent, or that they see acted or done: JBlandcB quidem ab 
initio, saith Lemnius, to conceive and meditate of such pleasant things, some- 
times, " " present, past, or to come," as Khasis speaks. So delightsome these 
toys are at first, they could spend whole days and nights without sleep, even 
whole years alone in such contemplations, and fantastical meditations, which 
are like unto dreams, and they will hardly be drawn from them, or willingly 
interrupt, so pleasant their vain conceits are, that they hinder their ordinary 
tasks and necessary business, they cannot address themselves to them, or almost 
to any study or employment, these fantastical and bewitching thoughts so 
covertly, so feelingly, so urgently, so continually set upon, creep in, insinuate, 
possess, overcome, distract, and detain them, they cannot, I say, go about their 
more necessary business, stave off or extricate themselves, but are ever musing, 
melancholizing, and carried along, as he (they say) that is led round about a 
heath with a Puck in the night, they run earnestly on in this labyrinth of 
anxious and solicitous melancholy meditations, and cannot well or williugly 
refrain, or easily leave off, winding and unwinding themselves, as so many 
clocks, and still pleasing their hamours, until at last the scene is turned ujjon 
a sudden, by some bad object, and they being now habituated to such vain 
meditations and solitary places, can endure no company, can ruminate of 
nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, subrusticus 

\ A qnibus malum, velut h. primaria causa, occasionem nactum est. ™ Jucimda rermn prassentiam. 

pribteritarum, et futuraiaxm meditatio. 



162 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

pudor, discontent, cares, and weariness of life surprise them in a moment, and 
they can think of notliing else, continually suspecting, no sooner are their eyes 
open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies their 
souls, representing some dismal object to their minds, which now by no means, 
no labour, no persuasions the}^ can avoid, hceret lateri lethalis arundo (the arrow 
of death still remains in the side), they may not be ridof it, "they cannot resist. I 
may not deny but thatthereissomeprofitablemeditation,contemplation,andkind 
of solitariness to be embraced, which the fathers so highly commended, ° Hierom, 
Chrysostom, Cyprian, Austin, in whole tracts, which Petrarch, Erasmus, Stella, 
and others, so much magnify in their books ; a paradise, a heaven on earth, if it 
be used aright, good for the body, and better for'the soul : as many of those old 
monks used it, to divine contemj)lations, as Siraulus a courtier in Adrian's time, 
Dioclesian the em])eror, retired themselves, &c., in that sense, Vatia solus scit 
vivere, Vatia lives alone, which the Romans were wont to say, when they com- 
mended a country life. Or to the bettering of their knowledge, as Demoeritus, 
Cleanthus, and those excellent philosophers have ever done, to sequester them- 
selves from the tumultuous world, or as in Pliny's villa Laurentana, Tully's Tus- 
culan, Jovius' study, that they might better v a care stiidiis et Deo, serve God, and 
follow their studies. Methinks, therefore, our too zealous innovators were not 
so well advised in that general subversion of abbeys and religious houses, pro- 
miscuously to fling down all; they might have taken away those gross abuses 
crept in amongst them, rectified such inconveniences, and not so far to have 
raved and raged against those fiiir buildings, and everlasting monuments of our 
forefathers' devotion, consecrated to pious uses ; some monasteries and colle- 
giate cells might have been well spared, and their revenues otherwise employed, 
here and there one, in good towns or cities at least, for men and women of all 
sorts and conditions to live in, to sequester themselves from the cares and 
tumults of the world, that were not desirous, or fit to marry; or otherwise 
willing to be troubled with common affairs, and know not well where to bestow 
themselves, to live apart in, for more conveniency, good education, better com- 
pany sake, to follow their studies (I say), to the perfection of arts and sciences, 
common good, and as some truly devoted monks of old had done, freely and 
truly to serve God. Por these men are neither solitary, nor idle, as the poet 
made answer to the husbandman in ^Esop, that objected idleness to him; he 
was never so idle as in his company ; or that Scipio Africanus in ^Tully, Nun- 
quam minus solus, quain cum solus ; nunqicam Qninus otiosus, quam quum 
esset otiosus; never less solitary, than when he was alone, never more busy, 
than when he seemed to be most idle. It is reported by Plato in his dialogue 
de Amove, in that prodigious commendation of Socrates, how a deep meditation 
coming into Socrates' mind by chance, he stood still musing, eodem vestigia 
cogitahundus, from morning to noon, and when as then he had not yet finished 
his mQ,diih2(.tio\\, perstahat cogilans, he so continued till the evening, the soldiers 
(for he then follow^ed the camp) observed him with admiration, and on set 
purpose watched all night, but he persevered immoveable ad exortum solis, 
till the sun rose in the morning, and then saluting the sun, went his ways. In 
what humour constant Socrates did thus, I know not, or how he might be 
affected, but this would be pernicious to another man ; what intricate business 
might so really possess him, I cannot easily guess; but this is otiosum otium, 
it is far otherwise with these men, according to Seneca, Omnia nobis mala 
solitudo persuadet ; this solitude undoeth us, pugnat cum vita sociali ; 'tis a 
destructive solitariness. These men are devils alone, as the saying is. Homo 

" Facilis descensus ATerni : Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras, Hie labor, hoc opus est. 
Virg. oHieronimiis ep. 72. dixit oppida et urbes videri sibi tetros cavceres, solitadinem Paradisum : 

sol ;m scorpionibus iiifectum, sacco amictus, humi cubaus, aqua et berbis victitaus, Komanis prsetulit 
deliciis. POffic. 3. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 7.] Sleeping and Waking, Causes, 1G;T 

solus aut Deus, aut Dc&mon : a man alone, is either a saint or a devil, mens 
ejus aut languescit, aut tuviescit; and * F«? soli in this sense, woe be to him 
that is so alone. These wretches do frequently degenerate from men, and of 
sociable creatures become beasts, monsters, inhumane, ugly to behold, Misan- 
thropi ; they do even loathe themselves, and hate the company of men, as so 
many Timons, Nebuchadnezzars, by too much indulging to these pleasing 
humours, and through their own default. So that which Mercurialis, co?^s?.7. 1 1. 
sometimes expostulated with his melancholy patient, may be justly applied to 
every solitar}^ and idle person in particular. '^Natiira cle te videtur conqueri 
2)osse, &c, " Nature may justly complain of thee, that whereas she gave thee 
a good wholesome temperature, a sound body, and God hath given thee so 
divine and excellent a soul, so many good parts, and profitable gifts, thou hast 
not only contemned and rejected, but hast corrupted them, polluted them, over - 
thrown their temperature, and perverted those gifts with riot, idleness, solita- 
riness, and many other ways, thou art a traitor to God and nature, an enemy 
to thyself and to the world." Ferditio tua ex te; thou hast lost thyself wilfully, 
cast away thyself, "thou thyself art the efEcient cause of thine own misery, 
by not resisting such vain cogitations, but giving way unto them." 

SuBSECT. YII. — Sleeping and Waking, Causes. 

What I have formerly said of exercise, I may now repeat of sleep. Nothing 
better than moderate sleep, nothing worse than it, if it be in extremes, or un- 
seasonably used. It is a received opinion, that a melancholy man cannot sleep 
overmuch ; Somnus supra Tnodum prodest, as an only antidote, and nothing 
olTends them more, or causeth this malady sooner, than waking, yet in some 
cases sleep may do more harm than good, in that phlegmatic, swinish, cold, 
and sluggish melancholy which Melancthon speaks of, that thinks of waters, 
sighing most part, &c. "" It dulls the spirits, if overmuch, and senses j fills the 
head full of gross humours ; causeth. distillations, rheums, great store of excre- 
ments in the brain, and all the other parts, as ^Fuchsius speaks of them, that 
sleep like so many dormice. Or if it be used in the day-time, upon a ii\\\ 
stomach, the body ill-composed to rest, or after hard meats, it increaseth fearful 
dreams, incubus, night walking, crying out, and much unquietness; such sleep 
prepares the body, as *one observes, " to many perilous diseases." But, as I 
have said, waking overmuch, is both a symptom, and an ordinary cause. " It 
causeth dryness of the brain, frenzy, dotage, and makes the body dry, lean, 
hard, and ugly to behold," as "Lemnius hath it. " The temperature of the 
brain is corrupted by it, the humours adust, the eyes made to sink into the 
head, choler increased, and the whole body inflamed :" and, as may be added 
out of Galen 3. de sanitate tuendd, Avicenna 3. 1. " ''It overthrows the 
natural heat, it causeth crudities, harts concoction," and what not ? Not with- 
out good cause therefore Crato consil. 21, lib. 2 ; Hildesheim, spicel. 2, de Delir. 
et Mania, Jacchinus, Arculanus on Rhasis, Guianerius and Mercurialis, reckon 
lip this overmuch waking as a principal cause. 

* Eccl. 4. iXatiira de te videtur conqueri posse, quod cum ab ea teinperatissimum corpus adeptus 

sis, tarn prseclarum a Deo ac utile donum, non contempsisti modo, verum corrupisti, sedasti, prodidisti, 
optiinam temperaturam otio, crapula, et aliis vitaj erroribus, &c. 'Path. lib. cap. 17. Kernel, corpus 

infiigidat, omnes sensus, mentisque vires torpore debilitat. ^Lib. 2. sect. 2. cap. 4. Magnam excremen- 
toruiii vim cerebro et aliis partibus conservat. 'Jo. Katzius lib. de rebus 6 non naturalibus. Prteparat 
corpus talis somnus ad niultas periculosas £egritudines. " Instit. ad vitam optimam cap. 26. cerebro 

siccitatem adfert, phrenesin et delirium, corpus aridum facit, squalidum, strigosum, humores adurit, tempe- 
ramentum cerebri corrumpit, maciem inducit : exsiccat corpus, bilem accendit, profundos reddit oculos, 
calorem auget. ^Naturalem calorem dissipat, Isesa concoctione cruditates facit. Attenuant juvenuni 

vigilat£e corpora noctes. 



164 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

MEMB. III. 

SuBSECT. I. — Passions and Perf,whations of the Mind, hotv they cause 

Melancholy. 
As that gymnosopliist in ''Phitarcli made answer to Alexander (demanding 
which spake best), Every one of his fellows did speak better than the other : 
so I may say of these causes ; to him that shall require which is the greatest, 
every one is more grievous than other, and this of passion tbe greatest of all. 
A most frequent and ordinary cause of melancholy, "^fublmen perturbationu'/n 
(Piccolomineus calls it) this thunder and lightning of perturbation, which 
causeth such violent and speedy alterations in this our microcosm, and many 
times subverts the good estate and temperature of it. For as the body works 
upon the mind by his badhumours,troubliugthe spirits, sending gross fumes into 
the brain, and so^er conseqiiens disturbing the soul, and all the faculties of it, 

■ Corpus onustmn, 



Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prssgravat una." 

with fear, sorrow, (fee, which are ordinary symptoms of this disease : so on the 
other side, the mind most effectually works upon the body, producing by his 
passions and perturbations miraculous alterations, as melancholy, despair, cruel 
diseases, and sometimes death itself. Insomuch that it is most true which 
Plato saith in his Charmides, omnia corporis mala ah anima procedere ; all the 
"mischiefs of the body proceed from the soul : and Democritus in ^Plutarch 
iirgeth, Damnatum iri animam a corpore, if the body should in this behalf bring 
an action against the soid, surely the soul would be cast and convicted, that by 
her supine negligence had caused such inconveniences, having authority over 
the body, and using it for an instrument, as a smith does his hammer (saith 
•"Cyprian), imputing all those vices and maladies to the mind. Even so do 
''Philostratus, non coinquinatv/r co^yus, nisi consensu animce ; the body is not 
corrupted, but by the soul. Lodovicus Yives will have such turbulent commo- 
tions proceed from ignorance and indiscretion.^ All philosophers impute the 
miseries of the body to the soul, that should have governed it better, by com- 
mand of reason, and hath not done it. The Stoics are altogether of opinion 
(as *"Lipsius and ^Piccolomineus record), that a wise man should be ^-^clBHc, with- 
out all manner of passions and perturbations whatsoever, as ^Seneca reports of 
Cato, the 'Greeks of Socrates, and ^lo. Aubanus of a nation in Africa, so free from 
passion, or rather so stupid, that if they be wounded with a sword, they will only 
look back. ^Lactantius 2 instit. will exclude "fear from a wise man :" others 
except all, some the greatest passions. But let them dispute how they will, set 
down in Thesi, give precepts to the contrary; we find that of '"Lemnius true 
by common experience ; " No mortal man is free from these perturbations : 
or if he be so, sure he is either a god, or a block." They are born and bred 
with us, we have them from our parents by inheritance. A parentihus habemus 
malum hunc assem, saith '^'F oiezm^, Nascitur una nobiscum, aliturque, 'tis pro- 
pagated from Adam, Cain was melancholy, fas Austin hath it, and who is not? 
Good discipline, education, philosophy, divinity (I cannot deny), may mitigate 
and restrain these passions in some few men at some times, but most part they 
domineer, and are so violent, ''that as a torrent {torrens velut aggere rupto) bears 
down all before, and overflows his \>di-nk^,sternit agros,sternit sato, (lays waste the 

yVita Alexan. == GracT. 1. c. 14. * Hor. " The body oppressed by yesterday's vices weigbs down 

the spirit also." » Perturbationes clavi sunt, quibus corpori animus seu patibulo affigitur. Jamb, de 

mist. bLiij. de sanitat. -tuend. <= Prolog, de virtute Christi; Quos utitur corpore, ut faber malice. 

<» Vita Apollonij lib. 1. ^ Lib. de anim. ab inconsiderantia, et ignorantia omnes animi motas. ^Dc 

I'liysiol. Stoic. sGrad. 1. c. 32. '' Kpist. 104. i/Elianus. ''Lib. 1. cap. 6. si quis ense percusserit 
cos, tantum respiciunt. ^ Terror in sapiente esse non debet. ^ De occult, nat. mir. 1. 1. c. 16. Nemo 

nioitalium qui affectibus non ducatur : qui non movetur, aut saxum, aut deus est. ° Instit. 1. 2. de 

bumanorum affect, morborumque curat. t Epist. 105. oGranatensis. 



Mem. 3. Sabs. 1.] Perturhations of the Mind. IGj 

fields, prostrates the crops), tliey overwhelm reason, jud gin ent, and pervert the 
temperature of the body ; Fertur ^ equts auriga, nee audit currus habenas. Now 
such a man (saith^ Austin) "that is so led, in a wise man's eye, is no better 
than he that stands upon his head." It is doubted by some, Gravioresne morbi 
a perturhationihus, an ab humoribus, whether humours or perturbations cause 
the more grievous maladies. But we find that of our Saviour, Mat. xxvi. 
41, most true, "The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak," we cannot resist; 
and this of "Philo Judseus, " Perturbations often ofiend the body, and are most 
frequent causes of melancholy, turning it out of the hinges of his health." 
Vives compares them to "^ Winds upon the sea, some only move as those 
great gales, but others turbulent quite overturn the ship." Those which are 
light, easy, and more seldom, to our thinking, do us little harm, and are 
therefore contemned of us : yet if they be reiterated, "*as the rain (saith 
Austin) doth a stone, so do these perturbations penetrate the mind :" "and 
(as one observes) " produce a habit of melancholy at the last, which having 
gotten the mastery in our souls, may well be called diseases." 

How these passions produce this efl'ect, ^Agrippa hath handled at large, 
Occult. Philos. I. 11. c. 63. Gcirdan, I. 14; subtil. Lemnius, I. l,c. 12, de occult. 
nat. mir. etlib. 1. caj). l6. Suarez, Met. disput. 18. sect. 1, art. 25. T. Bright, 
cap. 12. of his Melancholy Treatise, Wright the Jesuit in his book of the 
Passions of the Mind, &c. Thus in brief, to our imagination cometh by the 
outward sense or memory, some object to be known (residing in the foremost 
part of the brain), which he misconceiving or amplifying presently communi- 
cates to the heart, the seat of all affections. The pure spirits forthwith flock 
from the brain to the heart, by certain secret channels, and signify what good 
or bad object was presented / which immediately bends itself to prosecute, or 
avoid it; and withal, draweth with it other humours to help it : so in pleasure, 
concur great store of purer spirits; in sadness, much melancholy blood ; in ire, 
choler. If the imagination be very apprehensive, intent, and violent, it sends 
great store of spirits to, or from the heart, and makes a deeper impression, and 
greater tumult, as the humours in the body be likewise prepared, and the tem- 
perature itself ill or well disposed, the passions are longer and stronger ; so 
that the first step and fountain of all our grievances in this kind, is ^ Imsa 
imaginatio, which misinforming the heart, causeth all these distemperatures, 
alteration, and confusion of spirits and humours. By means of which, so dis- 
turbed, concoction is hindered, and the principal parts are much debilitated ; 
as^'Dr. jS'avarrawell declared, being consulted by Montanus about a melancholy 
Jew. The spirits so confounded, the nourishment must needs be abated, bad 
humours increased, crudities and thick spirits engendered with melancholy 
blood. The other parts cannot perform their functions, having the spirits drawn, 
from them by vehement passion, but fail in sense and motion ; so we look upon 
a thing, and see it not ; hear, and observe not; which otherwise would much 
affect us, had we been free. I may therefore conclude with^Arnoldus, Maxi- 
ma vis est p)hantasice, et huic unifere, non autem corporis int&mperiei, omnis 
mdanclhvlicB causa est ascribenda : " Great is the force of imagination, and 
much more ought the cause of melancholy to be ascribed to this alone, than to 

P Virg. QDe civit. Dei, 1. 14. c. 9. qualis in ocnlis hominnm qni inversis pedibus ambulat, talis, in 

oculis sapientum, cui passiones dominantur. rLib. de Decal. passioiies iiiaxirae corpus offendunt 

et animam, et frequentissimfie causae melancholias, dimoventes ab ingenio et sanitate pristina. 1. 3. de 
anima. « Frtena et stimuli animi, vekit in mari qua>dam ani-x. leves, qutBdam placid*;, qiutdara turbu- 

Icntaj : sic in corpore quaedam alfectiones excitant tantum, quasdam ita movent ut de statu judicii depellant. 
t Vt gutta lapidem, sic paulatim hte penetrant animum. " Usu valentes recte morbi animi vocantur. 

X Imaginatio movet corpus, ad c jus motum excitantur humores, et spiritus vitales, quibus alteratur. 
y Eccles. xiii. 26. " The heart alters the countenance to good or evil, and distraction of the mind causeth 
flistemperature of the body." « Spiritus et sang'ds a la^sa imaginatione contarainantur, humores enira 
mutati actiones animi immiitant, Piso. "Montani, consil. 22. Hre vero quomodo causent melancholiam, 
claram; et quod concoctionem impediant, et membra principalla debilitent. ^ Breviar. 1. 1. cap. 1& 



166 Causes of Melanclioly. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

the distemperature of the body." Of which imagination, because it hath so 
great a stroke in producing this malady, and is so powerful of itself, it will not 
be improper to my discourse, to make a brief digression, and speak of the force 
of it, and how it causeth this alteration. Which manner of digression howso- 
ever some dislike, as frivolous and impertinent, yet I am of * Beroaldus's opi- 
nion, " Such digressions do mightily delight and refresh a weary reader, they 
are like sauce to a bad stomach, and I do therefore most willingly use them." 

SuBSECT. II. — Of tlie force of Imagination. 

What imagination is, I have sufficiently declared in my digression of the 
anatomy of the soul, I will only now point at the wonderful effects and power 
of it j which, as it is eminent in all, so most especially it rageth in melancholr 
persons, in keeping the species of objects so long, mistaking, amplifying them 
by continual and "^ strong meditation, until at length it produceth in some 
parties real effects, causeth this and many other maladies. And although this 
fantasy of ours'be a subordinate faculty to reason, and should be ruled by it, 
yet in many men, through inward or outward distemperatures, defect of organs, 
which are unapt, or otherwise contaminated, it is likewise unapt, or hindered, 
and hurt. This we see verified in sleepers, which by reason of humours and 
concourse of vapours troubling the fantasy, imagine many times absurd and 
prodigious things, and in such as are troubled with incubus, or witch-ridden 
(as we call it), if they lie on their backs, they suppose an old woman rides, and 
sits so hard upon them, that they are almost stifled for want of breath; when 
there is nothing offends, but a concourse of bad humours, which trouble the fan- 
tasy. This is likewise evident in such as walk in the night in their sleep, and 
do strange feats: '^ these vapours move the fantasy, the fantasy the appetite, 
which moving the animal spirits causeth the body to walk up and down as if 
they were awake. Fracast. I. 3. de intellect, refers all ecstasies to this force of 
imagination such as lie whole days together in a trance : as that priest whom 
*CeLsus speaks of, that could separate himself from his senses when he list, 
and lie like a dead man, void of life and sense. Cardan brags of himself, that 
he could do as much, and that when he list. Many times such men when they 
come to themselves, tell strange things of heaven and hell, what visions they 
have seen; as that St. Owen, in Matthew Paris, that went into St. Patrick's 
purgatory, and the monk of Evesham in the same author. Those common 
apparitions in Bede and Gregory, Saint Bridget's revelations, Wier. I. 3. de 
lamiis, c. 11. Caesar Vanninus, in his Dialogues, &c. reduceth (as I have 
formerly said), with all those tales of witches' progresses, dancing, riding, 
transformations, operations, &c. to the force of ^imagination, and the ^devil's 
illusions. The like effects almost are to be seen in such as are awake : how 
many chimeras, antics, golden mountains and castles in the air do they build 
unto themselves? I appeal to painters, mechanicians, mathematicians. Some 
ascribe all vices to a false and corrupt imagination, anger, revenge, lust, am- 
bition, covetousness, which prefers falsehood before that which is right and 
good, deluding the soul with false shows and suppositions. ^Bernardus 
Penottus will have heresy and superstition to proceed from this fountain; as he 
falsely imagineth, so he belie veth ; and as he conceiveth of it, so it must be, 

* Solent hujusmodi egressiones favorabiliter oWectare, et lectorem lassum jucunde refovere, stomachumque 
nauseantem, quodam quasi condimento reficere, et ego libenter excurro. sAbimaginatione oii;,iitiir 

atfectiones, quibus anima componitur, aut turbata detarbatur, Jo. Sarisbnr. Matolog. lib. i. c. 10. ^ Scalig. 
exercit. • Qui quoties volebat, niortuo similis jacebat auferens se a seiisibus, et quum pungeretur dolorem 
nou sensit. ^Idem Nymannus orat. de Imaginat. g Verbis et unctionibus se consecrant daiinoni 

pessimai mulieres, qui iis ad opus suum utitur, et earum phantasiam regit, ducirque ad loca ab ipsis (icsi- 
derata, corpora rero earum sine sensu permanent, quaj umbra cooperit diabolus, ut nulli sint couspicua, et 
^>ost, umbra sublata, propriis corporibus eas restituit. 1. 3. c. 11. Wier. ^ Dcnario medico. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 2. OfikeForceoflmaginalion. 167 

and it shall be, contra gentes, he will have it so. But most especially in passions 
and aflfections, it shows strange and evident effects: what will not a fearful 
man conceive in the dark'? What strange forms of bugbears, devils, witches, 
goblins'? Lavater imputes the greatest cause of spectrum s, and the like appa- 
ritions, to fear, which above all other passions begets \hQ strongest imagination 
(saith ^Wierus), and so likev/ise, love, sorrow, joy, &c. Some die suddeiily, as 
she that saw her son come from the battle at Cannae, &c. Jacob the patriarch, 
by force of imagination, made speckled lambs, laying speckled rods before his 
sheep. Persina that Ethiopian queen in Heliodorus, by seeing the picture of 
Perseus and Andromeda, instead of a blackamoor, was brought to bed of a fair 
white child. In imitation of whom belike, a hard-favoured fellow in Greece, 
because he and his wife were both deformed, to get a good brood of children, 
Eleyantissimas imayines in thalamo collocavit, t&c, hung the fairest pictures he 
could buy for money in his chamber, '•' That his wife by frequent sight of them, 
might conceive and bear such children." And if we may believe Bale, one of 
Pope Nicholas the Third's concubines by seeing of "^ a bear was brought to bed 
of a monster. " If a woman (saith ^ Lemnius), at the time of her conception 
think of another man present or absent, the child will be like him." Great- 
bellied women, when they long, yield us prodigious examples in this kind, as 
moles, warts, scars, harelips, monsters, especially caused in their children by 
force of a depraved fantasy in them : Ii^sam si^eciem quam animo effigiat, 
f'xtui inducit : She imprints that stamp upon her child which she °^ conceives 
unto herself. And therefore Lodovicus Yives, lib. 2. de Christ, fcem. gives a 
special caution to great -bellied women, ""That they do not admit such absurd 
conceits and cogitations, but by all means avoid those horrible objects, heard 
or seen, or filthy spectacles." Some will laugh, v/eep, sigh, groan, blush, 
tremble, sweat, at such things as are suggested unto them by their imagination. 
Avicenna speaks of one that could cast himself into a palsy when he list ; and 
some can imitate the tunes of l)irds and beasts that they can hardly be dis- 
cerned : Dagebertus' and Saint Francis' scars and wounds, like those of 
Christ's (if at the least any such were), " Agrippa supposeth to have happened 
by force of imagination : that some are turned to wolves, from men to vfomen, 
and women again to men (which is constantly believed) to the same im.agina- 
tion; or from men to asses, dogs, or any other shapes. ^IVierus ascribes all those 
famous transformations to imagination ; that in hydrophobia they seem to see 
the picture of a dog, still in their water, "^ that melancholy men and sick men. 
conceive so many fantastical visions, apparitions to themselves, and have such 
absurd apparitions, as that they are kings, lords, cocks, bears, apes, owls; that 
they are heavy, light, transparent, great and little, senseless and dead (as 
shall be showed more at large, in our '"' sections of symptoms), can be imputed 
to nought else, but to a corrupt, Mse, and AT.olent imagination. It works 
not in sick and melancholy men only, but even most forcibly sometimes in 
such as are sound : it makes them suddenly sick, and "" alters their temper- 
ature in an instant. And sometimes a strong conceit or apprehension, as 
* Yalesius proves, will take av/ay diseases : in both kinds it will produce real 
effects. Men, if they see but another man tremble, giddy or sick of some 
fearful disease, their apprehension and fear is so strong in this kind, that they 

^Solet tirnor, pr^ omnibus affectrous, fortes imagiaationes gignere, post, amor, &c. 1. 3. c 8. '^ Ex viso 
urso, talem peperit. ^Lib. 1. cap. 4. de occult, uat. mir. si inter amplexus et suavia cogitet de uno, aufc 
alio absente, ejus effigies solet in foetu elucere. "' Quid non foetui adhuc matri unito, subita spirituuni 

vibratione per nervos, quibus matrix cerebro conjuncta est, imprimit impregnatte imaginatio? lit si ima- 
ginetur malum granatu-.n, illius notus secum prol'eret fcetns : Si leporem, infans editur supremo labello 
bifido, et dissecto : Vehemens cogitatio movet reriim species. Wier. lib. 3. cap. 8. " Ne dum uterum 

gestent, adiuittant absm-das cogitationes, sed et visu, auditUL;j:e fteda et horrenda devitent. <> Occult. 

Philos. lib. 1. cap. 64. FLib. 3. de Lamiis, cap. 10. qAgrippa, lib. 1. cap. 61. * Sect. 3. memb. I. 
subsect. 3. ""Malleus malefic, fol. 77. corpus mutari potest in diversas ^egritudines, ex foiti apprehea- 

Rione. *l'r. Vales. 1. 5. cont. 6. noiiuunciuam etiam morbi diutiu'iii consequuutur, quandoque cui-antur. 



168 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

■will have the same disease. Or if by some soothsayer, wiseman, fortime-teller, 
or physician, they be told they shall have such a disease, they will so seriously 
api)rehend it, that they will instantly labour of it. A thing familiar in China 
(saith Ricckis the Jesuit), " * If it be told them they shall be sick on such a 
day, when that day comes they will surely be sick, and will be so terribly 
afflicted, that sometimes they die upon it." Dr. Cotta in his discovery of ig- 
norant practitioners of physic, cap. 8. hath two strange stories to this purpose, 
what fancy is able to do. The one of a parson's wife in Northamptonshire, 
An. 1607, that coming to a physician, and told by him that she was troubled 
with the sciatica, as he conjectured (a disease she was free from), the same 
night after her return, upon his words, fell into a grievous fit of a sciatica : 
and such another example he hath of another good wife, that was so troubled 
with the cramp, after the same manner she came by it, because her physician 
did but name it. Sometimes death itself is caused by force of fantasy. I 
have heard of one that coming by chance in company of him that was thought 
to be sick of the plague (which was not so) fell down suddenly dead. An- 
other was sick of the plague with conceit. One seeing his fellow let blood 
falls down in a swoon. Another (saith " Cardan out of Aristotle), fell down 
dead (which is familiar to women at any ghastly sight), seeing but a man 
hanged. A Jew in France (saith ^ Lodovicus Vives), came by chance over a 
dangerous passage or plank, that lay over a brook in the dark, without harm, 
the next day perceiving what danger he was in, fell down dead. Many will 
not believe such stories to be true, but laugh commonly, and deride when 
they hear of them; but let these men consider with themselves, as ^Peter 
Byarus illustrates it. If they were set to walk upon a plank on high, they 
would be giddy, upon, which they dare securely walk upon the ground. Many 
(saith Agrippa), ^"strong-hearted men otherwise, tremble at such sights, 
dazzle, and are sick, if they look but down from a high place, and what 
moves them but conceit?" As some are so molested by fantasy; so some 
again, by fancy alone, and a good conceit, are as easily recovered. We see 
commonly the tooth-ache, gout, falling-sickness, biting of a mad dog, and 
many such maladies, cured by spells, words, characters, and charms, and many 
green wounds by that now so much used Unguentum Armarium, magnetically 
cured, which Crollius and Goclenius in a book of late hath defended, Libavius 
in a just tract as stiffly contradicts, and most men controvert. All the world 
knows there is no virtue in such charms or cures, but a strong conceit and 
opinion alone, as ^ Pomponatius holds, " which forceth a motion of the 
humours, spirits, and blood, which takes away the cause of the malady from 
the parts affected." The like we may say of our magical effects, superstitious 
cures, and such as are done by momitebanks and wizards. " As by wicked 
incredulity many men are hurt (so saith "^Wierus of charms, spells, &c.), we 
find in our experience, by the same means many are relieved." An empiric 
oftentimes, and a silly chirurgeon, doth more strange cures than a rational 
physician. Nymannus gives a reason, because the patient puts his confidence 
in him, ^ which Avicenna " prefers before art, precepts, and all remedies what- 
soever." 'Tis opinion alone (saith ''Cardan), that makes or mars physicians, 
and he doth the best cures, according to Hippocrates, in whom most trust. So 

t Expeclit. in Sinas, 1 . 1 . c. 9. tantum porro multi prrcdictoribus hisce tribuunt ut ipse metus fidem faciat : 
nam si praedictum iis fuerit tali die eos morbo corripiendos, ii, ubi dies advenerit, in morbum incidunt, et vi 
metQs afflicti, cum sgritudine, aliquando etiam cum morte colluctantur. " Subtil. 18. ^ lib. 3. de anima, 
cap. de mel. y Lib. de Peste. ^ Lib. 1. cap. 63. Ex alto despicientes aliqui prse timore contremiscunt, 
caligant, infirmantur; sic singultus, febres, morbi comitiales quandoque sequuntur, quandoque recedunt. 
»Lib. de Incantatione. Imaginatio subitum liumorum et spirituum motum infert, unde vario affectu rapi- 
tur sanguis, ac una morbiflcas causas partibus affectis eripit. * Lib. 3. c. 18. de prtestig. Ut impia 

credulitate quis Iseditur, sic et levari eundem ci-edibile est, usuque observatum. ^ Mgv'i persuasio et 

liducia, omni arti et consilio et medicinae prseferenda. Avlcen. cpiurgg sanat in quern plux'es confidunt. 
lib. de sapientia. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 3.] Division of Perturbations. 1G9 

diversely doth tliis mntasy of ours affect, turn, and wind, so imperiously com- 
mand our bodies, which as another "^Proteus, or a chameleon, can take all 
shapes ; and is of such force (as Ficinus adds), that it can work upon others, 
as well as ourselves." How can otherwise blear eyes in one man cause the 
like aifection in another? Why doth one mans yawning ^make anotlier 
yawn 1 One man's pissing provoke a second many times to do the like 1 Why 
doth scraping of trenchers offend a third, or hacking of files'? Why doth a 
carcass bleed when the murderer is brought before it, some weeks after the 
murder hath been done ? Why do witches and old women fascinate and 
bewitch children : but as Wierus, Paracelsus, Cardan, Mizaldus, Valleriola, 
Coesar Vanninus, Campanella, and many philosophers think, the forcible ima- 
gination of the one party moves and alters the spirits of the other. Nay more, 
they can cause and cure not only diseases, maladies and several infirmities, 
by this means, as Avicenna de anim. I. 4. sect. 4. supposeth in parties remote, 
but move bodies from their places, cause thunder, lightning, tempests, which 
■opinion Alkindus, Paracelsus, and some others, approve of. So that I may 
certainly conclude this strong conceit or imagination is astrum hominis^ and 
the rudder of this our ship, which reason should steer, but overborne by fimtasy 
cannot manage, and so suffers itself and this whole vessel of ours to be over- 
ruled, and often overturned. Read more of this in Wierus, I. 3. de LamiiSf 
c. 8, 9, 10. Franciscus, Valesius med. controv. I. 5. cont. 6. Marcellus Dona- 
tus, I. 2. c. 1. de hist. med. mirahil. Levinus Lemnius, de occidt. nat. lair. I. 1. 
c. 12. Cardan, I. 18. de rerum var. Com. Agri})pa, de occult, 'philos. caj?. 64, 
Q5. Camerarius, 1 cent. cap. 54. horarum subcis. ISTymannus, Qiiorat de 
I'Diag. Laurentius, and him that is instar omnium, Fienus, a famous physician 
of Antwerp that wrote three books de viribus imaginationis. I have thus far 
digressed, because this imagination is the medium deferens of passions, by 
whose means they work and produce many times prodigious eflieots : and as 
the fantasy is more or less intended or remitted, and their humours disposed, 
so do perturbations move, more or less, and take deeper impression. 

SuBSECT. III. — Division of Perturhations. 

Perturbations and passions, which trouble the fantasy, though they 
dwell between the confines of sense and reason, yet they rather follow sense 
than reason, because they are drowned in corporeal organs of sense. They are 
commonly ^reduced into two inclinations, irascible and concupiscible. The 
Thomists subdivide them into eleven, six in the coveting, and five in. the in- 
vading, Aristotle reduceth all to pleasure and pain, Plato to love and hatredj- 
e Vives to good and bad. If good, it is present, and then we absolutely joy 
and love; or to come, and then we desire and hope for it. If evil, we abso- 
lutely hate it; if present, it is sorrow; if to come, fear. These four passions 
'^ Bernard compares " to the wheels of a chariot, by which we are carried in 
this world." All other passions are subordinate unto these four, or six, as 
some will : love, joy, desire, hatred, sorrow, fear ; the rest, as anger, envy, 
emulation, pride, jealousy, anxiety, mercy, shame, discontent, despair, ambi- 
tion, avarice, &c., are reducible unto the first; and if they be immoderate, 
they ^consume the spirits, and melancholy is especially caused by them. Some 
few discreet men there are, that can govern themselves, and curb in these 
inordinate affections, by religion, philosophy, and such divine precepts, of 
meekness, patience, and the like; but most part for want of government, out 
of indiscretion, ignorance, they suffer themselves wholly to be led by sense, 

^Marcilius Ficinus 1. 13, c 18. de theolog. Platonica. Imaginatio est tanqnam Proteus vel Cham.Tleon, 
corpus propriura et alienum iionnimquam afficiens. « Cur oscitantes oscitent, Wierus. f T. W. Jcsnlr. 
g 3. de Anima. h Ser. 35. H* quatuor passiones sunt tanquam rot* in curru, quibus vehimur lioc mundo. 
'Harum quippe immoderalione, spii'ltus marcescunt. Fei'uel. 1.1. Path. c. 18. 



170 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

and are so far from repressing rebellious inclinations^ that tliey give all en- 
couragement unto tliem, leaving the reins, and using all provocations to far- 
ther them : bad by nature, worse by art, discipline, ^ custom, education, and 
a perverse will of their own, they follow on, wheresoever their unbridled affec- 
tions will transport thesn, and do more out of custom, self-will, than out of 
reason. Gontumax voluntas, as Melancthon calls it, Tnalumfacit : this stub- 
born will of ours perverts judgment, which sees and knows what should and 
ought to be done, and yet will not do it. Mancijjia gulce, slaves to their se- 
veral lusts and appetite, they precipitate and plunge Hhemselves into a laby- 
rinth of cares blinded with lust, blinded with ambition ; " ™ They seek that 
at God's hands which they may give unto themselves, if they could but re- 
frain from those cares and perturbations, wherewith they continually macerate 
their minds." But giving way to these violent passions of fear, grief, shame, 
revenge, hatred, malice, &c., they are torn in pieces, as Actseon was with his 
dogs, and " crucify their own souls. 

SuBSECT. lY. — SorroiD a cause of Melancholy. 

Sorrow. Insanns clolor^ In this catalogue of passions, which so much 
torment the soul of man, and cause this malady (for I will briefly speak of 
them all, and in their order), the first place in this irascible appetite, may 
justly be challenged by sorrow. An inseparable companion, " ° The mother 
and daughter of melancholy, her epitome, symptom, and chief cause :" as 
Hippocrates hath it, they beget one another, and tread in a ring, for sorrow is 
both cause and symptom of this disease. How it is a symptom shall be shown 
in its place. That it is a cause all the world acknowledgeth. Dolor nonnullus 
insanice causa fuit, et aliormn riiorhorum insanahilium, saith Plutarch to 
Apollonius; a cause of madness, a cause of many other diseases, a sole cause 
of this mischief, ^Lemnius calls it. So doth Khasis, cont. I. 1. tract. 9. 
Guianerius, Tract. 15, c. 5. And if it take root once, it ends in despair, as 
^ Felix Plater observes, and as in "" Cebes' table may well be coupled with it. 
* Chrysostom in his seventeenth epistle to Olympia, describes it to be a cruel 
torture of the soul, a most inexplicable grief, poisoned worm, consuming body 
and soul, and gnawing the very heart, a perpetual executioner, continual night, 
profound darkness, a whirlwind, a tempest, an ague not appearing, heating 
worse than any fire, and a battle that hath no end. It crucifies worse than 
any tyrant ; no torture, no strappado, no bodily punishment is like unto it. 
'Tis the eagle without question which the poets feigned to gnaw* Prometheus 
heart, and " no heaviness is like unto the heaviness of the heart," Eccles. xxv. 
15, 16. "" Every perturbation is a misery, but grief a cruel torment," a 
domineering passion : as in old Home, when the Dictator was created, all infe- 
rior magistracies ceased ; when grief appears, all other passions vanish. " It 
driesujDthe bones," saith Solomon, ch. IT.Prov., "makes them hollow-eyed, pale, 
and lean, furrow-iaced, to have dead looks, wrinkled brows, shrivelled cheeks, 

k Mala consuetndine depravatur ingenium ne bene faciat. Prosper Caleims, 1. de atru bile. Thira facinnt 
homines e consuetudine, qiiam e ratione. A teneris assuescere multum est. Video meliora probpque, de- 
teriora sequor. Ovid. i Kemo la;ditur nisi a seipso. "' Multi se in inquietudinem proecipitant ambitione 
et cnpiditatibus excfecati, non intelliaunt se illud a diis petere, quod sibi ipsis si velint pra-stare possint, si 
curis et perturbationibus, qnibus assidue se macerant, Imperare vellent. " Tanto studio miseriarum causas, 
et alimenta dolorum qua^rimus, vitamque secus felicissimam, tristem et niiserabilem efScimus. Petrarch, 
prajfat. de Remediis, &c. <> Timor et moestitia, si diu perseverent, causa et soboles atri humoris sunt, et in 
circulum se procreant. Hip. Aphoris. 23. 1. 6. Idem Montaltus cap. 19. Victorius Faventinus pract. 
imag. p Multi ex moerore et metu hue delapsi sunt. Lemn. lib. 1. cap. 16. i Multa cura et tristitia faciunt 
accedere melancholiam (cap. 3. de mentis alien.) si altas radices agat, in veram fixamque degeneratme- 
lancholiam et in desperationem desinit. ' Hie luctus, ejus verb soror desperatio simul ponitur. « Anima- 
rum crudele tormentum, dolor inexplicabilis, tinea, non solum ossased cordapertingens, perpetuus carnifex, 
vires animae consumens, jugis nox, et tenebrte profundcT, tempestas et turbo et febris non apparens, omni 

igne validius incendens; longior, et pugnse finem non habens crucem circumfert dolor, facienique omni 

tyranno crudeliorem prse se fert. 'Kat, Comes Mythol. 1. 4. c. 6. " Tally 3. Tusc. omuis perturbatio 
miseria et carnificina est dolor. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 5.] Fear, a Cause. 171 

dry bodies, and quite perverts their temperature tliat are misaffected with it. 
As EleoTiora, that exiled mournful duchess (in our ^English Ovid), laments 
to her noble husband Humphrey, duke of Glocester, 

" Sawest thou those eyes in whose sweet cheerful look 
Duke Kumphry once such joy and pleasure took, 
Sorrow hath so despoil'd me of all grace, 
Thou could"st not say this was my Elnors face. 
Like a foul Gorgon," &c. 

" y it hinders concoction, refrigerates the heart, takes away stomach, colour, 
and sleep, thickens the blood (^ Feruelius I. 1. cap. 18, de morb. causis), con- 
taminates the spirits." (^ Piso.) Overthrows the natural heat, perverts the 
good estate of body and mind, and makes them weary of their lives, cry out, 
howl and roar for very anguish of their souls. David confessed as much, 
Psalm xxxviii. 8, '•' I have roared for the very disquietness of my heart." 
And Psalm cxix. 4 part, 4 v. "My soul melteth away for very heaviness," v. 83, 
" I am like a bottle in the smoke." Antiochus complained that he could not 
sleep, and that his heart fainted for grief, ''Christ himself, Vir dolorum, out of 
an apprehension of grief, did sweat blood, Mark xiv. "His soul was heavy to the 
death, and no sorrow was like unto his." Crato consil. 21, 1. 2, gives instance in 
one that was so melancholy by reason of ° grief; and Montanus consil. 30, in a 
noble matron, "^ that had no other cause of this mischief." I. S. D. in Hildes- 
heim, fully cured a patient of his that was much troubled with melancholy, and 
for many years, "*but afterwards, by a little occasion of sorrow, he fell into his 
former fits, and was tormented as before." Examples are common, how it 
causeth melancholy, 'desperation, and sometimes death itself; for (Eccles. 
xxxviii. 15), " Of heaviness comes death ; worldly sorrow causeth death." 
2 Cor. vii. 10, Psalm xxxi. 10. " My life is wasted with heaviness, and my 
years with mourning." Why was Hecuba said to be turned to a dog? Niobe 
into a stone? but that for grief she was senseless and stupid. Severus the 
Emperor ^ died for grief; and how ^ many myriads besides? Tanta illi est 
feritas, tanta est insania luctus. ' Melancthon gives a reason of it, " ^ the 
gathering of much melancholy blood about the heart, which collection extin- 
guisheth the good spirits, or at least duUeth them, sorrow strikes the heart, makes 
it tremble and pine away, with great pain ; and the black blood drawn from 
the spleen, and diffasedunder the ribs, on the left side, makes those perilous hypo- 
chondriacal convulsions, which happen to them that are troubled with sorrow." 

SuBSECT. Y. — Fear, a Cause. 

Cousin- GERMAN to sorrow, is fear, or rather a sister, ^Jw5 Achates, and con- 
tinual companion, an assistant and a principal agent in j)rocuring of this mis- 
chief; a cause and symptom as the other. In a word, as ^ Vii'gil of the 
Harpies, I may justly say of them both, 

** Tristius haud illis monstrum, nee SKvior ulla I " A sadder monster, or more cniel plague so fell, 
Pestis et ira Deum stygiis sese extulit undis." | Or vengeance of the gods, ne'er came from Styx or Hell." 

This foul fiend of fear was worshipped heretofore as a god by the Lace- 

^ 51. Drayton in his Her. ep. ' Crato consil. 21. lib. 2. moestitia nniversum infrigidat coi-pus, calorem 
innatum extinguit, appetitum dcstruit. ^Cor refrigerat tristitia, spiritus exsiccat, innatumque calorera 

obruit, vigilias inducit, concoctionera lahefactat, sauguinem incrassat, exaggeratque melancholicum succum. 
» Spiritus et sanguis hoc contaminatur. Piso. ^ iijarc. vi. 16. ll. « !Mcerore maceror, marcesco et 

conscnesco miser, ossa atque pellis sum misera macritudine. Plaut. ^ Malum inceptum et actum a 

tristitia sola. « Hildesheim, spicel. 2. de melancholia, moerore animi postea accedente, in priora symp- 

tomata incidit. f Vives 3. de anima, c. de moeiore. Sabin. in Ovid. s Herodian. 1. 3. moerore magis 

quam morbo consumptus est. ^ Bothwellius atrihilarius obiit. Brizarrus Genuensis hist. &c. ' So 

great is the fierceness and madness of melancholy. ^ Moestitia cor quasi percussum constringitur, tremit 
et languescit cum acri sensu doloris. In tristitia cor fugiens attrahit ex Splene lentum humorem mclan- 
cholicum, qui effusus sub costis in sinistro latere hypochondriacos flatus tacit, quod sape accidit iis qui 
diuturna cura et moestitia confiictantur. Melancthon. ' Lib. 3. Mn. 4. 



■172 . Causes of Melancholij. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

dsemonians, and most of those other torturing ™ affections, and so was sorrow 
amongst the rest, under the name of Angerona Dea, thej stood in such awe of 
them, as Austin de Civitat. Dei, lib. 4. cap. 8. noteth out of Yarro, fear was 
commonly ° adored and painted in their temples with a lion's head ; and as 
Macrobius records I. 10. Saturnalium; " ° in the calends of January, Angerona 
had her holy day, to whom in the temple of Yolupia, or goddess of pleasure, 
their augurs and bishops did yearly sacrifice; that, being propitious to them, 
she might expel all cares, anguish, and vexation of the mind for that year fol- 
lowing." Many lamentable effects this fear causeth in men, as to be red, pale, 
tremble, sweat, ^ it makes sudden cold and heat to come over all the body, 
palpitation of the heart, syncope, &c. It amazeth many men that are to 
speak, or show themselves in public assemblies, or before some great per- 
sonages, as Tully confessed of himself, that he trembled still at the beginning 
of his speech ; and Demosthenes, that great orator of Greece, before Philippus. 
It confounds voice and memory, as Lucian wittingly brings in Jupiter Tragoedus, 
so much afraid of his auditory, when he was to make a speech to the rest of 
the gods, that he could not utter a ready word, but was compelled to use 
Mercury's help in prompting. Many men are so amazed and astonished with 
fear, they know not where they are, what they say, "^what they do, and that 
which is worse, it tortures them many days before with continual affrights and 
susj^icion. It hinders most honourable attempts, and makes their hearts ache, 
sad and heavy. They that live in fear are never free, "■ resolute, secure, never 
merry, but in continual pain: that, as Yives truly said. Nulla est miseria 
in tjor quam nietus, no greater misery, no rack, nor torture like unto it, ever 
sus})icious, anxious, solicitous, they are childishly drooping without reason, 
without judgment, " ^ especially if some terrible object be offered," as Plutarch 
hath it. It causeth oftentimes sudden madness, and almost all manner of 
diseases, as I have sufficiently illustrated in my * digression of the force of 
imagination, and shall do more at large in my section of " terrors. Fear 
makes our imagination conceive what it list, invites the devil to come to us, as 
^ Agrippa and Cardan avouch, and tyrannizeth over our fantasy more than 
all other affections, especially in the dark. "We see this verified in most men, 
as ^ Lavater saith, Quce inetuunt, Jingunt; what they fear they conceive, and 
feign unto themselves; they think they see goblins, hags, devils, and many 
times become melancholy thereby. Cardan subtil, lib. 18. hath an example of 
such an one, so caused to be melancholy (by sight of a bugbear) all his life 
after. Augustus Csesar durst not sit in the dark, nisi aliquo assidente, saith 
'^ Suetonius, Nunquam tenebris evigilavit. And 'tis strange what women and 
children will conceive unto themselves, if they go over a church-yard in the 
night, lie, or be alone in a dark room, how they sweat and tremble on a sudden. 
Many men are troubled with future events, foreknowledge of their fortunes, 
destinies, as Severus the emperor, Adrian and Domitian, Quod sciret ultimum 
viiai diem, saith Suetonius, valde solicitus, much tortured in mind because he 
foreknew his end ; with many such, of which I shall speak more opportunely 
in another place. ^ Anxiety, mercy, pity, indigiiation, &c., and such fearful 
branches derived from these two stems of fear and sorrow, I voluntarily omit; 
read more of them in " Carolus Pascalius, "" Dandinus, &c. 

>" Et metiim ideo deam sacrarunt ut 'bouam mentem concederet, Varro, Lactantius, Aug. " Liliits 

Girald. Syntag. 1. de diis miscellaniis. " Calendis Jan. feriie sunt divaj Angerona;, cui pontifices 

in sacello Volupire sacra faciunt, quod angores et anhni solicitudines propitiata propellat. p Timor 

inducit frigus, cordis palpitationem, vocis defectum atque pallorem. Agrippa lib. 1. cap. 63. Timidi semper 
spiritus hatent frigidos. Mont. <J Effusas cernens fagientes agmine turmas; quis mea nunc inflat cornua 
Faunus ait ' Alciat. ' Metus non solum memoriam consternat, sed et institutam animi omne et 

laudabilem conatum impedit. Thucydides. « Lib. de fori itudine et virtute Alexandri, ubi prope res 

adfuit terribilis. ' Sect. 2. Memt). 3. Subs. 2. " Sect. 2. Memb. 4. Subs. 3. " Subtil. 18. lib. 

timor attraliit ad se Daemonas, timor et error multum in hominibus possunt. v Lib. 2. Spectris ca. 3. 

fortes rarb spectra vident, quia minus timcnt. * Vita ejus. » Sect. 2. Memb. 4. Subs. 7. ** De 

viit. et vitiis. ' Com. in Arist. de Auima. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 6.] Shame and Disgrace, Causes. 173 

SuBSECT. yi. — Shame and Disgrace, Causes. 

Shame and disgrace cause most violent passions and bitter pangs. Oh 
pudorem et dedecus publicum, oh errorem commissum scepe moventur generosi 
animi (Felix Plater lib. 3. de alienat. mentis) : Generous minds are often moved 
with, sbame, to despair for some public disgrace. And he, saith Philo lib. 2. 
de p)rovid. dei, " * that subjects himself to fear, grief, ambition, shame, is not 
happy, but altogether miserable, tortured with continual labour, care, and 
misery." It is as forcible a batterer as any of the rest : " ^ Many men neglect 
the tumults of the world, and care not for glory, and yet they are afraid of 
infamy, repulse, disgrace, [Tul. offic. I. 1.) they can severely contemn pleasure, 
bear grief indifferently, but they are quite ® battered and broken with reproach 
and obloquy : "■ (siquidem vita et fama pari passu ambidant) and are so dejected 
many times for some public injury, disgrace, as a box on the ear by their 
inferior, to be overcome of their adversary, foiled in the field, to be out in a 
speech, some foul fact committed or disclosed, &c. that they dare not come 
abroad all their lives after, but meiancholize in corners, and keep in holes. The 
most generous spirits are most subject to it ; Spiritus altos frangit et generosos : 
Hieronymus. Aristotle, because he could not understand the motion of Euripus, 
for grief and shame drowned himself: Ccelius Rodiginus antiquar. lee. lib. 29. 
cap. 8, Homerus pudore consumjjtus, was swallowed up with this passion of 
shame "^because he could not unfold the fisherman's riddle." Sophocles 
killed himself, ''^for that a tragedy of his was hissed off the stage:" Valer. 
Max. lib. 9. cap. 12. Lucretia stabbed herself, and so did ^Cleopatra, "when 
she saw that she was reserved for a triumj)h, to avoid the infamy." Antonius 
the Roman, "'after he was overcome of his enemy, for three days' space sat 
solitary in the fore-part of the ship, abstaining from all comjDany, even of 
Cleopatra herself, and afterwards for very shame butchered himself," Plutarch. 
vita ejus. " Apollonius Ehodius ^ wilfully banished himself, forsaking his 
country, and all his dear friends, because he was out in reciting his poems," 
Plinius lib. 7. cap. 23. Ajax ran mad, because his arras were adjudged to 
Ulysses, In China 'tis an ordinary thing for such as are excluded in those 
famous trials of theirs, or should take degrees, for shame and grief to lose their 
wits, ^Afat. Riccius expedit. ad Sinas, I. 3. c. 9. Hostratus the friar took that 
book which Keuclin had writ against him, under the name of Ep'Ast. obscur- 
orum virorum, so to heart, that for shame and grief he made away himself, 
^Jovius in elogiis. A grave and learned minister, and an ordinary preacher at 
Alcmar in Holland, was (one day as he walked in the fields for his recreation) 
suddenly taken with a lax or looseness, and thereupon compelled to retire to 
the next ditch ; but being "surprised at unawares, by some gentlewomen of his 
parish wandering that way, was so abashed, that he did never after show his- 
head in public, or come into the pulpit, but pined away with melancholy : 
(^Pet. Forestus med. observat. lib. 10. observat. 12.) So shame amongst other 
passions can play his prize. 

I know there be many base, impudent, brazen-faced rogues, that will °]Vulld 
pallescere cidpd, be moved with nothing, take no infamy or disgrace to heart, 

*Qai mentem subjecit timoris dominationi, cupiditatis, doloris, ambitionis, pudoris, felix non est, sedomnin 
miser, assiduis laboribus torquetnr et niiseria. d Miilti contemnunt mundi strepitum, reputant pro niliilo 
gloria-ii, sed tinientinfamiam, offensionem, repulsam. Voluptatem severissime contemnunt, in dolore s.mt 
molliores, gloriani negligunt, franguntur infamia. eGravius contumeliam feriinus.qnani detrimentmn, ni 
abjecto nimis animo simus. Plut. in Timol. f Quod piscatoris a;nigma solvere non posset. s Ob Tra- 

goediam explosam, mortem sibi gladio conscivit. •» Cum vidit in trlumphum se servari, causa ejus 

ignominite vitandae mortem sibi conscivit. Plut. i Bello victus, per tres dies sedit in prora navis, 

abstinens ab omni cousortio, etiam Cleopatr£B, postea se interfecit. ^ Cum male recitasset Argonautica, ob 
pudorem exulavit. i Quidam prie vereeundia simul et dolore in insaniam incidunt, eo quod a literatorum 
gradu in examine excluduntur. •" Hostratus cucuUatus adeo graviter ob Reuclini librum, qui inscr^bitur, 
Epistolaj obscurorum virorum, dolore si.iiul et pudore sauciatus, ut seipsum interfecerit. "Propter 

ruborem coufusus, statiiu coepit delirare, &c. ob suspicionem, quod vili illnin crimine accusarent. « Herat, 



174 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

laugh at all; let them be proved perjuretl, stigmatized, convict rogues, thieves, 
traitors, lose their ears, be whipped, branded, carted, pointed at, hissed, reviled, 
and derided with^ Ballio the Bawd in Plautus, they rejoice at it, Cantores pro- 
bos; "babse and bombax," what care they? We have too many such in our 
times, . 

" Exclamat Melicerta perisse 

Frontem de rebus." q 



Yet a modest man, one that hath grace, a generous spirit, tender of his repu- 
tation, will be deeply wounded, and so grievously affected with it, that he had 
rather give myriads of crowns, lose his life, than suffer the least defamation of 
honour, or blot in his good name. And if so be that he cannot avoid it, as a 
nightingale, Quce cantando victa moritur (saith " Mizaldus), dies for shame if 
another bird sing better, he languisheth and pineth away in the anguish of his 
spirit. 

SuBSECT. yil. — Envy, Malice, Hatred, Causes. 

Envy and malice are two links of this chain, and both, as Guianerius Tract. 
15. cap. 2, proves out of Galen 3. Aphorism, com. 22. "* cause this malady by 
themselves, especially if their bodies be otherwise disposed to melancholy." 
'Tis Valescus de Taranta, and Foelix Platerus' observation, ""^Envy so gnaws 
many men's hearts, that they become altogether melancholy." And therefore 
belike Solomon, Pro v. xiv. 13. calls it, "the rotting of the bones," Cyprian, 
vulnus occuUum ; 

' Siculi non invenere tyranni 



Majus tormentum 



The Sicilian tyrants never invented the like torment. It crucifies their souls, 
•withers their bodies, makes them hollow-eyed, ^pale, lean, and ghastly to 
behold, Cyprian ser. 2. de zelo el livore. " ^ As a moth gnaws a garment, so," 
saith Chrysostom, " doth envy consume a man ; to be a living anatomy : a 
skeleton, to be a lean and ^pale carcass, quickened with a ^fiend," Hall in 
Charact. for so often as an envious wretch sees another man prosper, to be 
enriched, to thrive, and be fortunate in the world, to get honours, offices, or 
the like, he repines and grieves. 

" bintabescitque videndo 

Successus hominum suppliciumque suum est." 

He tortures himself if his equal, friend, neighbour, be preferred, commended, 
do well ; if he understand of it, it galls him afresh ; and no greater pain can 
come to him than to hear of another man's well-doing ; 'tis a dagger at his 
heart every such object. He looks at him as they that fell down in Lucian's 
rock of honour, with an envious eye, and will damage himself, to do another a 
mischief: Atque cadet subito, dum super hoste cadat. As he did in ^sop, lose 
one eye willingly, that his fellow might lose both, or that rich man in * Quin- 
tilian that poisoned the flowers in his garden, because his neighbour's bees 
should get no more honey from them. His whole life is sorrow, and every 
word he speaks a satire : nothing fats him but other men's ruins. For to 
speak in a word, envy is nought else but Tristitia de bonis alienis, sorrow for 

Ps. Impudice. B. Ita est. Ps. sceleste. B. dicis vera. Ps. Verbero. B. quippeni ? Ps. farcifer. B. factum 
optime. Ps. soci fvaude. B. suntmea istaec. Ps. parricida. B. perge tu. Ps. sacrilege. B. fateor. Ps. perjure. B. 
vera dicis. Ps. pernities adolescentum. B. acerrime. Ps. fur. B. babse. Ps. fugitive. B. bombax ! Ps. fraus 
populi. B. Planissime. Ps. impure leno, coenum. B. cantores probos. Pseudolus act. I. Seen. 3. q Meli. 

certa exclaims, "all shame has vanished from human transactions." Persius, Sat 5. rCent. 7 e Plinio. 

» Multos videmus propter invidiam et odium inmelancholiamincidisse : et illospotissimum quorum corpora 
ad hanc apta sunt. tinvidia affligit homines adeo et corrodit, ut hi melancholici penitus fiant. u Hor. 
X His vultus minax, torvus asfiectus, pallor in facie, in labiis tremor, stridor in dentibus, &c. yUt tinea 

corrodit vestimentum, sic invidia eum qui zelatur consumit. z Pallor in ore sedet, macies in corpore toto. 
Nusquam recta acies, livent rubigine dentes. aDiaboli expressa Imago, toxicum charitatis, venenura 

amicitiffi, abyssus mentis, non est eo monstrosius monstrum, damnosius damnum, urit, torret, discruciat, 
macie et squalore conflcit. Austin. Domin. primi Advent. b Ovid. He pines away at the sight of 

another's success it is his special torture. * Declam. 13. linivit flores maleficis succis in venenum 

mella convertens. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 8.] Emulation, Hatred, .Sc 175 

other mea's good, be it present, past, or to come : et gaudium da adversis, and " 
joy at their harms, opposite to mercy, /^ which grieves at other men's mis- 
chances, and misaffects the body in another kind ; so Damascen defines it, lib. 
2. de orthod.fid. Thomas 2. 2. qumst. 36. art. 1., Aristotle I. 2. Rhet. c. 4. et 
10., Plato Philebo., TuUy 3. Tusc, Greg. Nic. I. devirt. animce, c. 12., Basil, de 
Invidia, Pindarus Od. 1. ser. 5. arid we find it true. 'Tis a common disease, 
and almost natural tons, as ^Tacitus holds, to env}^ another man's prosperity. 
And 'tis in most men an incurable disease. "''I have read," saith Marcus 
Aurelius, " Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee authors ; I have consulted with many 
wise men for a remedy for envy, I could find none, but to renounce all happi- 
ness, and to be a wretch, and miserable for ever." 'Tis the beginning of hell 
in this life, and a passion not to be excused. "° Every other sin hath some 
pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of an excuse; envy alone wants both. 
Other sins last but for awhile ; the gut may be satisfied, anger remits, hatred 
hath an end, envy never ceaseth." Cardan lib. 2. de sap. Divine and human 
examples are very familiar; you may run and read them, as that of Saul and 
David, Cain and Abel, angebat ilium non proyriurti peccatum, sedfratris j^ros- 
peritas, saith Theodoret, it was his brother's good fortune galled him. E-achel 
envied her sister, being barren, Gen. xxx. Joseph's brethren, him. Gen, xxxvii. 
David had a touch of this vice, as he confesseth, ^Ps. 37. 'Jeremy and '^Hab- 
akkuk, they repined at others' good, but in the end they corrected themselves. 
Ps. 75. "fret not thyself," &c. Domitian spited Agricola for his worth, 
"Hhat a private man should be so much glorified." ^Cecinna was envied of 
his fellow- citizens, because he was more richly adorned. But of all others, 
"women are most weak, ob indchritudinem invidm sunt fcemince (Musceus) aut 
amat, aut odit, nihil est tertium {Granaiensis). They love or hate, no medium, 
amongst them. Tmplacabiles plerumqae leasee midieres, AgripjDina like, "° A 
woman if she see her neighbour more neat or elegant, richer in tires, jewels, 
or apparel is enraged, and like a lioness sets upon her husband, rails at her, 
scoffs at her, and cannot abide her;" so the Roman ladies in Tacitus did at 
Solonina, Cecinna's wife, ''"because she had a better horse, and better furni- 
ture, as if she had hurt them with it; they were much offended. In like sort 
our gentlewomen do at their usual meetings, one repines or scofiTs at another's 
bravery and happiness. Myrsine, an Attic wench, was murdered of her fel- 
lows, "^because she did excel the rest in beauty," Constantine ^^Wcit^^. I. 11. 
c. 7. Every village will yield such examples. 

SuBSECT. YIII. — Emulation^ Hatred, Faction, Desire of Revenge, Causes. 

Out of this root of envy "" spring those feral branches of faction, hatred, livor, 
emulation, which cause the like grievances, and are, serrce animce, the saws of 
the soul, ^ consternationis pleni affectus, affections full of desperate amazement; 
or as Cyprian describes emulation, it is "^a moth of the soul, a consumption 

cStatuis cereis Basilius eos comparat, C[ui liqueflunt ad prffiseiitiam solis, qua alii gaudent et ornantur. 
Muscis alii, qiue ulceribus gaudent, amoena prsetereunt, sistunt in ttetidis. i Misericordia etiara 

quae tristitia qutedam est, ssepe miserantis corpus ma'e afficit Agiippa. 1. 1. cap. 63. « insitum 

mortalibus a natura recentem aliorum felicitatem a^gris oculis intueri, hist. 1. 2. Tacit. ^Legi Chaldteos, 
Graecos, HebiToos, consului sapientes pro remedio invidiae, hoc enim inveni, renunciare felicitati, et perpetud 
raiser esse. sOmne peccatum aut excusationem secura habet, aut voluptatem, sola invidia utraque caret, 
relitiua vitia finem liabent, ira defervescit, gnla satiatur, odium finem habet, invidia nunquam quiescit. 
i> Urebat me a^mulatio propter stultos. > tiier. 12. 1, ^ Hab. 1. i Invidit privati nomen supra 

principis attolli. •" Tacit. Hist. lib. 2. part 6. "Pei-itur^To dolore et invidia, si quern viderint 

omatiorem se in publicum prodiisse. Platina dial, amorum. <> Ant. Guianerius lib. 2. cap. 8. vim. M. 

Aurelii ferainu vicinam elegantius se vestitara videns, lea;nre instar in virum insurgit, &c. p Quod insigni 
equo et ostro veheretur, quanquam nuUius cum injuria, ornatum ilium tanquam lajsiB gravabantnr. i Quod 
pulchi-itudine omnes excelleret, puellae indignatse occiderunt. '' Late patet invidiee foecundaa pemities, et 

livor radix omnium malorum, fons cladium, inde odium surgit, emulatio. Cyprian ser. 2. de Livore. * Vale- 
rius 1. 3. cap. 9. « Qualis est animi tinea, qute tabes pectoris zelare in altero vel aliorum faelicitatem suam 
facere miseriam, et velut quosdam pectori suo admovere carnilices, cogitationibus et sensibus suis adhibere 
tortores, qui se intestinis cruciatibus lacerent. Non cibus talibus l^etus, uon potus potest esse jucundus; 
suspiratur semper et gemitur, et doletur dies et noctes, pectus sine intermissione laceratui*. 



176 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

to make another man's happiness his misery, to torture, crucify, and execute 
himself, to eat his own heart. Meat and drink can do such men no good, they 
do always grieve, sigh, and groan, day and night without intermission, their 
breast is torn asunder:" and a little after, "* Whomsoever he is whom thou 
dost emulate and envy, he may avoid thee, but thou canst neither avoid him 
nor thyself; wheresoever thou art he is with thee, thine enemy is ever in thy 
breast, thy destruction is within thee, thou art a captive, bound hand and foot, 
as long as thou art malicious and envious, and canst not be comforted. It was 
the devil's overthrow;" and whensoever thou art thoroughly affected with this 
passion, it will be thine. Yet no j)erturbation so frequent, no passion so common. 

^KaL Kepa/JioXh Kepa/JLe'i Koreei Kal reinovi TexTMi/, 
Kai TTTcoxi)? TTTiDxiJ^ (p()oveei Ka'i aoiSoi uotdcb, 

A potter emulates a potter; J A beggar emulates a beggar; 

One smith envies another : | A singing man his brother. 

Every society, corporation, and private family is full of it, it takes hold almost 
of all sorts of men, from the prince to the ploughman, even amongst gossips it 
is to be seen, scarce three in a company but there is siding, faction, emulation, 
between two of them, some simuUas, jar, private grudge, heart-burning in the 
midst of them. Scarce two gentlemen dwell together in the country (if they 
be not near kin or linked in marriage), but there is emulation betwixt them and 
their servants, some quarrel or some grudge betwixt their wives or children, 
friends and followers, some contention about wealth, gentry, precedency, &c., 
by means of which, like the frog in ^^sop, "that would swell till she was as 
big as an ox, burst herself at last;" they will stretch beyond their fortunes, 
callings, and strive so long that they consume their substance in law-suits, or 
otherwise in hospitality, feasting, fine clothes, to get a few bombast titles, for 
amhitiosa fau'peHate laboramus omnes, to outbrave one another, they will tire 
their bodies, macerate their souls, and through contentions or mutual invita- 
tions beggar themselves. Scarce two great scholars in an age, but with bitter 
invectives they fall foul one on the other, and their adherents; Scotists, 
Thomists, Reals, Nominals, Plato and Aristotle, Galenists and Paracelsians, 
&c., it holds in all professions. 

Honest ^emulation in studies, in all callings is not to be disliked, 'tis inge- 
niorum cos, as one calls it, the whetstone of wit, the nurse of wit and valour, 
and those noble Romans out of this spirit did brave exploits. There is a 
modest ambition, as Themistocles was roused up with the glory of Miltiades; 
Achilles' trophies moved Alexander, 

" * Ambire semper, stulta confidentia est, 
Ambii'e nunquam, deses arrogantia est." 

'Tis a sluggish humour not to emulate or to sue at all, to withdraw himself, 
neglect, refrain from such places, honours, offices, through sloth, niggardliness, 
fear, bashfulness, or otherwise, to which by his birth, place, fortunes, educa- 
tion, he is called, apt, fit, and well able to undergo ; but when it is immoderate, 
it is a plague and a miserable pain. What a deal of money did Henry VIII. 
and Francis I. king of France, spend at that ^famous interview? and how 
many vain courtiers, seeking each to outbrave other, spent themselves, their 
livelihood and fortunes, and died beggars? * Adrian the emperor was so 
galled with it, that he killed all his equals ; so did Nero. This passion made 
''Dionysius the tyrant banish Plato and Philoxenus the poet, because they did 
excel and eclii)se his glory, as he thought ; the Romans exile Coriolanus, con- 

tQuisquis est ille quem semularis, cui invides is te subterfugere potest, at tu non te ubicunque fugeris, 
adversarius tuus tecum est, hostis tmis semper in pectore tuo est, pernicies intus inclusa, ligatus es, victus, 
zelo dominante captivus : nee solatia tibi ulla subveniunt: hinc diabolus inter initia statim raundi, et 
periit primus, et perdidit, Cyprian ser. 2. de zelo et livore. " Hesiod. Op. et Dies. -sRana cupida 

£equandi bovem, se distendebat, &c. y ^mulatio alit ingenia : Paterculus poster, vol. * Grotius. 

Epig. lib. 1. " Ambition always, is a foolish confidence, never, a slothful arrogance." ' Anno 1519, be- 
tween Ardes and Quine. * Spartian. ^ Plutarch. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 9.] Anger, a Cause. 177 

fine Camillus, miirder Sclpio ; the Greeks by ostracism to expel Aristides, 
Nicias, Alcibiades, imprison Theseus, make away Phocion, &c. When 
Kichard I. and Philij^ of France were fellow soldiers together, at the siege of 
Aeon in the Holy Land, and Richard had approved himself to be the more 
valiant man, insomuch that all men's eyes were upon him, it so galled Philip, 
Francum urebat Regis victoria, saith mine ''author, tarn cegre ferebat liichardi 
gloriam, ut carpere dicta., calumniari facta ; that he cavilled at all his pro- 
ceedings, and fell at length to open defiance ; he could contain no longer, but 
hasting home, invaded his territories, and professed open war. " Hatred stirs 
up contention," Pro v. x. 12, and they break out at last into immortal enmity, 
into virulency, and more than Yatinian hate and rage; "^they persecute each 
other, their friends, followers, and all their posterity, with bitter taunts, hostile 
wars, scurrile invectives, libels, calumnies, fire, sword, and the like, and will 
not be reconciled. "Witness that Guelph and Ghibelline faction in Italy; that 
of the Adurni and Fregosi in Genoa ; that of Cneius Papirius, and Quintus 
Fabius in Pome; Caesar and Pompey; Orleans and Burgundy in France; 
York and Lancaster in England : yea, this passion so rageth ^ many times, 
that it subverts not men only, and families, but even populous cities, * Carthage 
and Corinth can witness as much, nay flourishing kingdoms are brought into a 
wilderness by it. This hatred, malice, faction, and desire of revenge, invented 
first all those racks and wheels, strapadoes, brazen bulls, feral engines, prisons, 
inquisitions, severe laws to macerate and torment one another. How happy 
might we be, and end our time with blessed days and sweet content, if we 
could contain ourselves, and, as we ought to do, put up injuries, learn humility, 
meekness, jDatience, forget and forgive, as in * God's word we are enjoined, 
compose such final controversies amongst ourselves, moderate our passions in 
this kind, "and think better of others," as ^Paul would have us, " than of 
ourselves: be of like affection one towards another, and not avenge ourselves, 
but have peace with all men." But being that we are so peevish and perverse, 
insolent and proud, so factious and seditious, so malicious and envious ; we do 
invicem angariare, maul and vex one another, torture, disquiet, and precipitate 
ourselves into that gulf of woes and cares, aggravate our misery and melan- 
choly, heap upon us hell and eternal damnation. 

SuBSECT. IX. — Anger, a Cause. 

Anger, a perturbation, which carries the spirits outwards, preparing the 
body to melancholy, and madness itself: Ira furor hrevis est, "anger is tem- 
porary madness ;"andas''Piccolomineus accounts it, one of the three most violent 
passions. Areteus sets it down for an especial cause (so doth Seneca, ep. 18. ^. 1.) 
of this malatly. "^Magninus gives the reason, Exfrequenti ira supra modum 
calefunt; it overheats their bodies, and if it be too frequent, it breaks out into 
manifest madness, saith St. Ambrose. 'Tis a known saying, Furor fit loisa sa^pius 
2)atientia,H\Q most patient spirit that is, if he be often provoked, will be incensed 
to madness ; it will make a devil of a saint : and therefore Basil (belike) in his 
Homily de Ira, calls it tenehras rationis, morbum animce, et dannonem pessi- 
inuni; the darkening of our understanding, and a bad angel. ^Lucian, in 
Abdicato, torn. 1. will have this passion to work this effect, especially in old 

"Johannes Heraldus, 1. 9. c. 12. de bello sacr. ^ Nulla dies tantura poterit lenire furorem. ^Eterna bella 
pace sublata gerunt. Jurat odiuin, nee ante invisum esse desinit, quam esse desiit. Paterculus, vol. 1. 
e Ita stevit hrec stygia ministra ut urbes subvertat aliquando, deleat populos, provincias alioqui florentes 
redigat in solitudines, mortales vero niiseros in profunda miseriarum valle miserabiliter iinmergat. 
* Carthago a^mula Romani imperii funditus interiit. Salust. Catil. fPaul. 3 Col. eRom. 12. 

^ Grad. 1. c. 54. i Ira et moeror et ingens animi consternatio melancliolicos facit. Areteus. Ira immodica 
gignit insaniam. ''Reg. sanit. parte 2. c. 8. in apertam insaniam mox ducitur iratus. 'Gilberto 

pognato interprete. Multis, et prassertim senibus ira impotens insaniam fecit, et importuna calumnia, ha^-c 
initio perturbat animum, paulatim vergit ad insaniam. Porro iiiulierum corpora multa infestant, et in hunc 
morbum adducunt, pr.iicipub si qute oderint aut iiivideaut, &c. h£ec paulatim in insaniam tandem evaduuf. 

N 



Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 



men and women. " Anger and calumny (saith he) trouble them at first, and 
after a while break out into madness: many things cause fury in women, 
especially if they love or hate overmuch, or envy, be much grieved or angry ; 
these things by little and little lead them on to this malady." From a dispo- 
sition they proceed to an habit, for there is no difference between a mad man, 
and an angry man, in the time of his fit ; anger, as Lactantius describes it. 
L. de Ira Dei, ad Donatum, c. 5. is "^sceva animi tempestas, dhc, a cruel tem- 
pest of the mind ; " making his eyes sparkle fire, and stare, teeth gnash in his 
head, his tongue stutter, his face pale, or red, and what more filthy imitation 
can be of a mad man?" 

" ° Ora turaent ira, ferveseiint sanguine ven«, 
Lumina Gorgonio sagviiis angue micant." 

They are void of reason, inexorable, blind, like beasts and monsters for the 
time, say and do they know not what, curse, swear, rail, fight, and what not? 
How can a mad man do more? as he said in the comedy, °Iracundia nan sum 
apud me, I am not mine own man. If these fits be immoderate, continue 
long, or be frequent, without doubt they provoke madness. Montanus, co925t^. 21, 
had a melancholy Jew to his patient, he ascribes this for a principal cause : 
Irascebatur levihus de causis, he was easily moved to anger. Ajax had no other 
beginning of his madness; and Charles the Sixth, that lunatic French king, 
fell into this misery, out of the extremity of his passion, desire of revenge 
and malice, ^incensed against the duke of Britain, he could neither eat, drink, 
nor sleep for some days together, and in the end, about the calends of July, 
1392, he became mad upon his horseback, drawing his sword, striking such as 
came near him promiscuously, and so continued all the days of his life, JSmil. 
lib. 10. Gal. hist. JEgesippus de excid. ui'his Hieros. I. 1. c. 37. hath such a 
story of Herod, that out of an angry fit, became mad, "^ leaping out of his bed, 
he killed Josippus, and played many such bedlam pranks, the whole court 
could not rule him for a long time after : sometimes he was sorry and repented, 
much grieved for that he had done, Postquam deferbuit ira, by and by outrage- 
ous again. In hot choleric bodies, nothing so soon causeth madness, as tliis 
passion of anger, besides many other diseases, as Pelesius observes, cap. 21. 1. 1. 
de hum. affect, causis; Sanguinem iraminuit, fel auget: and as ""Yalesius con- 
troverts, Afed. controv. lib. 5. contro. 8. many times kills them quite out. If this 
were the worst of this passion, it were more tolerable, " * but it ruins and 
subverts whole towns, *cities, families and kingdoms;" Nulla pestis humano 
generi pluris stetit, saith Seneca, de Ira, lib. 1. No plague hath done man- 
kind so much harm. Look into our histories, and you shall almost meet with 
no other subject, but what a company "of hare-brains have done in their rage. 
We may do well therefore to put this in our procession amongst the rest; 
" From all blindness of heart, from pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy, from 
envy, hatred and malice, anger, and all such pestiferous perturbations, good 
Lord deliver us." 

SuBSECT. X. — Discontents, Cares, Miseries^ <S:c. Causes. 

Discontents, cares, crosses, miseries, or whatsoever it is, that shall cause 
any molestation of spirits, grief, anguish, and perplexity, may well be reduced 
to this head (preposterously placed here in some men's judgments they may 
seem), yet in that Aristotle in his ^Rhetoric defines these cares, as he doth 
envy, emulation, &c. still by grief, I think I may well rank them in this iras- 

™ Sfeva animi tempestas tantos excitans fluctus ut statim ardescant oculi, ostremat, lingua titubet, denies 
concrepant, &c. " Ovid. <> Terence. p Infensus Britannise Duci, et in ultionem versus, nee cibum 

cepit, nee quietem, ad Calendas Julias 1392, comites occidit. <i Indignatione nimia farens, animique 

impotens, exiliit de lecto, furentem non capiebat aula, &c. ' An ira possit horainem interimere. 

s Abernethy. t As Troy, saev^ memorem Junonis ob iram. u Stultorum regum et populorum 

continet ffistus. » Lib. 2. Invidia est dolor et arabitio est dolor, &c. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 10.] Discontents, Cares, dsc. 179 

cible row; being tbat they are as tbe rest, both causes and symptoms of this 
disease, producing the like inconveniences, and are most part accompanied 
with anguish and pain. The common etymology will evince it, Crira, quasi 
cor uro, Dementes curcE, insomnes curce^ dmnnosce curcE, tristes^ mordaces, 
carnifices^ ^c, biting, eating, gnawing, cruel, bitter, sick, sad, unquiet, pale, 
tetric, miserable, intolerable cares, as the poets ^call them, worldly cares, and 
are as many in number as the sea sands. ^ Galen, Fernelius, Felix Plater, 
Valescus de Taranta, &c., reckon aiEictioris, miseries, even all these conten- 
tions, and vexations of the mind, as principal causes, in that they take away 
sleep, hinder concoction, dry up the body, and consume the substance of it. 
They are not so many in number, but their causes be as divers, and not one of 
a thousand free from them, or that can vindicate himself, whom that Ate dea, 

" * Per hotnimim capita molliter arabulans, I " Over men's heads walking aloft, 

Plantas pedum teneras habens :" I With tender feet treading so soft," 

Homer's Goddess Ate hath not involved into this discontented ^rank, or plagued 
with some misery or other. Hyginus,/^^. 220, to this purpose hath a plea- 
sant tale. Dame Cura by chance went over a brook, and taking up some of 
the dirty slime, made an image of it ; Jupiter eftsoons coming by, put life to 
it, but Cura and Jupiter could not agree what name to give him, or who should 
own him J the matter was referred to Saturn as judge, he gave this arbitrement : 
his name shall be Homo ah humo^ Cura eum possideat quamdiu vivat, Care 
SJiall have him whilst he lives, Jupiter his soul, and Tellus his body when he 
dies. But to leave tales. A general cause, a continuate cause, an inseparable 
accident, to all men, is discontent, care, misery ; were there no other parti- 
cular aiSiction (which who is free from ?) to molest a man in this life, the very 
cogitation of that common misery were enough to macerate, and make him 
weary of his life; to think that he can never be secure, but still in danger, 
sorrow, grief, and persecution. For to begin at the hour of his birth, as ^ Pliny 
doth elegantly describe it, " he is born naked, and falls "" a whining at the 
very first, he is swaddled and bound up like a prisoner, cannot help himself, 
and so he continues to his life's end." Cujusque JercE pabulum, ssiith. * Seneca, 
impatient of heat and cold, impatient of labour, impatient of idleness, exposed 
to fortune's contumelies. To a naked mariner Lucretius compares him, cast 
on shore by shipwreck, cold and comfortless in an unknown land : t no estate, 
age, sex, can secure himself from this common misery. " A man that is born 
of a woman is of short continuance, and full of trouble." Job xiv. 1, 22. 
" And while his flesh is upon him he shall be sorrowful, and while his soul 
is in him it shall mourn." " All his days are sorrow and his travels griefs; 
his heart also taketh not rest in the night," Eccles. ii. 23. and ii. 11. "All 
that is in it is sorrow and vexation of spirit." ^ Ingress, progress, regress, 
egress, much alike : blindness seizeth on us in the beginning, labour in the 
middle, grief in the end, error in alL "What day ariseth to us withoiit some 
grief, care, or anguish ? Or what so secure and pleasing a morning have we 
seen, that hath not been overcast before the evening 1 One is miserable, 
another ridiculous, a third odious. One complains of this grievance, another 
of that. Aliquando nervi, aliquando ped^ vexant, (Seneca) 7iunc distillatio^ 
nunc hepatis morbus ; nunc deest, nunc superest sanguis : now. the head aches 
then the feet, now the lungs, then the liver, &c. Huie seiisus exuherat^ sed 

y Insomnes, Claudianus. Tristes, Virg. Mordaces, Luc. Edaces, Hor. Moestfe, Amatfe, Ovid. Damnosae, 
Inquietae, Mart. Urentes, Rodentes, Mant. &c. 'Galen. 1. 3. c. 7. de locis affectis, homines sunt maxime 
melancholici, qiiando vigiliis multis, et solicitudinibus, et laborihus, et curis fuerint circumventi. * Lueian. 
Podag, a Omnia imperfecta, confusa, et perturljatione plena, Cardan. b Lib. 7, nat. hist. cap. 1. 

honainem nudum, et ad vagitum edit natura. Flens ab initio, devinctus jacet, &c c AaK^.y xt"" 

tevtuiv Ka't SaKpvrai eTritit'inoKtu, tw yei'ui ^vOpwiroov noXvddKpvTov, uaHeves oikqovv. LachrjTnans natus sum, 
et Idchrymans morior, &c. * Ad Marinum. f Boethius. ^ Initiura ca^citas, progressum labor, exitum 
• dolor, error omnia : quem tranquillum quaeso, quem non laboriosum aut anxium diem egimus ? Petrarch. 



180 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

est pudori degener sanguis, S^c. He is ricli, but base born ; lie is noble, but 
poor ; a third hath means, but he wants health peradventure, or wit to manage 
his estate ; children vex one, wife a second, &c. Nemo facile cum conditione 
sua concordat, no man is pleased with his fortune, a pound of sorrow is fami- 
liarly mixed with a dram of content, little or no joy, little comfort, but ^every- 
where danger, contention, anxiety, in all places : go where thou wilt, and 
thou shalt find discontents, cares, woes, complaints, sickness, diseases, incum- 
brances, exclamations : " If thou look into the market, there (saith * Chry- 
sostom) is brawling and contention ; if to the court, there knavery and flat- 
tery, &c. J if to a private man's house, there's cark and care, heaviness," &c. 
As he said of old, ^Nil homine in terra spirat miserum magis alma? No 
creature so miserable as man, so generally molested, " ^ in miseries of body, 
in miseries of mind, miseries of heart, in miseries asleep, in miseries awake, 
in miseries wheresoever he turns," as Bernard found, Nunquid tentatio est vita 
humana super terram ? A mere temptation is our life (Austin, confess, lib. 
10, cap. 28), catena perpetuorum malorum, et quis potest molestias et diffi- 
cultates pati? Who can endure the miseries of it ? " t In prosperity we are 
insolent and intolerable, dejected in adversity, in all fortunes foolish and 
miserable." ^ In adversity I wish for prosperity, and in prosperity I am afraid 
of adversity. What mediocrity may be found? Where is no temptation ? 
What condition of life is free"? * Wisdom hath labour annexed to it, glory 
envy; riches and cares, children and incumbrances, pleasure and diseases, rest 
and beggary, go together : as if a man were therefore born (as the Platonists 
hold) to be punished in this life for some precedent sins." Or that, as ^ Pliny 
complains, " Nature may be rather accounted a step-mother, than a mother 
unto us, all things considered : no creature's life so brittle, so full of fear, so 
mad, so furious; only man is plagued with envy, discontent, griefs, covetous- 
ness, ambition, superstition." Our whole life is an Irish sea, wherein there 
is nought to be expected but tempestuous storms and troublesome waves, and 
those infinite, 

"!• Tan turn malorum pelagus aspicioy 
Ut non sit inde enatandi copia," 

no halcyonian times, wherein a man can hold himselfsecurie, or agree with his 
present estate; but as Boethius infers, """There is something in every one of 
us which before trial we seek, and having tried abhor : ° we earnestly wish, and 
eagerly covet, and are eftsoons weary of it." Thus between hope and fear, 
suspicions, angers, "" Inter spemque metumque, timores inter et iras, betwixt 
falling in, falling out, &c., we bangle away our best days, befool out our 
times, we lead a contentious, discontent, tumultuovis, melancholy, miserable 
life; insomuch, that if we could foretell what was to come, and it put to our 
choice, we should rather refuse than accept of this painful life. In a word, the 
v\^orld itself is a maze, a labyrinth of errors, a desert, a wilderness, a den of 
thieves, cheaters, &c., full of filthy puddles, horrid rocks, precipitiums, an 
ocean of adversity, an heavy yoke, wherein infirmities and calamities overtake, 
and follow one another, as the sea waves; and if we scape Scylla, we fall foul 
on Charybdis, and so in perpetual fear, labour, anguish, we run from one 

* 

eUbique periculum, ubique dolor, ubique naufragium, in hoc ambitu quocunque me vertam. Lypsius. 
* Horn. 10. Si in forum iveris, ibi rixaa et pugnaj ; si in curiam, ibi fraus, adulatio ; si in domum 
privatam, &c. f Homer. e Multis repletur homo miseriis, corporis miseriis, animi miseriis, dura 

dormit, dum vigilat, quocunque se vertit. Lususque rerum, temporumque nascimur. f In blandiente 

fortuna intolerandi, in calamitatibus lugubres, semper stulti et miseri, Cardan. h Prospera in adversis 

desidero, et adversa prosperis timeo, quis inter hsec medius locus, ubi non fit humanse vitas tentatio ? 
'Cardan. Consol. Sapientise labor annexus, glorias invidia, divitiis curae, soboli solicitude, voluptati morbi 
quieti paupertas, ut quasi fi-uendorum scelerum causa nasci hominem possis cum Platonistis agnoscere. 
1^ Lib. 7. cap. 1. Non satis ^estimare, an melior parens natura homini, an tristior noverca fiierit : Nulli 
fragilior vita, pavor, confusio, rabies major, uni animantium ambitio data, luctus, avaritia, uni superstitio. 
i£uripides. " I perceive such an ocean of troubles before me, that no means of escape remain." >nDe 
consol. 1. 2. Nemo facile cum conditione sua concordat, inest singulis quod imperiti petant, experti horreanfe. 
nEsse in honore juvat, mox displicet. " Hor. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 10.] Discontents, Cares, d'c. 181 

plague, one mischief, one burden to another, duram servientes servitutem, and 
you may as soon separate weight from lead, heat from fire, moisiness from 
water, brightness from the sun, as misery, discontent, care, calamity, danger, 
from a man. Our towns and cities are but so many dwellings of human 
misery. " In which grief and sorrow (^as he right well observes out of Solon) 
innumerable troubles, labours of mortal men, and all manner of vices, are 
included, as in so many pens." Our villages are like mole-hills, and men as 
so many emmets, busy, busy still, going to and fro, in and out, and crossing 
one another's projects, as the lines of several sea-cards cut each other in a 
globe or map. " Now light and merry, but (^ as one follows it) by-and-by 
sorrowful and heavy; now hoping, then distrusting; now patient, to-morrow 
crying out; now pale, then red; running, sitting, sweating, trembling, halt- 
ing," &c. Some few amongst the rest, or perhaps one of a thousand, maybe 
Pullus Jovis, in the world's esteem, Gallince Jilius albce, an happy and fortu^ 
nate man, ad invidiam felix, because rich, fair, well allied, in honour and office; 
yet peradventure ask himself, and he will say, that of all others, "he is most 
miserable and unhappy. A fair shoe. Hie soccus novus, elegans, as he ^ said, 
sed nescis ubi urat, but thou knowest not where it pincheth. It is not another 
man's opinion can make me happy : but as * Seneca well hath it, " He is a 
miserable wretch that doth not account himself happy ; though he be sovereign 
lord of a world, he is not happy, if he think himself not to be so ; for what 
availeth it what thine estate is, or seem to others, if thou thyself dislike it?" 
A common humour it is of all men to think well of other men's fortunes, and 
dislike their own : "^Cui placet alterius, sua nimirum est odio sors; but "" qui Jit 
Meccenas, <&g., how comes it to pass, what's the cause of it? Many men are 
of suclia perverse nature, they are well pleased with nothing, (saith ^Theodoret) 
" neither with riches nor poverty, they complain when they are well and when 
they are sick, grumble at all fortunes, prosperity and adversity; they are 
troubled in a cheap year, in a barren, plenty or not plenty, nothing pleaseth 
them, war nor peace, with children, nor without." This for the most part is 
the humour of us all, to be discontent, miserable, and most unhappy, as we 
thiuk at least; and show me him that is not so, or that ever was otherwise. 
Quintus Metellus his felicity is infinitely admired amongst the Romans, inso^ 
much that as ^ Paterculus mentioneth of him, you can scarce find of any nation, 
order, age, sex, one for happiness to be compared unto him : he had, in a 
word, £o7ia animi, co7'poris etfortunce, goods of mind, body, and fortune, so 
had P. Mutianus, ° Crassus. Lampsaca, that Lacedemonian lady was such 
another in "^Pliny's conceit, a king's wife, a king's mother, a king's daughter : 
and all the world esteemed as much of Polycrates of Samos. The Greeks 
brag of their Socrates, Phocion, Aristides ; the Psophidians in particular of 
their Agiaus, Omni vita felix, ah omni periculo iinmunis (which by the way 
Pausanias held impossible) ; the Romans of their ® Cato, Curius, Fabricius, for 
their composed fortunes, and retired estates, government of passions, and con- 
tempt of the world: yet none of all these were happy, or free from discontent, 
neither Metellus, Crassus, nor Polycrates, for he died a violent death, and so 



P Borrheus in 6. Job. Urbes et oppida nihil aliud sunt quara humanarum ?erumnarum domicilia, quibna 
luctus et moeror, et mortalium varii i.ifinitiquelabores, et omnis generis vitia, quasi septis includuntur. 
<3 Nat. Cliytreus de lit. Europse. Lajtus nunc, mox tristis; nunc sperans, paulo post diifidens; patiens hodie, 
eras ejulans; nunc pallens, I'ubens, currens, sedens, claudicans, tremens, &c. ^ Sua cuique calamitas 

prjecipua. * Cn. Gr£ecinus. ' ' Epist. 9. 1. 7. Miser est qui se beatissinmm non judicat; licet imperet 

mundo non est beatus, qui se non putat : quid enim refert qualis status tuus sit, si tlbi videtur malus ? 
" Hor. ep. 1. 1. 4. ^ Hor. Ser. 1. Sat. 1. "Lib. de curat. grjEC. affect, cap. 6. de provident. Multis 

niliil placet atque adeo et divitias damnant, et paupertatem, de morbis expostulant, bene valentes graviter 
ferunt, atque ut semel dicam, nihil eos delectat, &c. ^ Vix uUius gentis, setatis, ordinis, hominem 

invenies cujus felicitatem fortun33 Metelli compares, vol. 1. « P. Crassus Mutianus, quinque habuisse 

dicitur rerum bonaruni maxima, quod esset ditissimus, quod esset nobilissimus, eloquentissimus, juriscon- 
sultissimus, pontifex maximus. <i Lib. 7. Regis filia, Regis uxor, Regis mater. ^ Qui nihil unquam 

mali aut dixit, aut fecit, aut sensit, qui bene semper fecit, quod aliter facere non potuit. 



182 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

did Cato ; and how mucli evil doth Lactantius and Theodoret speak of Socrates. 
a weak man, and so of the rest. There is no content in this life, but as ^ he 
said, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit;" lame and imperfect. Hadst thou 
Sampson's hair, Milo's strength, Scanderbeg's arm, Solomon's wisdom, Absa- 
lom's beauty, Croesus's wealth, Pasetis ohulum, Caesar's valour, Alexander's 
spirit, Tully's or Demosthenes' eloquence, Gyges' ring, Perseus' Pegasus, and 
Gorgon's head, ISTestor's years to come, all this would not make thee absolute, 
give thee content and true happiness in this life, or so continue it. Even in 
the midst of all our mirth, jollity, and laughter, is sorrow and grief, or if there 
be true happiness amongst us, 'tis but for a time, 

" s Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne :" j " A handsome woman with a fish's tail." 

a fair morning turns to a lowering afternoon. Brutus and Cassius, once 
renowned, both eminently happy, yet you shall scarce find two, (saith Pater- 
culus) Quosfortuna tnaturiiis destituerit, whom fortune sooner forsook. Han- 
nibal, a conqueror all his life, met with his match, and was subdued at last, 
OcGurrit forti, qui image fortis erit. One is brought in triumph, as Caesar into 
Home, Alcibiades into Athens, coronis aureis donatus, crowned, honoured, 
admired ; by-and-by his statues demolished, he hissed out, massacred, &c. 
^ Magnus Consalva, that famous Spaniard, was of the prince and people at 
first honoured, approved; forthwith confined and banished. Admirandas 
actiones; graves plerunque sequuntur invidice, et acres calumnim: 't;is Polybius 
his observation, grievous enmities, and bitter calumnies, commonly follow 
renowned actions. One is born rich, dies a beggar; sound to-day, sick to- 
morrow ; now in most flourishing estate, fortunate and happy, by-and-by de- 
prived of his goods by foreign enemies, robbed by thieves, spoiled, captivated, 
impoverished as they of " ' Kabbah, put under iron saws, and under iron har- 
rows, and under axes of iron, and cast into the tile kiln," 

"kQuid me felicem toties iactastis amici, 
Qui cecidit, stabili non erat ille gradu." 

He that erst marched like Xerxes with innumerable armies, as rich as Croesus, 
now shifts for himself in a poor cock-boat, is bound in iron chains, with 
Bajazet the Turk, and a footstool with Aurelian, for a tyrannising conqueror to 
trample on. So many casualties there are, that as Seneca said of a city con- 
sumed with fire, Una dies interest inter maximam civitatem et nullam, one day 
betwixt a great city and none : so many grievances from outward accidents, 
and from ourselves, our own indiscretion, inordinate appetite, one day betwixt 
a man and no man. And which is worse, as if discontents and miseries would 
not come fast enough upon us : homo homini daemon^ we maul, persecute, and 
study how to sting, gall, and vex one another with mutual hatred, abuses, 
injuries; preying upon and devouring as so many ^ravenous birds; and as 
jugglers, panders, bawds, cozening one another; or raging as ™ wolves, tigers, 
and devils, we take a delight to torment one another ; men are evil, wicked, 
malicious, treacherous, and " naught, not loving one another, or loving them- 
selves, not hospitable, charitable, nor sociable as they ought to be, but counter- 
feit, dissemblers, ambidexters, all for their own ends, hard-hearted, merciless, 
pitiless, and to benefit themselves, they care not what mischief they procure to 
others. ° Praxinoe and Gorgo in the poet, when they had got in to see those 
costly sights, they then cried hene est, and would thrust out all the rest : when 
they are rich themselves, in honour, preferred, full, and have even that they 
would, they debar others of those pleasures which youth requires, and they 

<■ Solomon, Eccles. 1. 14. e Hor. Art. Poet. ^ Jovius, vita ejus. ^2 Sam. xii. 31. t Boethius 

lib. 1 . Met. Met. 1. i Omnes hie aut captantur, aut captant : aut cadaveva quai lacerautur, aut corvi qui 
lacerant. Petron. "» Homo omne monstrum est, ille nam suspirat feras, luposque et ursos pectore obscuro 
teftit. Hens. n Quod Paterciilus de populo Romano, durante bello Punico per annos 115, aut belluux 

inter eos, aut belli praiparatio, aut infida pax, idem ego de mundi accolis. <> Theocritus Idyll. 15. 



[Mem. 3. Subs. 10.] Discontents, Cares, ^-c. 183 

formerly have enjoyed. He sits at table in a soft cliair at ease, but he doth not 
remember in the meantime that a tired waiter stands behind him, " an hungry 
fellow ministers to him full, he is athirst that gives him drink (saithPEpictetus) 
and is silent whilst he speaks his pleasure ; pensive, sad, when he laughs." 
Pleno se proluit auro: he feasts, revels, and profusely spends, hath variety of 
robes, sweet music, ease, and all the pleasures the world can afford, whilst many 
an hunger-starved poor creature pines in the street, w^ants clothes to cover him, 
labours hard all day long, runs, rides for a trifle, fights peradventure from sun. 
to sun, sick and ill, weary, full of pain and grief, is in great distress and sorrow 
of heart. He loathes and scorns his inferior, hates or emulates his equal, envies 
his superior, insults over all such as are under him, as if he were of another 
species, a demi-god, not subject to any fall, or human infirmities. Generally 
they love not, are not beloved again : they tire out others' bodies with con- 
tinual labour, they themselves living at ease, caring for none else, sibi nati; 
and are so far many times from putting to their helping hand, that they seek 
all means to depress, even most worthy and well deserving, better than them- 
selves, those whom they are by the laws of nature bound to relieve and help, 
as much as in them lies, they will let them cater v/aul, starve, beg, and hang, 
before they will any ways (though it be in their power) assist or ease: "^so 
unnatural are they for the most part, so unregardful; so hard-hearted, so 
churlish, proud, insolent, so dogged, of so bad a disposition. And being so 
brutish, so devilishly bent one towards another, how is it possible but that 
we should be discontent of all sides, full of cares, woes, and miseries ? 

If this be not a sufiicient proof of their discontent and misery, examine every 
condition and calling apart. Kings, princes, monarchs, and magistrates seeni 
to be most happy, but look into their estate, you shall 'find them to be most 
encumbered with cares, in perpetual fear, agony, suspicion, jealousy : that as 
^ he said of a crown, if they knew but the discontents that accompany it, they 
would not stoop to take it up. Quern mihi regem dabis (saith Chrysostom) non 
curis plenum? What king canst thou show me, not full of cares'? "^Look 
not on his crown, but consider his afflictions ; attend not his number of servants, 
but multitude of crosses." Nihil aliud potestas culminis, quam tempestas mentis, 
as Gregory seconds him; sovereignty is a tempest of the soul : Sylla-like 
they have brave titles but terrible fits: splendjorem titulo, cruciatum animo : 
which made * Demosthenes vow, si velad tribunal, vel adinteritum ducerefur : 
if to be a judge, or to be condemned, were put to his choice, he would be con^ 
demned. Rich men are in the same predicament ; what their j)ains are, stuld 
nesciunt, ipsi sentiunt: they feel, fools perceive not, as I shall prove elsewhere, 
and their wealth is brittle, like children's rattles : they come and go, there is 
no certainty in them : those whom they elevate, they do as suddenly depress, 
and leave in a vale of misery. The middle sort of men are as so many asses to 
bear burdens; or if they be free, and live at ease, they spend themselves, and 
consume their bodies and fortunes with luxury and riot, contention, emulation, 
(fcc. The poor I reserve for another "^ place, and their discontents. 

For particular professions, I hold as of the rest, there's no content or security 
in any; on what course will you pitch; how resolve? to be a divine, 'tis con- 
temptible in the world's esteem ; to be a lawyer, 'tis to be a wrangler ; to be 
a physician, '^pudet lotii, 'tis loathed; a philosopher, a madman; an alchymist, 
a beggar; a poet, esurit, an hungry jack; a musician, a player; a schoolmas- 
ter, a drudge; an husbandman, an emmet; a merchant, his gains are uncer- 

p Qni sedet in mensa, non meminit sibi otioso ministrare negotiosos, edenti esurientes, bibenti sitientes, &c. 
•JQuandoin adolescentia sua ipsi vixerint, lautius et liberius volnptates suas expleverint, illi gnatis impo- 
nunt duriores continentise leges. rLugubris Ate luctuqiie fero Kegum tumidas obsidet arces. Res est iu- 
quieta fa?Ucitas. s pius aloes quam melli.s liabet. Non humi jacentem tolleres. Valer. 1. 7. c. 3. 'Xon 

diadema aspicias, sed vitam afflictione refertam, non catervas satellitum, sed curarum multitudinem. * Aa 
Plutarch relateth. *■■ Sect. 2. memb. 4. subsect. 6. ^Stercus et urina, medicoium fercula prima. 



184 Causes of Mdanchohj. [Part 1. Sec. 2. 

tain; a meclianician, base ; a chirurgeon, fulsome; a tradesman, a ^liar; a 
tailor, a thief; a serving- man, a slave; a soldier, a butcher; a smith, or a 
metalman, the pot's never from's nose; a courtier, a parasite, as he could find 
no tree in the wood to hang himself; I can show no state of life to give con- 
tent. The like you may say of all ages ; children live in a perpetual slavery, 
still under that tyrannical government of masters; young men, and of riper 
years, subject to labour, and a thousand cares of the world, to treachery, false- 
hood, and cozenage, 

" '• Incedit per ignes, I " you incautious tread 

Suppositos cineri doloso," | On fires, with faithless ashes overlieacl." 

*old are full of aches in their bones, cramps and convulsions, silicernia, dull of 
hearing, weak sighted, hoary, wrinkled, harsh, so much altered as that they 
cannot know their own face in a glass, a burthen to themselves and others, after 
70 years, " all is sorrow" (as David hath it), they do not live but linger. If 
they be sound, they fear diseases; if sick, weary of their lives : Non est vivere 
sed valere, vita. One complains of want, a second of servitude, ^another of a 
secret or incurable disease ; of some deformity of body, of some loss, danger, 
death of friends, shipwreck, persecution, imprisonment, disgrace, repulse, 
'^ contumely, calumny, abuse, injury, contempt, ingratitude, unkindness, scofts, 
flouts, unfortunate marriage, single life, too many children, no children, false 
servants, unhappy children, barrenness, banishment, oppression, frustrate 
hopes and ill success, &c. 

"d Talia de gen ere hoc adeo sant multa, loquacem ut I " But, every various instance to repeat, 
Delassare valent Fabium " \ Would th-e even Fabius of incessant prate." 

Talking Fabius will be tired before he can tell half of them ; they are the 
subject of whole volumes, and shall (some of them) be more opportunely dilated 
elsewhere. In the meantime thus much I may say of them, that generally they 
crucify the soul of man, ^attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel 
them up like old apples, make them as so many anatomies (^ ossa atque pellix 
est totus, ita curis macet), they cause tempusfcedum et squalidum^ cumbersome 
days, ingrataque tempora, slow, dull, and heavy times: make us howl, roar, 
and tear our hairs, as sorrow did in ^Cebes' table, and groan for the very 
anguish of our souls. Our hearts fail us as David's did, Psal. xl. 12, "for 
innumerable troubles that compassed him ;" and we are ready to confess with 
Hezekiah, Isaiah Iviii. 17, "behold, for felicity I had bitter grief;" to weep 
with Heraclitus, to curse the day of our birth with Jeremy, xx. 14, and our 
stars with Job : to hold that axiom of Silenus, " ^ better never to have been 
born, and the best next of all, to die quickly :" or if we must live, to abandon the 
world, as Timon did ; creep into caves and holes, as our anchorites ; cast all 
into the sea, as Crates Thebanus ; or as Theombrotus Ambrociato's 400 
auditors, precipitate ourselves to be rid of these miseries. 

SuBSECT. XI. — Concupiscible Appetite, as Desires^ Ambition, Causes. 
These concupiscible and irascible appetites are as the two twists of a rope, 
mutually mixed one with the other, and both twining about the heart : both 
good, as Austin holds, /. 14, c. 9, de civ. Dei, "'if they be moderate; both 
pernicious if they be exorbitant." This concupiscible appetite, howsoever it 
may seem to ca^rry with it a show of pleasure and delight, and our concupiscences 
most part affect us with content and a pleasing object, yet if they be in extremes, 
they rack and wring us on the other side. A true saying it is, "Desire hath no 
rest;" is infinite in itself, endless; and as '^one calls it, a perpetual rack, 'or 

y Nihil lucrantur, nisi admodum mentiendo. TuU. OfSc. z Hor. 1. 2. od. 1. ^Rarusfelix idemque 

senex. Seneca in Her. asteo. ' bOniit'to aagros, exules, mendicos, quos nemo audet foelices dicere. Card, 
lib. 8. c. 46. de rer. var. « Spretseque injuria formge. <* Hor. • Attenuaiit vigiles corpus miserabile 

ciirge. f Plautus. g Ha?c qute crines evellit, arumna. ^ optimum non nasci, aut cito mori. » Bonae 
si rectam ralionem sequuutur, \m\\di si exorbitant. k Tho. Buovie. Prob. 18. i Molam asinariam. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 11,] • Amhifion, a Caused 185 

horse-mill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring. Tliey are not 
so continual, as divers, feliciiis atomos denumerare possem, saith "* Bernard, 
quani motus cordis; nunc hcec, nunc ilia cogito, you may as well reckon up the 
motes in the sun as them. ''"It extends itself to every thing," as Guianerius 
will have it, " that is superfluously sought after :" or to any ° fervent desire, as 
Fernelius interprets it ; be it in what kind soever, it tortures if immoderate, 
and is (according to ^ Plater and others) an especial cause of melancholy. 
MuUuosis concupisceniiis dilaniantur cogitationes mece, '^Austin confessed, that 
lie was torn a pieces with his manifold desires : and so doth ^ Bernard com- 
plain, " that he could not rest for them a minute of an hour : this I would 
have, and that, and then I desire to be such and such." 'Tis a hard matter 
therefore to confine them, being they are so various and many, impossible to 
apprehend all. I will only insist upon some few of the chief, and moat noxious 
in their kind, as that exorbitant appetite and desire of honour, which we com- 
monly call ambition; love of money, which is covetousness, and that greedy 
desire of gain : self-love, pride, and inordinate desire of vain-glory or applause, 
love of study in excess; love of women (which "will require a just volume of 
itself), of the other I will briefly speak, and in their order. 

Ambition, a proud covetousness, or a dry thirst of honour, a great torture of 
the mind, composed of envy, pride, and covetousness, a gallant madness, one 
* defines it a pleasant poison, Ambrose, " a canker of the soul, an hidden 
plague:" * Bernard, " a secret poison, the father of livor, and mother of hypo- 
crisy, the moth of holiness, and cause of madness, crucifying and disquieting 
all that it takes hold of." " Seneca calls it, rem solicitam, timidam, vanam, 
ventosam, a windy thing, a vain, solicitous, and fearful thing. For commonly 
they that, like Sysiphus, roll this restless stone of ambitiou, are in a perpetual 
agony, still ^ perplexed, semper taciti, tristesque recedunt (Lucretius), doubtful, 
timorous, suspicious, loath to ofiend in word or deed, still cogging and collogue- 
ing, embracing, capping, cringing, applauding, flattering, fleering, visiting, 
waiting at men's doors, with all afikbility, counterfeit honesty and humility.'' 
If that will not serve, if once this humour (as ^ Cyprian describes it) possess 
his thirsty soul, ambitionis salsugo uhi bibulam aniniam possidet, by hook and 
by crook he will obtain it, " and from his hole he will climb to all honours and 
offices, if it be possible for him to get up, flattering one, bribing another, he 
will leave no means unessay'd to win all." "^ It is a wonder to see how slavishly 
these kind of men subject themselves, when they are about a suit, to every 
inferior person; what pains they will take, run, ride, cast, plot, countermine, 
protest and swear, vow, promise, what labours undergo, early up, down late; 
how obsequious and affable they are, how popular and courteous, how they grin, 
and fleer upon every man they meet; with what feasting and inviting, how 
they spend themselves and their fortunes, in seeking that many times, which 
they had much better be without ; as *" Cyneas the orator told Pyrrhus : with 
what waking nights, painful hours, anxious thoughts, and bitterness of mind, 
inter spevique me^wmgwe, distracted and tired, they consume the interim of their 
time. There can be no greater plague for the present. If they do obtain their 
suit, which with such cost and solicitude they have sought, they are not so freed, 

™ Tract, de Inter, c. 92. " Circa qnamlibet rem mundi haec passio fieri potest, quae superflub diligatur. 
Tract. 15, c. 17. ° Ferventius desiderium. p Imprimis vero Appetitus, &c. 3. de alien, meht. <i Conf. 
1. c. 29. >• Per diversa loca vagor, nullo temporis momento quiesco, talis et talis esse cupio, illud atque illud 
habere desidero. s Ambros. 1. 3. super Lucam, aerugo animse. t Nihil animum cruciat, nihil molestius 
inquietat, secretum virus, pestis occulta, &c. epist. 126. " Ep. 88. " Nihil infelicius his, quantus iia 

timor, quanta dubitatio, quantus conatus, quanta solicitudo, nulla illis a molestiis vacua hora. » Semper 
attonitus, semper pavidus quid dicat, faciatve: ne displiceat humilitatem simulat, honestatem mentitur. 
y Cypr. Prolog, ad ser. To. 2. cunctos honorat, universisinclinat, subsequitur, obsequitur, frequentat curias, 
visitat, optimates amplexatur, applaudit, adulatur : per fas et nefasc latebris, in omnem gradum ubiaditus 
patet se ingerit, discurrit. ^ TurbiB cogit ambitio regem inservire, ut Homerus Agamemnonera querentem 
inducit. » Plutarchus. Quin convivemur, et in otic nos oblectemur, quouiam in proniptu id nobis 

sit, &c. 



186 Causes of Melancholy, [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

their anxiety is anew to begin, for tliey are never satisfied, nihil aliud nisi 
imperium spirant, their thoughts, actions, endeavours are all for sovereignty 
and honour, like ^ Lues Sforsia that huffing duke of Milan, " a man of singular 
wisdom, but profound ambition, born to his own, and to the destruction of 
Italy," though it be to their own ruin, and friends' undoing, they will contend, 
they may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in 
a chain, so ''Budseus compares them ; ^ they climb and climb still, with much 
labour, but never make an end, never at the top. A knight would be a baronet, 
and then a lord, and then a viscount, and then an earl, &c. j a doctor, a dean, 
and then a bishop; from tribune to prsetor; from bailiff to major; first this 
office, and then that; as Pyrrhus in ** Plutarch, they will first have Greece, 
then Africa, and then Asia, and swell with ^sop's frog so long, till in the end 
they burst, or come down with Sejanus, ad Gemo/iias scalas, and break their 
own necks; or as Evangel us the piper in Lucian, that blew his pipe so long, 
till he fell down dead. If he chance to miss, and have a canvass, he is in a hell 
on the other side ; so dejected, that he is ready to hang himself, turn heretic, 
Turk, or traitor in an instant. Enraged against his enemies, he rails, swears, 
fights, slanders, detracts, envies, murders : and for his own part, si appetitum 
expLre non potest, furore corripitur ; if he cannot satisfy his desire (as^Bodine 
writes) he runs mad. So that both ways, hit or miss, he is distracted so long 
as his ambition lasts, he can look for no other bat anxiety and care, discontent 
and grief in the meantime, ^ madness itself, or violent death in the end. The 
event of this is common to be seen in populous cities, or in princes' courts, for 
a courtier's life (as Budseus describes it) " is a '^ gallimaufry of ambition, lust, 
fraud, imposture, dissimulation, detraction, envy, pride; 'the court, a common 
conventicle of flatterers, time-servers, politicians," &c. ; or as ^ Anthony Perez 
will, " the suburbs of hell itself." If you will see such discontented persons, 
there you shall likely find them. ■ And which he observed of the markets of 
old Borne, 

" Qui perjurum convenire viilt hominem, mitto in Comitiuin; 
Qui mendacem et gloriosum, apucl CluasinoB sacrum; 
iJites, damnosos maritos, sub basilica quserito," &c. 

Perjured knaves, knights of the post, liars, crackers, bad husbands, &c. keep 
their several stations; they do still, and always did in every commonwealth. 

Subs EOT. XIL — <>ihafyvpta, Covetousness, a Cause. 

Plutakch, in his "^ book whether the diseases of the body be more grievous 
than those of the soul, is of opinion, " if you will examine all the causes of our 
miseries in this life, you shall find them most part to have had their beginning 
from stubborn anger, that furious desire of contention, or some unjust or im- 
moderate affection, as covetousness," &c. "From whence are wars and con- 
tentions amongst you?" * St. James asks: 1 will add usury, fraud, rapine, 
simony, oppression, lying, swearing, bearing false witness, &c. are they not 
from this fountain of covetousness, that greediness in getting, tenacity in 
keeping, sordity in spending; that they are so wicked, "" unjust against God, 
their neighbour, themselves;" all comes hence. "The desire of money is the 
root of all evil, and they that lust after it, pierce themselves through with many 

^ Jovius liist. 1. 1. vir singulari prudentia, sed profunda ambitione, ad exitium Italise natus. <= Ut hedera 
arbori adliaeret, sic ambitio, etc. ^ Lib. 3. de contemptu rerum fortuitarum. Magno conatu et impetu 

moventur, super eodem centro rotati, non proficiunt, nee ad finem perveniunt. e yua, Pyrrlii. *■ Ambitio 
in insaniam facile delabitur, si excedat. Patritius 1. 4. tit. 20. de regis instit. s Lib. 5. de rep. cap. 1. 

h Imprimis vero appetitus, seu concupiscentia nimia rei alicujus, honestte vel inhonestas, phantasiam lajdunt ; 
unde multi ambitiosi, philauti, irati, avari, insani, &c. Felix Plater 1. 3. de mentis alien. ' Aulica vita 
coUuvies ambitionis, cupiditatis, simulationis, iiTipostura2, fraudis, invidise, superbiee Titanniccc, diversorium, 
aula, et commune conventiculum assentandi, artiiicum, &c. Budajus de asse. lib. 5. '^ In his Aphor. 

« Plautus Curcul. Act. 4. Seen. 1. »" Tom. 2. Si examines, omnes miseriae causits vel a furioso contendondi 
studio, vel ab injusta cupiditate, originem traxisse scies. Idem fere Chrysostomus com. in c. 6. ad liomun. 
ser. 11. * Cap. 4. 1. " Ut sit iuiquus in deum, in pro^iimum, in seipsum. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 12.] CovetousJiess, a Cause. 187 

sorrows," 1 Tim. vi. 10. Hippocrates therefore in his Epistle to Crateva, an 
herbalist, gives him this good counsel, that if it were jDosssible, " ^'amongst 
other herbs, he should cut up that weed of covetousness by the roots, that there 
be no remainder left, and then know this for a certainty, that together with 
their bodies, thou mayst quickly cure all the diseases of their minds." For it 
is indeed the pattern, image, epitome of all melancholy, the fountain of many 
miseries, much discontented care and woe; this "inordinate or immoderate, 
desire of gain, to get or keep money," as ^Bonaventure defines it: or, as 
Austin describes it^ a madness of the soul, Gregory, a torture ; Chrysostom, an 
insatiable drunkenness; Cyprian, blindness, speciosum supplicium, a plague 
subverting kingdoms, families, an tin curable disease; Budseus, an ill habit, 
" "^yielding to no remedies : " neither, ^sculapius nor Plutus can cure them : a 
continual plague, saith Solomon, and vexation of spirit, another hell. 1 know 
there be some of opinion, that covetous men are happy, and worldly-wise, that 
there is more pleasure in getting of wealth than in spending, and no delight in 
the world like unto it. 'Twas J. Bias' problem of old, " With what art thou 
not weary] with getting money. What is more delectable? to gain." What 
is it, trow you, that makes a poor man labour all his lifetime, carry such great 
burdens, fare so hardly, macerate himself, and endure so much misery, undergo 
such base offices with so great patience, to rise up early, and lie down late, if 
there were not an extraordinary delight in getting and keeping of money? 
What makes a merchant that hath no need, satis sujyerque doiiii, to range all 
over the world, through all those intemperate * Zones of heat and cold; volun- 
tarily to venture his life, and be content with such miserable famine, nasty 
usage, in a stinking ship ; if there were not a pleasure and hope to get money, 
which doth season the rest, and mitigate his indefatigable pains? What makes 
them go into the bowels of the earth, an hundred fathom deep, endangering 
their dearest lives, enduring damps and filthy smells, when they have enough 
already, if they could be content, and no such cause to labour, but an extraor- 
dinary delight they take in riches. This may seem plausible at first show, a 
popular and strong argument ; but let him that so thinks, consider better of it, 
and he shall soon perceive, that it is far otherwise than he supposeth ; it may 
be haply pleasing at the first, as most part all melancholy is. For such men 
likely have some lucida intervalla, pleasant symptoms intermixed; but you 
must note that of t Chrysostom, " 'Tis one thing to be rich, another to be 
covetous :" generally they are all fools, dizzards, mad-men, "" miserable wretches, 
living beside themselves, sine artefruendi, in perpetual slavery, feai", suspicion, 
sorrow, and discontent, plus aloes quammellis habent; and are indeed, " rather 
possessed by their money, than possessors:" as * Cyprian hath it, mancipati 
pecuniis; bound prentice to their goods, as t Pliny ; or as Chrysostom, sei^vi 
dlvitiarum, slaves and drudges to their substance ; and we may conclude of 
them all, as *Yalerius doth of Ptolomseus king of Cyprus, " He was in title a 
king of that island, but in his mind, a miserable drudge of money:" 

-§ potiore metallis 



Libertate carens 



wanting his liberty, which is better than gold. Damasippus the Stoic, in 
Horace, proves that all mortal men dote by fits, some one way, some another, 

oSi vero, Crateva, inter cseteras herbarum radices, avaritias racTicem secare posses amaram, ut nullas 
reliquiae essent, probe scito, &c. p Cap. 6. Diette salutis: avaritia est amor imnioderatus pecuniiE vel 

acquirendae, vel retinendae. t Ferum proi'ecto dirumque ulcus animi, remediis noii cedens medendo 

exasperatur. q Malus est morbus maleque afficit avaritia siquidem censeo, &c. avaritia difficilius curatur 
quam insania : quoniam hac omnes fere medici laborant. Hip. ep. Abderit. % Extremes currit mercator 
ad Indos. Hor. * Qua re non es lassus? lucrum faciendo : quid maxime delectabile? lucniri. f Horn. 
2. aliud avarus aliud dives. '^ Divitiaj ut spinas animum hominis timoribus, solicitudinibus, angoribus 

inirifice pungunt, vexant, cruciant. Greg, inborn. « Epist. ad Donat. cap. 2. J Lib. y. ep. 30. 

tLib. 9. cap. 4. iusulae rex titulo, sed animo pecunice miserabile mancipium. § Hor. 10. lib. 1. 



188 Causes of MelamJwly. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

but tliat covetous men "are madder than the rest; and he that shall truly look 
into their estates, and examine their symptoms, shall find no better of them, but 
that they are all ^ fools, as Nabal was, Re et nomine (1. Reg. 2o). For what 
greater folly can there be, or || madness, than to macerate himself when he need 
not? and when, as Cyprian notes, " ^he may be freed from his burden, and 
eased of his pains, will go on still, his wealth increasing, when he hath enough, 
to get more, to live besides himself," to starve his genius, keep back from his 
wife ^and children, neither letting them nor other friends use or enjoy that 
which is theirs by right, and which they much need perhaps ; like a hog, or 
dog in the manger, he dotli only keep it, because it shall do nobody else good, 
hurting himself and others : and for a little momentary pelf, damn his own 
soul ! They are commonly sad and tetric by nature, as !A.hab's spirit was, be- 
cause he could not get Naboth's vineyard, (3. Reg. 21.) and if he lay out his 
money at any time, though it be to necessary uses, to his own children's good, 
he brawls and scolds, his heart is heavy, much disquieted he is, and loath to 
part from it : Miser abstinet et timet uti, Hor. He is of a wearish, dry, pale 
constitution, and cannot sleep for cares and worldly business ; his riches, saith 
Solomon, will not let him sleep, and unnecessary business which he heapeth on 
himself; or if he do sleep, 'tis a very unquiet, interrupt, unpleasing sleep: 
with his bags in his arms, 

-congestis uijdique sacci? 



Indormit inliians, 



And though he be at a banquet, or at some merry feast, " he sighs for grief of 
heart (as * Cyprian hath it) and cannot sleep though it be upon a down bed; 
his wearish iDody takes no rest, ''troubled in his abundance, and sorrowful in 
plenty, unhappy for the present, and more unhappy in the life to come." Basil. 
He is a perpetual drudge, "restless in his thoughts, and never satisfied, a slave, 
a wretch, a dust-worm, semper quod idolo suo immolet, sedulus qhservat, Cypr. 
prolog, ad sermon, still seeking what sacrifice he ruay ofier to his golden god, 
per fas et nefas, he cares not how, his trouble is endless, ^crescunt divitice, 
tamen curtce nescio quid sem2^er abest rei: his wealth increaseth, and the more 
he hath, the more ^he wants: like Pharaoh's lean kine, which devoured the 
fat, and were not satisfied. 'Austin therefore defines covetousness, quarum- 
lihet rerum inhonestam et iiisatiabilem cupiditatem, a dishonest and insatiable 
desire of gain; and in one of his epistles compares it to hell; "^ which 
devours all, and yet never hath enough, a bottomless pit," an endless misery; 
in quern scopulum avaritice cadaver osi series ut plurimilm iTnpingunt, and that 
which is their greatest corrosive, they are in continual suspicion, fear, and dis- 
trust. He thinks his own wife and children are so many thieves, and go about 
to cozen him, his servants are all false : 



" If his doors ci-eek, then out he cries anon, 
His goods are gone, and he is quite undone.** 



" Rem snam periisse, seque eradicarier, 
Et divum atque hominum clamat continuo fidem, 
De suo tigillo finnus si qua exit foras." 

Timidus Plutus, an old proverb. As fearful as Plutus; so doth Aristophanes 
and Lucian bring him in fearful still, pale, anxious, suspicious, and trusting no 
man, " ^ They are afraid of tempests for their corn ; they are afraid of their 

"Danda est hellbori multo pars maxima avaris. ^ Luke, xii. 20. Stulte, hac nocte eripiam animam 

tuara. II Opes quide n mortalibus sunt dementia. Theog. ' y Ed. 2. iib. 2. Exonerare cum se possit 

et relevare ponderibus pergit magis fortunis augentibus pertinaciter incubare. ^ jvfon amicis, non liberis, 
non ipsi sibi quidquam impertit; possidet ad hoc tantum, ne possidere alteri liceat, &c. Hieron. ad Paulin. 
tam deest quod habet quam quod non habet. * Epist. 2. lib. 2. Suspirat in convivio, bibat licet gemrais 

et toro molliore marcidum corpus condiderit, vigilat in pluma. ^ Angustatur ex abundantia, contristatur 
ex opulentia, infelix prgesentibus bonis, infelicior in futuris. « lllorum cogitatio nunquam cessat qui 

pecunids supplere diligunt. Guianer. tract. 15. c. 17. ^ Hor. 3. Od. 24. Quo plus sunt potte, plus 

sitiuntur aquas. e jjor. 1. 2. Sat. 6. si angulus ille proximus accedat, qui nunc deformat agellum. 

'Lib. 3. de lib. arbit. Immoritur studiis, et amore senescit habendi. s A varus vir inferno est similis, &c. 
modum non habet, hoc egentior quo plura habet. *> Erasm. Adag. chil. 3. cent. 7. pro. 72. Nulli fidentes 
omnium formidant opes, ideo pavidum malum vocat Euripides: metuunt tempestates ob frumentuin, amicos 
ne rogent, inimicos ne iaudant, fures ne rapiaat, beilam timcnt, pacem timent, summos, medios, iuhmos. 



Mem. 3. Sabs. 13.] Ljve of GcLming, d)c. 1S9 

friends lest tliej sliould ask somefcliing of them, beg or borrow; tbey are 
afraid of their enemies lest they hurt them, thieves lest they rob them; they 
are afraid of war and afraid of peace, afraid of rich and afraid of poor; afraid 
of all." Last of all, they are afraid of want, that they shall die beggars, 
which makes them lay up still, and dare not use that they have : what if a dear 
year come, or dearth, or some loss? and were it not that they are loath to' lay 
out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to 
save charges, and make away themselves, if their corn and cattle miscarry; 
though they have abundance left, as ^ Agellius notes. ^ Valerius makes men- 
tion of one that in a famine sold a mouse for 200 pence, and famished 
himself: such are their cares, ^griefs and perpetual fears. These symptoms 
are elegantly expressed by Theophrastus in his character of a covetous man ; 
'•'° lying in bed, he asked his wife whether she shut the trunks and chests fast, 
the carcase be sealed, and whether the hall door be bolted ; and though she 
say all is well, he riseth out of his bed in his shirt, barefoot and barelegged, 
to see whether it be so, with a dark lantern searching every corner, scarce 
sleeping a wink all night." Lucian in that pleasant and witty dialogue called 
Gallus, brings in Mycillus the cobbler disputing with his cock, sometimes Py- 
thagoras ; where after much speech pro and con to prove the happiness of a 
mean estate, and discontents of a rich man, Pythagoras' cock in the end, to 
illustrate by examples that which he had said, brings him to Gnyphon the 
usurer's house at midnight, and after that to Eucrates ; whom they found 
both awake, casting up their accounts, and telling of their money, ° lean, dry, 
pale and anxious, still suspecting lest somebody should make a hole through 
the wall, and so get in ; or if a rat or mouse did but stir, starting upon a sud- 
den, and running to the door to see whether all were fast. Plautus, in his 
Aulularia, makes old Euclio ^ commanding Staphyla his wife to shut the doors 
fast, and the fire to be put out, lest any body should make that an errand to 
come to his house : when he washed his hands, "^he was loath to fling away the 
foul water, complaining that he was undone, because the smoke got out of 
his roof. And as he went from home, seeing a crow scratch upon the muck-hill, 
returned in all haste, taking it for malum omen, an ill sign, his money was 
digged up ; with many such. He that will but observe their actions, shall find 
these and many such passages not feigned for sport, but really performed, veri- 
fied indeed by such covetous and miserable wretches, and that it is, 

" * manifesta ptirenesis 

LTt locuples moriaris egenti vivere fato." 

A mere madness, to live like a wretch, and die rich. 

SuBSECT.XIIL — Love of Gaming, dac. and pleasures immoderate ; Causes, 

It is a wonder to see, how many poor, distressed, miserable wretches, one 
shall meet almost in every path and street, begging for an alms, that have been 
well descended, and sometimes in flourishing estate, now ragged, tattered, and 
ready to be starved, lingering out a painf al life, in discontent and grief of body 
and mind, and all through immoderate lust, gaming, pleasure and riot. ' Tis 
the common end of all sensual epicures and brutish prodigals, that are stupified 
and carried away headlong with their several pleasures and lusts. Cebes in his 

'Hall Cliar. k Agelliuslib. 3. cap. 1. interdmn eo sceleris perveniunt ob lucrnra, ut vitam propriara 

comiiiutent. Lib. 7. cap. 6. => Omnes perpetuo morbo agitantur, suspicatur omnes timidus, sibique 

ob aaramiusidiari putat, nunquain quiescens, Plin. Prooem. lib. 14. ° Cap. 18. in lecto jacens interrogat 
uxorem an arcain probe clausit, an capsiila, &c. E lecto surgens nudus et absque calceis, accensa Licerna 
omnia obiens et lustrans, et vix somno indulgens. o Curis extenuatus, vigilans et secam suppatans. 

P Cas'e qaemquam alienum in aedes intromiseris. Ignem extingui volo, ne causje quidquam sit quod te quis- 
quain quseritet. Si bona fortuna veaiat ne intromiseris; Occlude sis fores arabobus pessulis. Discrutior 
animi quia dorao abeundu n est mihi : Xiaiis herciile invitus abeo, nee quid aga-u scio, q Piorat a^uum 

proiundere, &c, periit dum lainus de tig'Uo exit ioras. * Jiif. Sat. 14. 



190 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

table, S. Ambrose in liis second book of Abel and Cain, and amongst tbe rest 
Lucian in his tract da Mercede conductis, hath excellent well deciphered such 
men's proceedings in his picture of Opulentia, whom he feigns to dwell on the 
top of a high mount, much sought after by many suitors ; at their first com- 
ing they are generally entertained by pleasure and dalliance, and have all the 
content that possibly may be given, so long as their money lasts : but when 
their means fail, they are contemptibly thrust out at a back door, headlong, 
and there left to shame, reproach, despair. And he at first that had so many 
attendants, parasites, and followers, young and lusty, richly arrayed, and all 
the dainty fare that might be had, with all kind of welcome and good respect, 
is now upon a sudden stript of all, ""pale, naked, old, diseased and forsaken, 
cursing his stars, and ready to strangle himself ; having no other company but 
repentance, sorrow, grief, derision, beggary and contempt, which are his daily 
attendants to his life's end. As the ^prodigal son had exquisite music, merry 
company, dainty fare at first ; but a sorrowful reckoning in the end ; so have 
all such vain delights and their followers. ^Tristes voluptatum exitus, et quis- 
quis voluptatum suarum reminisci volet, intelliget, as bitter as gall and worm- 
wood is their last ; grief of mind, madness itself. The ordinary rocks upon 
which such men do impinge and precipitate themselves, are cards, dice, hawks 
and hounds, Insanum venandi studium, one calls it, insance substraciiones : 
their mad structures, disports, plays, &c., when they are unseasonably used, 
imprudently handled, and beyond their fortunes. Some men are consumed by 
mad fantastical buildings, by making galleries, cloisters, terraces, walks, 
orchards, gardens, pools, rillets, bowers, and such like places of pleasure ; 
Inutiles do/nos, '^Xenophon calls them, which howsoever they be delightsome 
things in themselves, and acceptable to all beholders, an ornament and befit- 
ting some great men ; yet unprofitable to others, and the sole overthrow of their 
estates. Forestus in his observations hath an example of such a one that became 
melancholy upon the like occasion, having consumed his substance in an unpro- 
fitable building, which would afterward yield him no advantage. Others, I say, 
are '^ overthrown by those mad sports of hawking and hunting ; honest recrea- 
tions, and fit for some great men, but not for every base inferior person ; whilst 
they will maintain their falconers, dogs, and hunting nags, their wealth, saith 
^ Salmutze, " runs away with hounds, and their fortunes fly away with 
hawks." They persecute beasts so long, till in the end they themselves 
degenerate into beasts, as "^ Agrippa taxeth them, ''Actaeon-iike, for as he was 
eaten to death by his own dogs, so do they devour themselves and their pa- 
trimonies, in such idle and unnecessary disports, neglecting in the mean time 
their more necessary business, and to follow their vocations. Over- mad too 
sometimes are our great men in delighting, and doting too much on it. " ''When 
they drive poor husbandmen from their tillage," as <^Sarisburiensis objects, 
Polycrat. I. I.e. 4. '- fling down country farms, and whole towns, to make 
parks, and forests, starving men to feed beasts, and ^ punishing in the mean 
time such a man that shall molest their game, more severely than him that is 
otherwise a common hacker, or a notorious thief." But great men are some 
ways to be excused, the meaner sort have no evasion why they should not be 

'Ventricosus, nudus, pallidus, Iseva ipiidorem occnltans, dextra seipsum strangulans, occurrit autep 
exeunti pcenitentia his miserum conficiens, &c. «Luke xv. * Boethius. " In Oeconora. Quid 

si nunc ostendam eos qui magna vi argenti domus inutiles sedificant, inquit Socrates. * Savisburiensis 

Polycrat. 1. 1. c. 14. venatores omnes adhuc institutionem redolent centaurorum. Raro invenitur quisquara 
eoriirn modestus et gravis, raro continens, et ut credo sobrius unquam. y Pancirol. Tit. 23. avolant opes 
cum accipitre. -^Insignis venatorum stultitia, et supervacanea cura eorum, qui dum nimium venation! 

insistunt, ipsi abjecta omni hmnanitate in feras degenerant, ut Acteon, &c. » Sabin. in Ovid. Metamor. 

b Agrippa de vanit. scient. Insanum venandi studium, dum a novalibus arcentur agricolaa subtrahunt pra^dia 

rusticis, agricolonis praacluduntur sylvae et prata pastoribus ut augeantur pascua feris Majestatis reus 

agricola si gnstarit. « A novalibus suis arcentur agricolae, dum feraj habeant vagandi libertatem : istis, ut 
pascua augeantur, prtedia subtrahuntur, &c. Sarisburiensis. d Feris quam hominibus ffiquiores. Cambd. 
de Gail. Conq. qui 36 Eccl<isias matrices depopiUatus est ad foreatam novam. Mat. Pai-is. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 13.] Love of Gaming, d'o. 191 

counted mad. Poggius tlie Florentine tells a merry story to this purpose, con- 
demning thefoUyand impertinentbusinessof such kind of persons. A physician 
of Milan, saith he, that cured mad men, had a pit of water in his house, in 
which he kept his patients, some up to their knees, some to the girdle, some to 
the chin, pro raodo i?isanice, as they were Tuore or less affected. One of them 
by chance, that was well recovered, stood in the door, and seeing a gallant ride 
by with a hawk on his fist, well mounted, with his spaniels after him, would 
needs know to what use all this preparation served; he made answer to kill 
certain fowls; the patient demanded again, what his fowl might be worth which 
he killed in a year; he replied 5 or 10 crowns; and when he urged him farther 
what his dogs, horse, and hawks stood him in, he told him 400 crowns; with 
that the patient bade be gone, as he loved his life and welfare, for if our master 
come and find thee here, he will put thee in the pit amongst mad men up to the 
chin : taxing the madness and folly of such vain men that spend themselves in. 
those idle sports, neglecting their business and necessary affairs, Leo decimus, 
that hunting pope, is much discommended by ® Jovius in his life, for his immo- 
derate desire of hawking and hunting, in so much that (as he saith) he would 
sometimes live about Ostia weeks and months together, leave suitors ''unre- 
spected, bulls and pardons unsigned, to his own prejudice, and many private 
men's loss. " ^ And if he had been by chance crossed in his sport, or his game 
not so good, he was so impatient, that he would revile and miscall many times 
men of great worth with most bitter taunts, look so sour, be so angry and 
waspish, so grieved and molested, that it is incredible to relate it." But if he 
had good sport, and been well pleased, on the other side, incredibili munificentid, 
with unspeakable bounty and munificence he would reward all his fellow hunters, 
and deny nothing to any suitor when he was in that mood. To say truth, 'tis 
the common humour of all gamesters, as Galataeus observes, if they win, no men 
living are so jovial and merry, but ^if they lose, though it be but a trifle, two 
or three games at tables, or a dealing at cards for twopence a game, they are 
so choleric and testy that no man may speak with them, and break many times 
into violent passions, oaths, imprecations, and unbeseeming speeches, little 
differing from mad men for the time. Generally of all gamesters and gaming, 
if it be excessive, thus much we may conclude, that whether they win oi lose 
for the present, their winnings are not Munera fortunce, sed insidice, as that 
wise Seneca determines, not fortune's gifts, but baits, the common catastrophe 
is 'beggary, ^ Ut pestis vitam, sic adimit alea pecuniam, as the plague takes 
away life, doth gaming goods, for ^omnes nudi, inopes et egeni; 

"°'Alea Scylla vorax, species certissima furti, 

Non contenta bonis animum quoqne perfida niergit, 
Foeda, furax, infamis, iners, furiosa, ruina." 

For a little pleasure they take, and some small gains and gettings now and then, 
their wives and children are wringed in the mean time, and they them selves with 
loss of body and soul rue it in the end. I will say nothing of those prodigious 
prodigals, perdendce 2^ecunice genitos, as he '^ taxed Anthony, Qui patrimonium 
sine ulld fori calwmnia amittunt, saith ° Cyprian, and ^mad Sybaritical spend- 
thrifts, Quique una comedunt patrimonia ccend; that eat up all at a breakfast, 
at a supper, or- amongst bawds, parasites, and players, consume themselves in 



«Tom. 2. de vitis illustrium, 1. 4. de vit. Leon. 10. fVenationibus adeo perdift studebat et ancupiis. 

BAut mfeliciter venatus tam impatiens inde, ut summos sajpe viros acerbissimis contuineliis oneraret, et 
incredibile est quail vultus animique liabitu dolorem iracundiamque prteferret, &c. ^ Unicuique autem 
hoc a natura insitum est, ut doleat slcubi erraverit aut deceptus sit. * Juven. Sat. 8. Nee enim loculis 

comitantibus itur ad casum tabula, posita sed luditur area. Lemnius instit. ca. 44. mendaciorum quidem, et 
perjuriorum et paupertatis mater est alea, nullam habens patrimonii reverentiam, quum illud efluderit, sen- 
Sim in furta delabitur et rapinas. Saris, polycrat. 1. 1. c. 5. ^ Damhoderus. 'Dan. Souter. mPetrar. 
dial. 27. " Sallust. o Tom. 3. Ser. de Alea. p Plutus In Aristoph. calls all such gamesters madmen. Si 
in insanum hominem contigero. Spontaneum ad se trahunt fm-orem, et os, et nares, et oculos rivos faciimt 
fuvoris et diversoria, Chrys. horn. 17. 



192 Causes of Melanclioly. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

an instant, as if they had flung it into "^ Tiber, with great wagers, vain and 
idle expenses, &c., not themselves only, but even all their friends, as a man 
desperately swimming drowns him that comes to help him, by suretiship and 
borrowing they will willingly undo all their associates and allies. 'Irati pecu- 
niis, as he saith, angry with their money: "^ what with a wanton eye, a liquorish 
tongue, and a gamesome hand, when they have indiscreetly impoverished 
themselves, mortgaged their wits together with their lands, and entombed their 
ancestors' fair possessions in their bowels, they may lead the rest of their days 
in prison, as many times they do ; they repent at leisure ; and when all is gone 
begin to be thrifty : but Sera est in fando parswionia, 'tis then too late to look 
about; their *end is misery, sorrow, shame, and discontent. And well they 
deserve to be infamous and discontent. "^ Catamidiariin Amphitheatro, as by 
Adrian the emperor's edict they were of old, decoctores honor um suorum, so he 
calls them, prodigal fools, to be publicly shamed, and hissed out of all societies, 
rather than to be pitied or relieved.^ The Tuscans and Boetians brought their 
bankrupts into the market place in a bier with an empty purse carried before 
them, all the boys following, where they sat all day circumstante plebe, to be 
infamous and ridiculous. At ^ Padua in Italy they have a stone called the 
stone of turpitude, near the senate house, where spendthrifts, and such as 
disclaim non-payment of debts, do sit with their hinder parts bare, that by 
that note of disgrace, others may be terrified from all such vain expense, or 
borrowing more than they can tell how to pay. The "^ civilians of old set 
guardians over such brain-sick prodigals, as they did over madmen, to mode- 
rate their expenses, that they should not so loosely consume their fortunes, to 
the utter undoing of their families. 

I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human 
kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people: 
they go commonly together. 

" a Qui vino indulget, quemque alea decoq^uit, ille 
In venerem putret " 

To whom is sorrow, saith Solomon, Pro. xxiii. 29. to whom is woe, but to such 
a one as loves drink ? it causeth torture (vino tortus et ird), and bitterness of 
mind, Sirac. 31. 21. Vinum fur oris, Jeremy calls it, 15. cap. wine of madness, 
as well he may, for insanire facit sanos, it makes sound men sick and sad, and 
wise men ^mad, to say and do they know not what. Accidit hodie terribilis 
casus (saith °S. Austin), hear a miserable accident; Cyrillus' son this day in his 
drink, Matrem praegnantem nequiter oppressit, sororem violare voluit, patrem 
OGciditfere, et duas alias sorores ad mortem vulneravit, would have violated his 
sister, killed his father, &c. A true saying it was of him, Vino dari Icetitiam 
et dolor em, drink causeth mirth, and drink causeth sorrow, drink causeth " po- 
verty and want," (Pro v. xxi.) shame and disgrace. Multi ignohiles evasere ob 
vinipotum, et (Austin) amissis lionoribus pi'ofugi aberrdrunt: many men have 
made shipwreck of their fortunes, and go like rogues and beggars, having 
turned all their substance into aurum potabile, that otherwise might have lived 
in o-ood worship and happy estate, and for a few hours' pleasure, for their 
Hilary term's but short, or "^free madness, as Seneca calls it, purchase unto 
themselves eternal tediousness and trouble. 

That other madness is on women, Apostatare facit cor, saith the wise man, 
^Atque homini cerebrum minuit. Pleasant at first she is, like Dioscorides 

qPascasius Justus, 1. 1. de alea. 'Seneca. 'Hall. tin Sat. 11. Sed deficiente crumena : et 

crescente gula, quis te manet exitus— rebus in ventrem mersis. u Spartian. Adnano. » Alex, ab Alex, 
lib 6 c 10. Idem Gerbelius, lib. 5. Grse. disc. y Fines Moris. ^ Justinian, in Digestis. » Persiu^, 
Sat 5 " One indulges in wine, another the die consumes, a third is decomposed by venery." bpoculum 
Quasi 'sinus in quo sa^pe naufragium faciunt, jactura tum pecunioi turn mentis. Erasm. in Prov. calicum 
remiges. chil. 4. cent. 7. Pro. 41. <=Ser. 33. ad frat. in Eremo. iLiberte uuius horaa msamum 

aeterno temporis taedio pensant. « Menander. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 14.] Fhilautia, or Self-love, dhc. 193 

Rliododapline, tliat fair plant to the eye, but poison to the taste, the rest as 
bitter as wormwood in the end (Prov. v. 4.) and sharp as a two-edged sword, 
(vii. 27.) '• Her house is the way to hell, and goes down to the chambers of 
death." What more sorrowful can be said? they are miserable in this life, 
mad, beasts, led like " ^oxen to the slaughter :" and that which is worse, whore- 
masters and drunkards shall be judged, amittunt gratiam, saith Austin, per- 
dunt gloriam, incuiimnt dcmnnatioiiem mternam. They lose grace and glory ; 

" ebrem ilia voluptas 

Abrogat aetemum coeli decus " 

they gain hell and eternal damnation. 

SuESECT. XIY. — Philautia, or Self-love, Vain-glory, Praise, Honour, Immo- 
derate Applause, Pride, over-much Joy, &c.. Causes. 

Self-love, pride, and vain-glory, ^ ccecus amor sui, which Chrysostom calls 
one of the devil's three great nets ; " ' Bernard, an arrow which pierceth the 
soul through, and slays it; a sly, insensible enemy, not perceived," are main 
causes. Where neither anger, lust, covetousness, fear, sorrow, &c., nor any 
other perturbation can lay hold ; this will slily and insensibly pervert us, 
Quern non gula vicit, Philautia superavit, (saith Cyprian) whom surfeiting 
could not overtake, self-love hath overcome. " ^ He hath scorned all money, 
bribes, gifts, upright otherwise and sincere, hath inserted himself to no fond 
imagination, and sustained all those tyrannical concupiscences of the body, 
hath lost all his honour, captivated by vain-glory." Chrysostom, sup, lo. Tu 
sola animum mentemque peruris, gloria. A great assault and cause of our 
present malady, although we do most part neglect, take no notice of it, yet 
this is a violent batterer of our souls, causeth melancholy and dotage. This 
pleasing humour; this soft and whispering popular air, Amabilis insania; 
this delectable frenzy, most irrefragable passion, Jfe/iiis gratissimus error, this 
acceptable disease, which so sweetly sets iipon us, ravisheth our senses, lulls 
our souls asleep, puffs up our hearts as so many bladders, and that without 
all feeling, ^ insomuch as " those that are misaffected with it, never so much 
as once perceive it, or think of any cure." We commonly love him best in 
this "" malady, that doth us most harm, and are very willing to be hurt ; 
adulationibus nostris libenter favemus (saith "" Jerome) we love him, we love 
him for it: °0 Bonciari, suave suave fait a te tali hcec trihui; 'Twas sweet to 
hear it. And as ^ Pliny doth ingenuously confess to his dear friend Augu- 
rinus, " all thy writings are most acceptable, but those especially that speak 
of us." Again, a little after to Maximus, "'^I cannot express how pleasing 
it is to me to hear myself commended." Though we smile to ourselves, at 
least ironically^ when parasites bedaub us with false encomiums, as many 
princes cannot choose but do, Quum tale quid nihil intra se repererint, when 
they know they come as far short, as a mouse to an elephant, of any such 
virtues; yet it doth us good. Though we seem many times to be angry, 
"*and blush at our own praises, yet our souls inwardly rejoice, it puffs us up;" 
^tisfallax suavitas, blandus doimon, "makes us swell beyond our bounds, and 
forget ourselves." Her two daughters are lightness of mind, immoderate joy 
and pride, not excluding those other concomitant vices, which "^ lodocus 
Lorichius reckons up ; bragging, hypocrisy, peevishness, and curiosity. 

f Prov. 5. g Merlin, cocc. " That momentary pleasure blots out the eternal glory of a heavenly life." 
h lior. iSagitta quaj animara penetrat, leviter penetrat, sed non leve infliglt vulnus. sup. cant. ''Qui 
omnem pecuniarum contemptum habent, et nuUi imaginationis totius mandi se immiscuerint, et tyrannicas 
corporis concupiscentias sustinuevint, hi multoties capti a vana gloria omnia perdiderunt. 'Hac correpti 
non cogitant de medela. ^ Dii talem a tenis avertite pestem. " Ep. ad Eustochium, de custod. virgin. 
° Lyps. Ep. ad Bonciarium. p Ep. lib. 9. Omnia tua-scripta pulcherrima existimo, maxime tamen ilia qiue 
de nobis. qExprimere non possum quam sit jucundum, <fcc. * Hieron. et licet nos indignos dicimu3 

et calidus rubor ora perfuudat, attamen ad laudem suam intrinsecus animte laitantur. " Thesaur. Thco. 

O 



194 



Causes of Melanclioly. 



[Part. 1. Sec. 2. 



Kow the common cause of this mischief, ariseth from ourselves or others, 
® we are active and passive. It proceeds inwardly from ourselves, as we are active 
causes, from an overweening conceit we have of our good parts, ov/n worth, 
(which indeed is no worth) our bounty, favour, grace, valour, strength, wealth, 
patience, meekness, hospitality, beauty, temperance, gentry, knowledge, wit, 
science, art, learning, our * excellent gifts and fortunes, for which, Narcissus- 
like, we admire, flatter, and applaud ourselves, and think all the world esteems 
so of us j and as deformed women easily believe those that tell them they be 
fair, we are too credulous of our own good parts and praises, too well persuaded 
of ourselves. We brag and venditate our * own works, and scorn all others in 
respect of us; Inflati scientid (saith Paul), our wisdom, "our learning, all our 
geese are swans, and we as basely esteem and vilify other men's, as we do 
over-highly prize and value our own. We will not suffer them to be in secundls, 
no, not in tertvls; what, Mecum co)ifertur Ulysses? they are Mures, Musc(e, 
culices prce se, nits and flies compared to his inexorable and supercilious, emi- 
nent and arrogant worship : though indeed they be far before him. Only wise, 
only rich, only fortunate, valorous, and ftiir, puffed up with this tympany of 
self-conceit; ^as that proud Pharisee, they are not (as they suppose) "like 
other men," of a purer and more precious metal :t Soli rei gerendi sunt efflca- 
ces, which that wise Periander held of such : ^meditantur omne qui prius ne- 
gotium, d'c. Novi quendam (saith | Erasmus) I knew one so arrogant that he 
thought himself inferior to no man living, like ^ Callisthenes the philosopher, 
that neither held Alexander's acts, or any other subject worthy of his pen, 
such was his insolency; or Seleucus king of Syria, who thought none tit to 
contend with him but the Romans. ^Eos solos dignos raius quibuscum de 
imperio certaret. That which Tully writ to Atticus long since, is still in force, 
" ^ There was never yet true poet nor orator, that thought any other better 
than himself." And such for the most part are your princes, potentates, great 
philosophers, historiographers, authors of sects or heresies, and all our great 
scholars, as '' Hierom defines ; " a natural philosopher is a glorious creature, 
and a very slave of rumour, fame, and popular opinion," and though they write 
de contemptu glorice,yet as he observes, they will put their names to their books. 
Vobis et fanicG me semper dedi, saith Trebellius Pollio, I have wholly conse- 
crated myself to you and fame." " 'Tis all my desire, night and day, 'tis all 
my study to raise my riame." Proud '^ Pliny seconds him; Quanquam 01 d'c. 
and that vain-glorious ® orator, is not ashamed to confess in an Epistle of his 
to Marcus Lecceius Ardeo incredibili cupiditate, <&c. " I burn with an incre- 
dible desire to have my ^name registered in thy book." Out of this fountain 

proceed all those cracks and brags, ^ speramus carminafingi Fosse linenda 

cedro^ et leni servanda cupresso ^ Non usitatd nee tenui ferar pennd 

nee in terra morabor longius. Nil parvwm aut humili modo, nil mortale lo~ 

quor. Dicar qua violens obstrepit Ausidas. Exegi nionumentutn cere 

jjerennius. Jamque opus exegi, quod nee Jovis ira, nee ignis, dc., cum venit 
ille dies, c&c, pa7'te tamen meliore mei super alia perennis astra ferar, nojnenque 
erit indelebile nostrum. (This of Ovid I have paraphrased in English.) 



"And when I am dead and gone, 
My corpse laid under a stone, 
My fame shall yet survive, 



And I shall be alive, 

In these my ^^'orks for ever, 

My glory sliall persever," &c. 



sjiTec enim mihi cornea fibra est. Per. * E manibus illls, Nascentur violas. Pers. 1. Sat. * Omnia 
cnim nostra supra moduni placent. "Fab. 1. 10. c. 3. Ridentur, mala componunt carmiua, verum gaudent 
scribentes, et se venerantur, et ultra. Si taeeas laudant, quicqaid scripsere beati. Hor. ep. 2. 1. '2. ■" Luke 
xviii. 10. t De meliore luto finxit praacordia Titan. y Auson. sap. % Chil. 3. cent. 10. pro. i;7. 

Qui se crederet neminem uUa in re praestantiorem. * Tanto fastu scripsit, ut Alexandri gesta inferiora 

sci-iptis suis existim.aret, lo. Vossius lib. 1. cap. 9. de hist. » Plutarch, vit. Catonis. ^ Nemo unquara 
Poiita aut Orator, qui quenquam se meliorem arbitraretur. « Consol. ad Pammachium. Mundi pliilo- 

Bophus, gloria animal, et popularis aurts et rumorum venale mancipiura. '^ Epist. 5. Capitoni suo: 

"Diebus ac noctibus, hoc solum cogito si qua me possum levare humo. Id voto meo sutiicit, &c. « Tullius. 
'Ut nomen meum scriptis tuis illustretur. Inquies animus studio aeternitatis, noctes et dies angebatiir. 
Ilensius forat. uneb. de Seal. s llor. art. Pout. '' Od. Vit. 1. 3. Jamque opus exegi. Vade, liber 

f«lix; Pulingen. lib. 18. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 14.] Vain-glory, Pride, Joy, Praise. 195 

And that of Ennius, 

" Nemo me lachrymis decoret, neque fanera fleta 
Faxit, cui- ? volito docta per ora virum." 

" Let none shed tears over me, or adorn my bier with soiTow^-because I ara 
eternally in the mouths of men." With many such proud strains, and foolish 
flashes too common with writers. Not so much as Democharis on the * Topics, 
but he will be immortal. Typotius defamd, shall be famous, and well he 
deserves, because he writ of fame ; and every trivial poet must be renowned, 

" Plausuque petit clarescere vulgi" " He seeks the applause of the public." 

This puffing humour it is, that hath produced so many great tomes, built such 
famous monuments, strong castles, and Mausolean tombs, to have their acts 
eternised, " Digito monstrari, et dicier hie est;"" "to be pointed at with the 
finger, and to have it said, ' there he goes,' " to see their names inscribed, as 
Phryne on the walls of Thebes, 'Fh.v^nQ fecit ; this causeth so many bloody 
battles, "e^ nodes cogit vigilare serenas; " "and induces us to watch during calm, 
nights." Long journeys, '^ Magnum iter intendo, sed dat mild gloria vires ^'' "I 
contemplate a monstrous journey, but the love of glory strengthens me for it," 
gaining honour, a little applause, pride, self-love, vain-glory. This is it which 
makes them take such pains, and break out into those ridiculous strains, this 
high conceit of themselves, to ^ scorn all others; ridiculo fastu et intolerando 
contemptu; as ^ False mon the grammarian contemned Yarro, secum et natas et 
morituras literas jactans, and brings them to that height of insolency, that they 
cannot endure to be contradicted, ^or '-'hear of anything but their own com- 
mendation," which Hierom notes of such kind of men. And as "" Austin well 
seconds him, " 'tis their sole study day and night to be commended and ap- 
plauded." When as indeed, in all wise men's judgments, quibus cor sapit, 
they are ° mad, empty vessels, funges, beside themselves, derided, etut Camelus 
in 2)roverbio qucerens cornua, etiam quas habehat aures arnisit, ° their works 
are toys, as an almanac out of date, ^ authoris pereunt garrulitate sui, they 
seek fame and immortality, bat reap dishonour and icfamy, they are a com- 
mon obloquy, insensati, and come far short of that which they suppose or 
expect. •* puer ut sis vitalis rmtuo. 

" How much I dread 

Thy days are short, some lord shall strike thee dead." 

Of so manymyriads of poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, sophisters, as tEusebius 
well observes, which have written in former ages, scarce one of a thousand's 
works remains, nomina et libri siniul cum corporibus interierunt, their books 
and bodies are perished together. It is not as they vainly think, they sha,ll surely 
be admired and immortal, as one told Philip of Macedon insultingly, after a 
victory, that his shadow was no longer than before, we may say to them, 

" Nos demh-amur, sed non cum deside vulijo, I " We marvel too, not as the vulgar we, 
Sed velut Harpyas, Gorgonas, et Furias." | But as we Gorgons, Harpies, or Furies see." 

Or if we do applaud, honour and admire, quota pars, how small a part, in 
respect of the whole world, never so much as hears our names, how few take 
notice of us, how slender a tract, as scant as Alcibiades's land in a map ! 
And yet every man must and will be immortal, as he hopes, and extend his 
fame to our antipodes, when as half, no not a quarter of his own province or 
city, neither knows nor hears of him : but say they did, what's a city to a 
kingdom, a kingdom to Europe, Europe to the world, the world itself tha,t 
must have an end, if compared to the least visible star in the firmament, 
eighteen times bigger than it ? and then if those stars be infinite, and every 

* In lib. 8. » De ponte dejicere. ^ Sueton. lib. degram. i Nihil libenter audiunt, nisi laudes 

suas. ""Kpis. 56. Nihil aliud dies noctesque cogitant nisi ut in studiis suis laudentur ab hominibus. 

" Qua; major dementia aut dici, aut excogitari potest, quam sic ob gloriam cruciari ? Insaniam istam, domine, 
longe fac a me. Austin, cons. lib. 10. cap. 37. » " As Camelus in the novel who lost his ears while lie 

was looking for a pair of horns." p Mai't. 1. 5. 51. q Hor. Sat. 1. 1. 2. f Lib, cont. Fhilos. cap. 1. 



196 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

star there be a sun, as some will, and as tins sun of ours hath his planets abaut 
him, all inhabited, what proportion bear we to them, and where's our glory 1 
Orhem terrarum victor Romaiius hahebat, as he cracked in Petronius, all the 
world was under Augustus : and so in Constantine's time, Eusebius brags he 
governed all the world, universum inundunfi prceclare admodum adjninistravii, 

et omnis orbis gentes Imioeraiori subjecti : so of Alexander it is given out, 

the four monarchies, &c., when as neither Greeks nor Pomans ever had the 
fifteenth part of the now known world, nor half of that which was then described. 
What braggadocioes are they and we then ? quam brevis hie de nobis sermo, as 
^ he said, ^pudebit audi nominis, how short a time, how little a while doth this 
fame of ours continue? Every private province, every small territory and city, 
when we have all done, will yield as generous spirits, as brave examples in all 
respects, as famous as ourselves, Cadwallader in Wales, Polio in Normandy, 
Pobin Hood and Little John, are as much renowned in Sherwood, as Csesar in 
Pome, Alexander in Greece, or his Hephestion, ** Omnis mtas omnisque populus 
in exemplum et admirationem veniet, every town, city, book, is full of brave 
soldiers, senators, scholars; and though "" Bracydas was a worthy captain, a 
good man, and as they thought, not to be matched in Lacedsemon, yet as his 
mother truly said, plares liabet Sparta Bracyda meliores, Sparta had many 
better men than ever he was; and howsoever thou admirest; thyself, thy friend, 
many an obscure fellow the world never took notice of, had he been in place 
or action, would have done much better than he or he, or thou thyself 

Another kind of mad men there is opposite to these, that are insensiblj'mad, 
and know not of it, such as contemn all praise and glory, think themselves most 
free, when as indeed they are most mad: calcant sed aliofastu: a company of 
cynics, such as are monks, hermits, anachorites, that contemn the world, con- 
temn themselves, contemn all titles, honours, offices : and yet in that contempt 
are more proud than any man living whatsoever. They are proud in humility, 
proud in that they are not proud, soipe homo de vance glorice conteinptu, vanius 
ghriatur, as Austin hath it, con/ess. lib. 10. cap. 38, like Diogenes, intus 
gloriantur, they brag inwardly, and feed themselves fat with a self-conceit of 
sanctity, which is no better than hypocrisy. They go in sheep's russet, many 
great men that might maintain themselves in cloth of gold, and seem to be 
dejected, humble by their outward carriage, when as inwardly they areswoln 
full of pride, arrogancy, and self-conceit. And therefore Seneca adviseth his 
friend Lucilius, " * in his attire and gesture, outward actions, especially to 
avoid all such things as are more notable in themselves : as a rugged attire, 
hirsute head, horrid beard, contempt of money, coarse lodging, and what- 
soever leads to fame that opposite way." 

All this madness yet proceeds from ourselves, the main engine which batters 
lis is from others, we are merely passive in this business : from a company of 
parasites and flatterers, that with immoderate praise, and bombast epithets, 
glozing titles, false eulogiums, so bedaub and applaud, gild over many a silly 
and undeserving man, that they clap him quite out of his wits. Res imprimis 
violenta est, as Hierom notes, this common applause is a most violent thing, 
kiudum placenta, a drum, fife, and trumpet cannot so animate ; that fattens 
men, erects and dejects them in an instant. ^ Falma negata m>acrum, donata 
reducit opimum. It makes them fat and lean, as frost doth conies. " ^ And 
who is that mortal man that can so contain himself, that if he be immoderately 
commended and applauded, will not be moved?" Let him be what he will, 

• Tul. Som. Scip. tBoetliius. " Putean. Cisalp. hist. lib. 1, ^piutarch. Lycurgo. 

* Epist. 13. Illud te admoneo, ne eorum more facias, qui non proficere, sed conspici cupiunt, qua2 in liabitu 
tuo, aut genere vitee notabilia sunt, asperum cultuni et vitiosum caput, negligentiorem barbam, iudictum 
ai"gento odium, cubile humi positum, et quicquid ad laudem perversa via sequitur, evita. y Per. 

"■ Quis vero tam bene modulo suo metiri se novit, ut eum assiduse et imraodicje laudationes non moveant ? 
Hen. Steph. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 14.] Vahi-glorij, Pride, Joy, Praiie. 197 

those parasites will overturn him : if he be a king, he is one of the nine 

worthies, more than a man, a god forthwith, '^ edlctum Domini Beique 

nostri: and they will sacrifice unto him, 

• " t di vinos si tu patiaris honores, 



Ultro ipsi dabimus meritasque sacrabimus aras." 

If he be a soldier, then Themistocles, Epaminondas, Hector, Achilles, duo 
fulrtiina belli, triumviri terrarum, dhc, and the valour of both Scipios is too 
little for him, he is invictisshnus, serenissimus, midtis trophceis ornaiissimus, 
naturce dominies, although he be lepiis galeatus, indeed a very coward, a milk- 
sop, X ^-iT-d as he said of Xerxes, postremus in pugnd, primus in fugd, and such 
a one as never durst look his enemy in the face. If he be a big man, then is 
he a Samson, another Hercules ; if he pronounce a speech, another Tully or 
Demosthenes: as of Herod in the Acts, '-'the voice of God and not of man;" 
if he can make a verse. Homer, Virgil, &c. And then my silly weak patient 
takes all these eulogiums to himself; if he be a scholar so commended for his 
much reading, excellent style, method, &c,, he will eviscerate himself like a 
spider, study to death, Laudatas ostendit avis Junonia pennas, peacock-like he 
will display all his feathers. If he be a soldier, and so applauded, his valour 
extolled, though it be ijnpar congressus, as that of Troilus, and Achilles, Infelix 
puer, he will combat with a giant, run first upon a breach, as another ^Philip- 
pus, he will ride into the thickest of his enemies. Commend his housekeeping, 
and he will beggar himself; commend his temperance, he will starve himself. 

- " laudataque virtus 



Crescit, et immensum gloria calcar habet." § 

he is mad, mad, mad, no woe with him ; impatiens consortis erit, he will 

over the ''Alps to be talked of, or to maintain his credit. Commend an ambi- 
tious man, some proud prince or potentate, si plus cequo laudetur (saith 
'Erasmus) cristas erigit, exuit liominem, Deum se putat, he sets up his crest, 



and will be no longer a man but a god. 



' II niliil est quod credere de se 



Non audet quum laudatur diis squa potestas." ^ 

How did this work with Alexander, that would needs be Jupiter's son, and go 
like Hercules in a lion's skin? Domitian a god (^'^'■''' Do minus Deus noster sic 
fieri juhet), like the ft Persian kings, whose image was adored by all that came 
into the city of Babylon. Commodus the emperor was so gulled by his flatter- 
ing parasites, that he must be called Hercules. "^ Antonius the Homan would 
be crowned with ivy, carried in a chariot, and adored for Bacchus. Cotys, 
king of Thrace, was married to ^Minerva, and sent three several messengers 
one after another, to see if she were come to his bed-chamber. Such a one 
was ^Jupiter Menecrates, Maximinus Jovianus, Dioclesianus Herculeus, Sapor 
the Persian king, brother of the sun and moon, and our modern Turks, that 
will be gods on earth, kings of kings, God's shadow, commanders of all that 
may be commanded, our kings of China and Tartary in this present age. Such 
a one was Xerxes, that would whip the sea, fetter Neptune, stidtdjactantid, and 
send a challenge to Mount Athos; and such are many sottish princes, brought 
into a fool's paradise by their parasites, 'tis a common humour, incident to all 
m.en, when they are in great places, or come to the solstice of honour, have • 
done, or deserved well, to applaud and flatter themselves. Stultitiam suam 

♦Mart. fStroza. "If you will accept divine honours, we will willingly erect and consecrate altars to 
you." J Justin. ^Livius. Gloria tantura elatus, non ira, in medics hostes irruere, quod completis muris 
conspici se pugnantem, a muro spectantibus, egregium ducebat. § "Applauded virtue grows apace, and 
glory includes within it an immense impulse." it I demens, et stevas curre per Alpes. Aude Aliquid, 

«fcc. ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias. Juv. Sat. 10. «Jn MoritE Encom. || Juvenal. Sat. i. 

1[ " There is nothing which over-lauded power will not presume to imagine of itself." ** Sueton. c. 12. 

in Domitiano. f f Brisonius. '^ Antonius ab assentatoribus evectus Librum se patrem appellari jussit, 
et pro deo se venditavit redimitus hedera, et corona velatus aurea, et thyrsura tenens, cothurnisque succinctus 
curru velut Liber pater vectus est Alexandrine. Pater, vol. post. « j^jjjnervie uuptias ambit, taiito furorQ 

percitus, ut satellites mitteret ad videndam num dea in thalamis Tenisset, <Stc. ^Jilian. 11. 12, 



198 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

produnt, dx., (saitli *Platerus) your verj tradesmen if tliey be excellent, will 
crack and brag, and show their folly in excess. They have good parts, and 
they know it, you need not tell them of it ; out of a conceit of their worth, they 
go smiling to themselves, a perpetual meditation of their trophies and plaudits, 
they run at last quite mad, and lose their wits.^ Petrarch, lib. 1. de contemptu 
mundi, confessed as much of himself, and Cardan, in his fifth book of wisdom, 
gives an instance in a smith of Milan, a fellow-citizen of his, ^ one Galeus de 
Kubeis, that being commended for refining of an instrument of Archimedes, 
for joy ran mad. Plutarch in the life of Arfcaxerxes, hath such a like story of 
one Chamus, a soldier, that wounded king Cyrus in battle, and "grew there- 
upon so 'arrogant, that in a short space after he lost his wits." So many 
men, if any new honour, office, preferment, booty, treasure, possession, or 
patrimony, ex insperato fall unto them, for immoderate joy, and continual 
meditation of it, cannot sleep ^'^or tell what they say or do, they are so ravished 
on a sudden ; and with vain conceits transported, there is no rule with them. 
Epaminondas, therefore, the next day after his Leuctrian victory, "^came 
abroad all squalid and submiss," and gave no other reason to his friends of so 
doing, than that he perceived himself the day before, by reason of his good 
fortune, to be too insolent, overmuch joyed. That wise and virtuous lady, 
*" Queen Katheriue, Dowager of England, in private talk, upon like occasion, 
said, "that "she would not willingly endure the extremity of either fortune ; 
but if it were so, that of necessity she must undergo the one, she would be in 
adversity, because comfort was never wanting in it, but still counsel and 
government were defective in the other : " they could not moderate themselves. 

SuBSECT. XY. — Love of Learning, or overmuch study. With a Digression of 
the misery of Scholars, and why the Muses are Melancholy. 

Leonartus Fuchsius, Instit. lib. iii. sect. 1. cap. 1, Fselix Plater, lib. iii. 
de mentis alienat., Here, de Saxonia, Tract, post, de melanch. cap. 3, speak of 
a ''peculiar fury, which comes by overmuch study Fernelius, lib. 1, cap. 18, 
Pputs study, contemplation, and continual meditation, as an especial cause of 
madness: and in his 8Q consul, cites the same words. Jo. Arculanus, in lib. 
9, Ehasis ad A laansorem, cap. 1 6, amongst other causes reckons up studium 
vehemeus: so doth Levinus Lemnius, lib. de occid. nat. mirac. lib. 1, cap. 16. 
'"^Many men (saith he) come to this malady by continual t study, and night- 
waking, and of all other men, scholars are most subject to it:" and such 
Khasis adds, " *■ that have commonly the finest wits." Cont. lib. 1, tract. 9. 
Marsilius Ficinus, de sanit. tuendd, lib. 1, cap). 7, puts melancholy amongst one 
of those five principal plagues of students, 'tis a common Maul unto them all, 
and almost in some measure an inseparable companion. Yarro belike for that 
cause calls Tristes Philosophos et severos, severe, sad, dry, tetric, are common 
epithets to scholars: and ^Patritius therefore, in the institution of princes, 
would not have them to be great students. For (as Machiavel holds) study 
weakens their bodies, dulls the spirits, abates their strength and courage ; and 

* De mentis alienat. cap. 3. 8 Sequiturque superbia formam. Livius li. 11. Oraculum est, vivida ssepe 

ingenia luxuriare hac et evanescere, multosque sensum penitus amisisse. Homines intuentur, ac si ipsi non 
esse.it homines. '^ Galeus de Rubeis, civis noster faber ferrarius, ob inventionem instrument! Cocleie olim 
Archimedis dicti, prse Isetitia insanivit. >Insania postmodum correptus, ob nimiam inde arrogantiara. 

^ Bene ferre magnara disce fortunam. Hor. Fortunam reverenter habe, quicunque repentij Dives ab exili 
progrediei-e loco. Ausonius. 'Processit squalidus et submissus, ut hesterni diei gaudium intemperans 

hodie castigaret. ™ Uxor Henr. 8. "Neutrius se fortuntB extremum libenter experturam dixit : sed si 
necessitas alterius subinde imponeretur, optare se difficilem et adversam : quod in hac nulli unquam defuit 
solatium, in altera multis consilium, &c. Lod. Vives. oPeculiaris furor, qui ex Uteris fit. p Nihil magis 
auget, ac assidua studia, et profundse cogitationes. iNon desunt, qui ex jugi studio, et intempestiva 

lucubratione, hue devenerunt, hi prte cseteris enim plerunque melancholia solent infestari. f Study is a 

continual and earnest meditation, applied to something with great desire. Tally. >" Et illi Qui sunt subtilis 
in'^enii, et multa; praameditationis, de faclU iucidunt in melauclio.iam. ^Ob studiorum solicitudinem 

111). 5. Tit. 5. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 15.] Study, a Cause. 199 

good scholars are never good soldiers^ which a certain Goth well perceived, for 
when his countrymen came into Greece, and would have burned all their books, 
he cried out against it, by no means they should do it, " *leave them that 
plague, which in time will consume all their vigour, and martial spirits." The 
''Turks abdicated Cornutus the next heir from the empire, because he was 
so much given to his book : and 'tis the common tenet of the world, that 
learning dulls and diminisheth the spirits, and so per conseqiiens produceth 
melancholy. 

Two main reasons may be given of it, why students should be more subject 
to this malady than others. The one is, they live a sedentary, solitary life, 
sihi eb musis, free from bodily exercise, and those ordinary disports which other 
men use : and many times if discontent and idleness concur with it, which is 
too frequent, they are precipitated into this gulf on a sudden : but the common 
cause is overmuch study; too much learning (as ''Festus told Paul) hath 
made thee mad ; 'tis that other extreme which effects it. So did Trincavellius, 
lib. 1., consil. 12 and 13, find by his experience, in two of his patients, a young 
baron, and another that contracted this malady by too vehement study. So 
Forestus, observat. I. 10, observ. 13, in a young divine in Louvaine, that was 
mad, and said "^ he had a bible in his head:" Marsilius Ficinus de sanit. 
tuend. lib. 1, cap. 1, 3, 4, and lib. 2, cap. 16, gives many reasons, '"'why- 
students dote more often than others." The first is their negligence ; " * other 
men look to their tools, a painter will wash his pencils, a smith will look to his 
hammer, anvil, forge; a husbandman will mend his plough-irons, and grind 
his hatchet, if it be dull ; a falconer or huntsman will have an especial care of 
his hawks, hounds, horses,, dogs, &c. ; a musician will string and unstring his 
lute, &c.; only scholars neglect that instrument, their brain and spirits (I 
mean) which they daily use, and by which they range over all the world, which 
by much study is consumed." Vide (saith Lucian) ne funiculum nimis 
inteiidendo, aliquandd abrumpas : " See thou twist not the rope so hard, till at 
length it "break." Ficinus in his fourth chap, gives some other reasons; 
Saturn and Mercury, the patrons of learning, they are both dry planets : and 
Origanus assigns the same cause, why Mercurialists are so poor, and most part 
beggars; for that their president Mercury had no better fortune himself. The 
destinies of old put poverty upon him as a punishment ; since when, poetry 
and beggary are Gemelli, twin-born brats, inseparable companions; 

"'And to this day is every scholar poor; 

Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor : " 

Mercury can help them to knowledge, but not to money. The second is con- 
templation, " "^ w^hicli dries the brain and extinguisheth natural heat; for whilst 
the spirits are intent to meditation above in the head, the stomach and liver 
are left destitute, and thence come black blood and crudities by defect of con- 
coction, and for want of exercise the superfluous vapours cannot exhale," &c. 
The same reasons are repeated by Gomesius, lib. 4, cap. 1. de sale ^Nymannus 
orat. de Imag. Jo. Yoschius, lib. 2, cap. 5, depeste: and something more they 
add, that hard students are commonly troubled with gouts, catarrhs, rheums, 



*GasparEns, Thesaur. Polit. Apoteles. 31. Grrecis hanc pestem relinquite, qufe dubium non est qnin 
brevi omnem ils vigore:n ereptura, Martiosque spiritas exhaustura sit; ut ad anna tractanda plane 
inhabiles futuri sint. " Knoles, Turk. Hist. ^ Acts, xxvi. 24. v Nimiis studiis melancholiius 

evasit, dicens se Blblium in capite habere. ^ Cur melancholia assidua, crebrisque deliramentis vexentur 

eorum aniiiii ut desipere cogantur. » Solers quilibet artifex instrumenta sua diligentissime curat, penicellos 
pictor; malleos incudesque faber ferrarius ; miles equos, arma venator, auceps aves et canes, cythavara 
cytharaadus, &c., soli musarum mystse tam negligentes sunt, ut instrumentum illud quo mundum universum 
metiri solent, spiritum scilicet, penitus negligere videantur. ^ Arcus et arma tibi non sunt imitaiKi.i 

Diana. Si nunquam cesses tendere mollis erit. Ovid. "^Ephemer. "^ Contemplatio cerebrum 

exsiccat et extinguit calorein naturalem, unde cerebrum frigidura et siccum evadit quod est melanchoiicum. 
Aec.cdit ad hoc, (]uod natura in contemplatione, cerebro prorsus cordique intenta, stom.ichmn hepar.iue 
destituit, unde ex alimentis male coctis, sanguis crassus et niger efflcitui-, d-.iw nimio otio meiiibrorain. 
Bupei'tlui vapores non exhalaut. «= Oerebruai exsiccator, corpora S4;nsim gra.il'js, unt. 



200 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

cachexia, bradiopepsia, bad eyes, stone and colic, ^crudities, oppilations, vertigo, 
winds, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by overmuch sitting ; they 
are most part lean, dry, ill-coloured, spend their fortunes, lose their wits, and 
many times their lives, and all through immoderate pains, and extraordinary 
studies. If you will not believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus 
and Thomas Aquinas's works, and tell me whether those men took pains % 
peruse Austin, Hierom, <fec., and many thousands besides. 

" Qui cupit optatam cursu contingere metam, I " He that desires this wished goal to gain. 

Multa tulit, fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit." | Must sweat and freeze before he can attain," 

and labour hard for it. So did Seneca, by his own confession, ep. 8. "^Nofc 
a day that I spend idle, part of the night I keep mineejes open, tired with 
waking, and now slumbering to their continual task." Hear HwWy pro Archid 
Poetd : " whilst otheis loitered, and took their pleasures, he was continually 
at his book," so they do that will be scholars, and that to the hazard (I say) of 
their healths, fortunes, wits, and lives. How much did Aristotle and Ptolemy 
spend 1 icnius regni precium they say, more than a king's ransom ; how many 
crowns ])er annum, to perfect arts, the one about his History of Creatures, 
the other on his Almagest li How much time did Thebet Benchorat employ, 
to find out the motion of the eighth sphere"? forty years and more, some write : 
how many poor scholars have lost their wits, or become dizzards, neglecting all 
worldly affairs and their own health, wealth, esse and bene esse, to gain know- 
ledge, for which, after all their pains, in this world's esteem they are accounted 
ridiculous and silly fools, idiots, asses, and (as oft they are) rejected, con- 
temned, derided, doting, and mad. Look for examples in Hildesheim, spicel. 2, 
cle mania et delirio : read Trincavellius, I. 3. consil. 36, et c. 17. Montanus, 
consil, 233. ^Garceus de Judic. genit. cap. 33. ^leTcnvi-alis consil. 86, cap. '25. 
Prosper ^Calenius in his Book de atrd bile ; Go to Bedlam and ask. Or if 
they keep their wits, yet they are esteemed scrubs and fools by reason of 
their carriage '' after seven years' study " 

-" statua taciturnius exit, 



rienunque et risu populum quatit" 



" He becomes more silent than a statue, and generally excites people's 
laughter." Because they cannot ride a horse, which every clown can do j 
salute and court a gentlewoman, carve at table, cringe and make conges, which 
every common swasher can do, ''/i05 populus ridet, &c., they are laughed to 
scorn, and accounted silly fools by our gallants. Yea, many times, such is 
their misery, they deserve it : ^a mere scholar, a mere ass. 



" ™ Obstipo capite, et figentes liimine terrara, 
Murmura cum secum, et rabiosa silentia rodunt, 
Atque expevrecto triitinantur verba hibello, 
vEgroti veteris meditantes somnia, gigni 
De nihilo nihilum ; in niliihim nil posse rererti." 

" n who do lean awiy 



When, by themselves, they gnaw their murmuring, 

And furious silence, as 'twere balancing 

F.ach word upon their outstretched lip, and when 

They meditate the dreams of old sick men. 

As, 'Out of nothing, nothing can be brought; 

And that which is, can ne'er be turn'd to nought.'" 



Their heads, piercing the earth with a fixt eye ; 

Thus they go commonly meditating unto themselves, thus they sit, such is their 
action and gesture. Fulgosas, I. 8, c. 7, makes mention how Th. Aquinas, 
supping with king Lewis of France, upon a sudden knocked his fist upon tlie 
table, and cried, conclusum est contra Ma?iichceos; his wits were a wool-gather- 
ing, as they say, and his head busied about other matters, when he perceived 
his error, he was much "abashed. Such a story there is of Archimedes in 
Yitruvius, that having found out the means to know how much gold was mingled 

^Studiosi sunt cachectic! et nunquam bene colorati, propter debilitatem digestiva? faeultatis, multiplicantur 
in lis superfluitates. Jo. Voschius parte 2. cap. 5. de peste. eNuUus mihi per otium dies exit, partem 

noctis studiis dedico, non vero somno, sed oculos vigilia fatigatos cadentesque, in operam derineo. 
!• Johannes Hanuschius Bohemus, nat. 1516. eruditus vir, nimiis studiis in Phrenesin incidit. Montanus 
inst-inces in a Frenchman of Tolosa. ' Cardinalis Ciecius ; ob laborem, vigiliara, et diuturna studia factus 
Melaucholicns. ^pevs. Sat. 3. They cannot fiddle; but, as Themistocles said, he could make a small town 
become a great city. iPers. Sat. "" Ingenium sibi quod vanas desumpsit Athenas ft septem studiis 

aiinos dedit, insenuitque. Libris et caris stal:ua taciturnius exit, Plerun(iue et risu populum quatit, Hor. 
ep. 1. lib. 2. n Translated by M. B. Holiday. <> Thomas rubore confusus dixit se de aigumento cogitAsse. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 15.] Study, a Cause. 201 



with the silver in kino* Hiero's crown, ran naked forth from the bath and cried 
Ivo'^xa, I have found : " ^ and was commonly so intent to his studies, that he 
never perceived what was done about him : when the city was taken, and the 
soldiers now ready to rifle his house, he took no notice of it." St. Bernard 
rode all day long by the Lemnian lake, and asked at last where he was, Marul- 
lus, lib. 2, cap. 4. It was Democritus's carriage alone that made the Abderites 
suppose him to have been mad, and sent for Hippocrates to cure him : if he 
had been in any solemn company, he would upon all occasions fall a laughing. 
Theophrastus saith as much of Heraclitus, for that he continually wept, and 
Laertius of Menedemus Lampsacus, because he ran like a madman, "^ saying, 
"he came from hell as a spy, to tell the devils what mortal men did." Your 
greatest students are commonly no better, silly, soft fellows in their outward 
behaviour, absurd, ridiculous to others, and no whit experienced in worldly 
business ; they can measure the heavens, range over the world, teach others . 
wisdom, and yet in bargains and contracts they are circumvented by every 
base tradesman. Are not these men fools? and how should they be otherwise, 
" but as so many sots in schools, when (as '" he well observed) they neither 
hear nor see such things as are commonly practised abroad?" how should they 
get experience, by what means? "^ T knew in my time many scholars," saith 
^neas Sylvius (in an epistle of his to Gasper Scitick, chancellor to the em- 
peror), " excellent well learned, but so rude, so silly, that they had no common 
civility, nor knew how to manage their domestic or public affairs." "Pagla- 
rensis was amazed, and said his farmer had surely cozened him, when he heard 
him tell that his sow had eleven pigs, and his ass had but one foal." To say 
the best of this profession, I can give no other testimony of them in general, 
than that of Pliny of Isseus; "^ He is yet a scholar, than which kind of men 
there is nothing so simple, so sincere, none better, they are most part harm- 
less, honest, upright, innocent, plain-dealing men." 

Now, because they are commonly subject to such hazards and inconve- 
niences as dotage, madness, simplicity, &c., Jo. Yoschius would have good 
scholars to be highly rewarded, and had in some extraordinary respect above 
other men, " to have greater " privileges than the rest, that adventure them- 
selves and abbreviate their lives for the public good." But our patrons of 
learning are so far now-a-days from respecting the muses, and giving that 
honour to scholars, or reward which they deserve, and are allowed by those 
indulgent privileges of many noble princes, that after all their pains taken 
in the universities, cost and charge, expenses, irksome hours, laborious tasks, 
wearisome days, dangers, hazards (barred interim from all pleasures which 
other men have, mewed up like hawks all their lives), if they chance to wade 
through them, they shall in the end be rejected, contemned, and which is 
their greatest misery, driven to their shifts, exposed to want, poverty, and 
beggary. Their familiar attendants are, 



'■ Fallentes morbi, luctus, curffique laborque 
Et mctus, et malesuada fames, et turpis egestas, 
Terribiles visu formee " — 



" Grief, labour, care, pale sickness, miseries, 
Fear, filtiiy poverty, hunger that cries, 
Terrible monsters to be seen with eyes." 



If there were nothing else to trouble them, the conceit of this alone were 
enough to make them all melancholy. Most other trades and professions, after 
some seven years' apprenticeship, are enabled by their craft to live of them- 
selves. A merchant adventures his goods at sea, and though his hazard be great, 

p Plutarch, vita Marcelli, ISTec sensit Tirbem captam, nee milites in domum irruentes, adeo intentus 
8*udiis, &c. iSub Fm'ise larva circumivit urbem, dictitans se exploratorem ab inferis venisse, delaturum 
djemonibus mortalium peccata. ""Pytronius. Ego arbitror in scholis stiiltissimos fieri, quia nihil eorura 

quse in usu habemus aut audiunt aut vident. ^ Novi meis diebus, plerosque studiis literarum deditos, 

qui disciplinis admodum abundabant, sed nihil civilitatis habentes, nee rem publ. nee domesticara regere 
nr)rant. Stupuit Paglarensis et furti vilicum accusavit, qui suem fcetani undecim porcellos, asinam unura 
duntaxat puUum enixam retulerat. • Lib. 1. Epist. 3. Adliuc scholasticus tantum est; quo genere 

hominum, nihil aut est simplicius, aut sincerius aut melius. "Jure privilegiandi, qui ob commune 

bonum abbreviant sibi vstam. * Virg. 6 JEa. 



202 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

yet if one sliip return of four, he likely makes a saving voyage. An husband- 
man's gains are almost certain; quihus ipse Jupiter nocere non potest (whom 
Jove himself can't harm), ('tis * Cato's hyperbole, a great husband himself) ; 
only scholars methinks are most uncertain, unrespected, subject to all casual- 
ties and hazards. For first, not one of a many proves to be a scholar, all 
are not capable and docile, "" ex omni ligno non fit Mercurius : we can make 
majors and officers every year, but not scholars: kings can invest knights 
and barons, as Sigismund the emperor confessed; universities can give de- 
grees; and Tu quod es, e populo quilihet esse potest; but he nor they, nor all 
the world, can give learning, make philosophers, artists, orators, poets; we 
can soon say, as Seneca well notes, virum bo7ium, 6 divitein, point at a rich 
man, a good, a happy man, a prosperous man, sumptuose vestitum, Calamis- 
tratum, bene olentem, magno tenijyoris impendio constat hceo laudatio, 6 virum 
literarum, but 'tis not so easily performed to find out a learned man. Learn- 
ing is not so quickly got, though they may be willing to take pains, to that 
end sufficientlyinformed,and liberally maintained by their patrons and parents, 
yet few can compass it. Or if they be docile, yet all men's wills are not an- 
swerable to their wits, they can apprehend, but will not take pains; they 
are either seduced by bad companions, vel in puellam impingunt, vel in pocu- 
Iwn (they fall in with women or wine), and so spend their time to their friends' 
grief and their own undoings. Or put case they be studious, industrious, of 
ripe wits, and perhaps good capacities, then how many diseases of body and 
mind must they encounter 1 No labour in the world like unto study. It 
may be, their temperature will not endure it, but striving to be excellent to 
know all, they lose health, wealth, wit, life and all. Let him yet happily 
escape all these hazards, cei^eis intestinis, with a body of brass, and is now con- 
summate and ripe, he hath profited in his studies, and proceeded with all 
applause : after many expenses, he is fit for preferment, where shall he have 
it? he is as far to seek it as he was (after twenty years' standing) at the 
first day of his coming to the University. For what course shall he take, 
being now capable and ready] The most parable and easy, and about which 
many are employed, is to teach a school, turn lecturer or curate, and for that 
he shall have falconer's wages, ten pound per annum, and his diet, or some 
small stipend, so long as he can please his patron or the parish ; if they ap- 
prove him not (for usually they do but a year or two), as inconstant as tthey 
that cried "Hosanna" one day, and "Crucify him" the other; serving-man- 
like, he must go look a new master ; if they do, what is his reward 1 

"y Hoc quoque temanet ut pueros elementa docentem ■ I "At last thy snow-white age in suburl) schools, 
Occupet extremis in vicis alba senectus." | Shall toil in teaching boys their grammar rules." 

Like an ass, he wears out his time for provender, and can show a stum rod, 
togam tritam et laceram, saith % Hsedus, an old torn gown, an ensign of his 
infelicity, he hath his labour for his pain, a modicum to keep him till he be 
decrepid, and that is all. Grammaticus non est fcelix, &c. If he be a trencher 
chaplain in a gentleman's house, as it befel "^ Euphormio, after some seven 
years' service, he may perchance have a living to the halves, or some small 
rectory with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kinswomen, or a 
cracked chambermaid, to have and to hold during the time of his life. But if 
he ofiend his good patron, or displease his lady mistress in the mean time, 

"^Ducetur Plants velut ictus ab Hercule Cacus, 
Poneturque foras, si quid tentaverit unquam 
Hiscere" 

as Hercules did by Cacus, he shall be dragged forth of doors by the heels, 

* Plutarch, vita ejus, Certum asrricolationis lucrum, &c. ^ Quotannis fiunt consules et proconsules : 

Rex et Poeta quotannis non nascitur. f Mat. 21. y Hor. epist. 20. 1. 1. $ Lib. 1. de contcm. amor. 
'Satvricon. "Juv. Sat. 5. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 15. 



Study, a Cause. 



203 



away with liim. If he bend his forces to some other studies, with an intent to 
be a secretis to some nobleman, or in such a place with an ambassador, he shall 
find that these persons rise like apprentices one under another, and in so many 
tradesmen's shoj^s, when the master is dead, the foreman of tlie shop com- 
monly steps in his place. ISTow for poets, rhetoricians, historians, philosophers, 
•" mathematicians, sophisters, &c. ; they are like grasshoppers, sing they inust in 
summer, and pine in the winter, for there is no preferment for them. Even 
so they were at first, if you will believe that pleasant tale of Socrates, which 
he told fair Phsedrus under a plane tree, at the banks of the river Iseus; about 
noon when it was hot, and the grasshoppers made a noise, he took that sweet 
occasion to tell him a tale, how grasshoj^pers were once scholars, musicians, 
poets, (fee, before the Muses were born, and lived without meat and drink, and 
for that cause were turned by Jupiter into grasshoppers. And may be turned 
again, In Tythoni Cicadas, aiit Lyciorum ranas, for any reward I see they are 
like to have : or else in the meantime, I would they could live as they did, 
without any viaticum, like so many ^manucodiatJB, those Indian birds of para- 
dise, as we commonly call them, those I mean that live with the air and dew 
of heaven, and need no other food? for being as they are, their " * rhetoric 
only serves them to curse their bad fortunes," and many of them for want of 
means are driven to hard shifts; from grasshoppers they turn humble-bees 
and wasps, plain parasites, and make the muses, mules, to satisfy their hunger- 
starved paunches, and get a meal's meat. To say truth, 'tis the common for- 
tune of most scholars, to be servile and poor, to complain pitifully, and lay 
open their wants to their respectless patrons, as t Cardan doth, as |Xilander 
and many others : and which is too common in those dedicatory epistles, for 
hope of gain, to lie, flatter, and with hyperbolical eulogiums and commenda- 
tions, to magnify and extol an illiterate unworthy idiot, for his excellent vir- 
tues, whom they should rather, as '^JMachiavel observes, vilify and rail at 
downright for his most notorious villainies and vices. So they prostitute them- 
selves as fiddlers, or mercenary tradesmen, to serve great men's turns for a 
small reward. They are like § Indians, they have store of gold, but know 
not the worth" of it: for I am of Synesius's opinion, " ®King Hiero got more 
by Simonides' acquaintance, than Simonides did by his;" they have their 
best education, good institution, sole qualification from us, and when they have 
done well, their honour and immortality from us: we are the living tombs, 
registers, and as so many trumpeters of their fames : what was Achilles with- 
out Homer? Alexander without Arrian and Curtius? who had known the 
Caesars, but for Suetonius and Dion? 



Vixerunt fortes ante Agamernnona 
Jlulri: sed o;nnes illaclirymabiles 
Urgeiitur, ignvtique longa 
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro." 



" Before great Agamemnon reign' d, 

F.eign'd kings as gi'eat as lie, and brave. 
Whose huge ambition's now contain'd 

In the small compass of a grave : 
In endless night they sleep, unwept, unkno-wn, 
No hard they had to make ;ill time their own." 



they are more beholden to scholars, than scholars to them; but they under- 
value themselves, and so by those great men are kept down. Let them have 
that encyclopgedian, all the learning in the world; they must keep it to them- 
selves, " ^live in base esteem, and starve, except they will submit," as 
Budseus well hath it, " so many good parts, so many ensigns of arts, virtues, 
be slavishly obnoxious to some illiterate potentate, and live under his insolent 

*> Ars colit astra. c Aldrovandus de Avibus. 1. 12. Gesner, &c. * Literas habent queis sibi et 

fortune sute maledicant. Sat. ^lenip. f Lib. de libris Propriis fol. 2i. J Pr^fat. translat. Plutarch. 

d Polit. disput. laudibus e.xtollunt eos ac si virtutibus poUerent quos ob inflnita scelera potius vituperare 
oporteret. § Or as horses kno^s' not their strength, they cous^ider not their own worth. e Plura 

ex Simonidis familiaritate Hiero consequutus est, quam ex Hieronis Simonides. || Hor. lib. 4. od. 9. 

^1 Inter inertes et plebeios fere jacet, ultinmm locum habens, nisi tot artis virtiitisque insignia, turpiter, 
obnoxie, supparisitando fascibus subjecerit protervie insolentisque potentice, Lib. 1. de contempt, rerum 
fortuitaruiu. 



204 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

worsliip, or honour, like parasites," Qui tanquam "mures alienum panem come- 
dunt. For to say truth, artes hce non sunt lucrative, as Guido Bonat that 
great astrologer could foresee, they be not gainful arts these, sed esurientes et 
famelicce, but poor and hungry, 

" * Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores, I " The rich physician, honour'd lawyers ride, 
Sed genus et species cogitur ire pedes : " | Whilst the poor scholar foots it by their side." 

Poverty is the muses' patrimony, and as that poetical divinity teacheth us, 
when Jupiter's daughters were each of them married to the gods, the muses 
alone were left solitary. Helicon forsaken of all suitors, and I believe it was, 
because they had no portion. 

" Calliope longum caslebs cur vixit in sevum ? I " Why did Calliope live so long a maid ? 
Nempe nihil dotis, quod numeraret, erat."' | Because she had no dowry to be paid." 

Ever since all their followers are poor, forsaken and left unto themselves. 
Insomuch, that as ^Petronius argues, you shall likely know them by their 
clothes. " There came," saith he, " by chance into my company, a fellow not 
very spruce to look on, that I could perceive by that note alone he was a 
scholar, whom commonly rich men hate: I asked him what he was, he 
answered, a poet : I demanded again why he was so ragged, he told me this 
kind of learning never made any man rich." 



"g Qui Pelago credit, raagno se foenore tollit, 
Qui pugnas et rostra petit, priecingitur auro 
Vilis adulator picto jacet ebrius ostro, 
Sola pruinosis horret facundia pannis." 



" A merchant's gain is great, that goes to sea; 
A soldier embossed all in gold ; 
A flatterer lies fox'd in brave array; 
A scholar only ragged to behold"" 



All which our ordinary students, right well perceiving in the universities, how 
unprofitable these poetical, mathematical, and philosophical studies are. how 
little respected, how few patrons; apply themselves in all haste to those three 
commodious professions of law, physic, and divinity, sharing themselves 
between them, ^rejecting these arts in the meantime, history, philosophy, 
philology, or lightly passing them over, as pleasant toys fitting only table-talk, 
and to furnish them with discourse. They are not so behoveful : he that can 
tell his money hath arithmetic enough: he is a true geometrician, can 
measure out a good fortune to himself; a perfect astrologer that can cast the 
rise and fall of others, and mark their errant motions to his own use. The 
best optics are, to reflect the beams of some great men's favour and grace to 
shine upon him. He is a good engineer, that alone can make an instrument to 
get preferment. This was the common tenet and practice of Poland, as 
Cromerus observed not long since, in the first book of his history; their 
universities were generally base, not a philosopher, a mathematician, an 
antiquary, &;c., to be found of any note amongst them, because they had no 
set reward or stipend, but every man betook himself to divinity, hoc solum in 
votis habens, opimum sacerdotium, a good parsonage was their aim. This was 
the practice of some of our near neighbours, as tLipsius inveighs, " they thrust 
their children to the study of law and divinity, before they be informed aright, 
or capable of such studies," Scilicet omnibus artibus antistat spes lucri, etfor- 
onosior est cumulus auri, quam quicquid Greed Latinique deliraides scripserunt. 
Ex hoc numero deinde veniunt ad gubernacula reipub. intersunt et prcesunt con- 
siliis regum, 6 pater, 6 p)atria ? so he complained, and so may others. For 
even so we find, to serve a great man, to get an office in some bishop's court 
(to practise in some good town), or compass a benefice, is the mark we shoot 
at, as. being so advantageous, the highv^^ay to preferment. 

Although many times, for aught I can see, these men fail as often as the 

* Buchanan, eleg. lib. ^In SatjTicon. intrat sen ex, sed cultu non ita speciosus, ut facile appareret eura 
hac nota literatum esse, quos divites odisse solent. Ego in quit Poeta sum : Quare ergo tam male vestitus es ? 
Propter hoc ipsum ; amor ingenii neminem un quam divitem fecit. s Petronius Arbiter. i^ Oppressus 

paupertate animus, nihil eximium aut sublime cogitare potest, amoenitates literarum, aut elegantiara, 
quoniam nihil prtesidii in his ad vitse comniodum videt, primo negligere, mox odisse incipit. itens. 
t Epistol. qusest, lib. 4. Ep. 21. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 15.] Why the Muses are MelancliGly. 



205 



rest in their projects, and are as usually frustrate of tlieir hopes. For let him 
be a doctor of the law, an excellent civilian of good worth, where shall he 
practise and expatiate ? Their fields are so scant, the civil law with us so con- 
tracted with prohibitions, so few causes, by reason of those all-devouring 
municipal laws, quihus nihil illiteratius, saith ' Erasmus, an illiterate and a 
barbarous study (for though they be never so well learned in it, I can hardly 
vouchsafe them the name of scholars, except they be otherwise qualified), and 
so few courts are left to that profession,! such slender offices, and those com- 
monly to be compassed at such dear rates, that I know not how an ingenious 
man should thrive amongst them. Now for physicians, there are in every 
village so many mountebanks, empirics, quacksalvers, paracelsians, as they 
call themselves, Caucifici et sanicidce, so '"' Clenard terms them, wizards, alche- 
mists, poor vicars, cast apothecaries, physicians' men, barbers, and good wives, 
professing great skill, that I make great doubt how they shall be maintained, 
or who shall be their patients. Besides, there are so many of both sorts, and 
some of them such harpies, so covetous, so clamorous, so impudent; and as 
^ he said, litigious idiots, 



" Quibus loquacis affatim arrogantise est, 

Peritife parum aut nihil, 
Nee ulla mica literarii salis, 

Crumenimulga natio : 
Loquuteleia turba, litium stroph?e, 

Maligna litigantium cohors, togati vultuiN 
Lavernoe alumni, Agyrtse," &c. 



" Which have no skill but prating arrogance, 
No learning, such a purse-milking nation : 
Gown'd vultures, thieves, and a litigious rout 
Of cozeners, that hauut this occupation," 
&c. 



that they cannot well tell liow to live one by another, but as he jested in the 
Comedy of Clocks, they were so many, ^ onajor jycirs populi aridd reptant fame, 
they are almost starved a great part of them, and ready to devour their fel- 
lows, \ Et noxid calliditate se cori'ipere, such a multitude of pettifoggers and 
empirics, such impostors, that an honest man knows not in what sort to com- 
pose and behave himself in their society, to carry himself with credit in so 
vile a rout, scientioi nomen, tot su7n2:)tibus par turn et vigiliis, prqfiteri dispudeaf, 
postquam, <L'c. 

Last of all come to our divines, the most noble profession and worthy of 
double honour, but of'all others the most distressed and miserable. If you will 
not believe me, hear a brief of it, as it was not many years since publicly 
preached at Paul's cross, " by a grave minister then, and now a reverend 
bishop of this land : " We that are bred up in learning, and destinated by our 
parents to this end, we suffer our childhood in the grammar-school, which 
Austin calls magnam tyrannidem, et grave 'tnalum, and compares it to the tor- 
ments of martyrdom; when we come to the university, if we live of the college 
allowance, as Phalaris objected to the Leontines, itavriv IvSer? ttXwv uixqv xal <^oBov, 
needy of all things but hunger and fear, or if we be maintained but partly 
by our parents' cost, do expend in unnecessary maintenance, books and de- 
grees, before we come to any perfection, five hundred pounds, or a thousand 
marks. If by this price of the expense of time, our bodies and spirits, our 
substance and patrimonies, we cannot purchase those small rewards, which are 
ours by law, and the right of inheritance, a poor parsonage, or a vicarage of 
£50 per annum, but we must pay to the patron for the lease of a life (a spent 
and out- worn life) either in annual pension, or above the rate of a copyhold, 
and that witli the hazard and loss of our souls, by simony and perjury, and the 
forfeiture of all our spiritual preferments, in esse and posse, both present and to 
come. What father after a while will be so improvident to bring up his son 
to his great charge, to this necessary beggary? What Christian will be so 
irreligious, to bring up his son in that course of life, which by all probability 
and necessity, coget ad turpia, enforcing to sin, will entangle him in simony 

« Ciceron. dial. * Epist. lib. 2. ^ ja. Dousa Epodon. lib. 2. car. 2. i Plautus. t Bard. 

Argenia, lib. 3. »» Job. Howson 4 Novembris 1597, the sermon was printed by Arnold Hartfield. 



206 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

and perjury," when as the poet said, Invitatus ad hoec aliquis de ponte negahit: 
" a beggar's brat taken from the bridge where he sits a begging, if he knew 
the inconvenience, had cause to refuse it." This being thus, have not we 
fished fair all this while, that are initiate divines, to find no better fruits of 
our labours, " hoc est cur pcdles, cur quis non prandeat hoc est ? do we macerate 
ourselves for this ? Is it for this we rise so early all the year long 1 " '^* leap- 
ing (as he saith) out of our beds, when we hear the bell ring, as if we had 
heard a thunderclap." If this be all the respect, reward and honour we shall 
have, °frange leves calamos, et scirtde Thalia lihellos : let us give over our books, 
and betake ourselves to some other course of life; to what end should we 
study ? P Quid me litterulas stulti docuere parentes, what did our parents mean 
to make us scholars, to be as far to seek of preferment after twenty years' 
study, as we were at first: why do we take such pains'? Quid tantum 
insanis juvat inipallescere chartis .? If there be no more hope of reward, no 
better encouragement, I say again, Frange leves calamos, et scinde Thalia, 
libellos; let's turn soldiers, sell our books, and buy swords, guns, and pikes, 
or stop bottles with them, turn our philosopher s gowns, as Cleanthes once 
did, into millers' coats, leave all, and rather betake ourselves to any other 
course of life, than to continue longer in this misery, t Prcestat dentiscalpia 
radere, quam literariis monumentis inagnatum favoreni emendicare. 

Yea, but methinks I hear some man except at these wordss, that though 
this be true which I have said of the estate of scholars, and especially of 
divines, that it is miserable and distressed at this time, that the church suffers 
shipwreck of her goods, and that they have just cause to complain; there is 
afiiult, but whence proceeds it? If the cause were justly examined, it would 
be retorted upon ourselves, if we were cited at that tribunal of truth, we 
should be found guilty, and not able to excuse it. That there is a fault among 
us, I confess, and were there not a buyer, there would not be a seller : but to 
him that v\^ill consider better of it, it will more than manifestly appear, that 
the fountain of these miseries proceeds from these griping patrons. In accusing 
them, I do not altogether excuse us ; both are faulty, they and we : yet in my 
judgment, theirs is the greater fault, more apparent causes, and much to be 
condemned. For my part, if it be not with me as I would, or as it should, I do 
ascribe the cause, as "^ Cardan did in the like case; tneo infortunio potius quam 
illorum sceleri, to |mine own infelicity rather than their naughtiness; although 
I have been baffled in my time by some of them, and have as just cause to com- 
plain as another: or rather indeed to mine own negligence; for I was ever 
like that Alexander in § Plutarch, Crassus his tutor in philosophy, who, though 
he lived many years familiarly with rich Crassus, was even as poor when from, 
(which many wondered at) as when he came first to him ; he never asked, the 
other never gave him any thing; when he travelled with Crassus he borrowed 
a hat of him, at his return restored it again. I have had some such noble 
friends' acquaintance and scholars, but most part (common courtesies and ordi- 
nary respects excepted), they and I parted as we met, they gave me as much as 

I requested, and that was And as Alexander ah Alexandro, Genial, die?'. 

I. 6. c. 16. made answer to Hieronimus Massainus, that wondered, quum plures 
ignavos et ignobiles ad dignitates et sacerdotia promotos quotidie videret, when 
other men rose, still he was in the same state, eodem tenore et fortund cui oner- 
cedem lahorwn studiorumque debar i putaret, whom he thought to deserve as 
well as the rest. He made answer, that he was content with his present estate, 

» Pers. Sat. 3. * E lecto exsilientes, ad subitum tintinnabuli plausura quasi fulmine territi. 1. « Mart. 
P Mart. f Sat. Menip. q Lib. 3. de cons. % I had no money, I wanted impudence, I could not 

scramble, temporise, dissemble : non pranderet olus, &c. vis dicam, ad palpandum et adulandum penitus 
insulsus, recudi non possum jam senior ut sim talis, et tingi nolo, utcunque male cedat in rem meam et 
obscurus inde delitescam. § Vit. Crassi. nee facile judicare potest utrum paupcrior cum primo ad 

Crassuin, &c. 



Mera. 3. Subs. 15.] Study, a Cause. 207 

was not ambitious, and although ohjurgahii7idu>s suam segnitiem accusaret, cum 
obscurce sortis homines ad sacerdotia et pontificatus evectos, (&g., he chid him for 
his backwardness, yet he was still the same: and for my part (though I be not 
worthy perhaps to carry Alexander's books) yet by some overweening and well- 
wishing friends, the like speeches have been used to me ; but I replied still 
with Alexander, that I had enough, and more peradventure than I deserved; 
and with Libanius Sophista, that rather chose (when honours and offices by the 
emperor were offered unto him) to be talis Sophista, quam talis Magiatratus. I 
had as lief be still Democritus junior, -and privus pi'ivatus, si mihijam dare- 

tur optio, quami talis fortasse Doctor, talis Dominus. Sed quorsum hcec? 

For the rest 'tis on both sides /acwiw^ detestandum, to buy and sell livings, to 
detain from the church, that which God's and men's laws have bestowed on it; 
but in them most, and that from the covetousness and ignorance of such as are 
interested in this business; 1 name covetousness in the first place, as the root 
of all these mischiefs, which, Achan-like, compels them to commit sacrilege, 
and to make simoniacal compacts, (and what not) to their own ends, *■ that 
kindles God's wrath, brings a plague, vengeance, and a heavy visitation upon 
themselves and otliers. Some out of that insatiable desire of filthy lucre, to 
be enriched, care not how they come by it per fas et nefas, hook or crook, so 
they have it. And otliers when they have with riot and prodigality embezzled 
their estates, to recover themselves, make a prey of the church, robbing it, as 

* Julian the apostate did, spoil parsons of their revenues (in keeping half back 
*as a great man amongst us observes) : "and that maintenance on which they 
should live:" by means whereof, barbarism is increased, and a great decay of 
christian professors : for who will apply himself to these divine studies, his son, 
or friend, when after great pains taken, they shall have nothing whereupon 
to live? But with what event do they these things? 

"*0pe3que totis viribus -venamini, 
At inde messis uccidit misemma." 

They toil and moil, but what reap they 1 They are commonly unfortunate 
families that use it, accursed in their progeny, and, as common experience 
evinceth, accursed themselves in all their proceedings. " With what face (as 
"he quotes out of Aust.) can they expect a blessing or inheritance from Christ 
in heaven, that defraud Christ of his inheritance here on earth?" I would all 
our simoniacal patrons, and such as detain tithes, would read those judicious 
tracts of Sir Henry Spelman, and Sir James Sempill, knights ; those late 
elaborate and learned treatises of Dr. Tilflye, and Mr. Montague, which they 
have written of that subject. But though they should read, it would be to 
small purpose, dames licet et mare coelo confundas; thunder, lighten, preach 
hell and damnation, tell them 'tis a sin, they will not believe it ; denounce and 
terrify, they have ''cauterised consciences, they do not attend, as the enchanted 
adder, they stop their ears. Call them base, irreligious, profane, barbarous, 
pagans, atheists^ epicures, (as some of them surely are) with the bawd in 
Plautus, Euge, optime, they cry and applaud themselves with that miser, ^simid 
ac nummios contemplor in area: say what you will, quocunque modo rem: as 
a dog barks at the moon, to no purpose are your sayings : Take your heaven, 
let them have money. A base, profane, epicurean, hypocritical rout : for my 
part, let them pretend what zeal they v/ill, counterfeit religion, blear the worki's 
eyes, bombast themselves, and stuff out their greatness with church spoils, 
shine like so many peacocks; so cold is my charity, so defective in this behalf, 
that I shall never think better of them, than that they are rotten at core, their 

'Deura habent iratum, sibique mortem aeternam acquirunt, aliis miserabilem ruinam. Serrarius in Josuam, 
7. Euripides. » Nicepliorus lib. 10. cap. 5. ' Lord Cook, In his Reports, second part, fol. 4i. 

* Em-ipides. « Sir Heniy Spelman, de uou temerandis Ecclesiis. * 1 Tim. 4. 2. J Hor. 



208 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

bones are full of epicnrean hypocrisy, and atheistical marrow, they are worse 
than heathens. For as Dionysius Halicarnasseus observes, Antiq. Roin. lib. 7. 
^Primuiii locum, &c. "Greeks and Barbarians observe all religious rites, and 
dare not break them for fear of offending their gods; but our simoniacal con- 
tractors, our senseless Achans, our stupified patrons, fear neither God nor 
devil, they have evasions for it, it is no sin, or not due jure divino, or if a sin, 
no great sin, &c. And though they be daily punished for it, and they do 
manifestly perceive, that as he said, frost and fraud come to foul ends ; yet as 
"Chrysostom follows it. Nulla ex pcend sit correctio, et quasi adversis maXitia 
hominum provocetur, crescit quotidie quodpuniatur : they are rather worse than 
better, — iram atque animos a crimine sumunt, and the more they are corrected, 
the more they offend: but let them take their course, ""Rode, caper, vites, go on 
still as they begin, 'tis no sin, let them rejoice secure, God's vengeance will 
overtake them in the end, and these ill-gotten goods, as an eagle's feathers, 
" will consume the rest of their substance ; it is '^ aurum Tholosanum, and wiH 
produce no better effects. "^Let them lay it up safe, and make their convey- 
ances never so close, lock and shut door," saith Chrysostom, " yet fraud and 
covetousness, two most violent thieves, are still included, and a little gain evil 
gotten will subvert the rest of their goods." The eagle in JEsop, seeing a 
piece* of flesh, now ready to be sacrificed, swept it away with her claws, and 
carried it to her nest; but there was a burning coal stuck to it by chance, 
which unawares consumed her young ones, nest, and all together. Let o-ur 
simoniacal church-choppiug patrons, and sacrilegious harpies, look for no 
better success. 

A second caiise is ignorance, and from thence contempt, successit odiuon in 
liter as ab ignorantid vulgi; which ^Junius well perceived : this hatred and con- 
tempt of learning proceeds out of ^ignorance; as they are themselves barbarous, 
idiots, dull, illiterate, and proud, so they esteem of others. Sint Meccenates, 
non deerunt, Flacce, Marones: Let there be bountiful patrons, and there will be 
painful scholars in all sciences. But when they contemn learning, and think 
themselves sufficiently qualified, if they can write and read, scramble at a piece 
of evidence, or have so much Latin as that emperor had, ^^qui nescit dissimulare, 
nescit vivere, they are unfit to do their country service, to perform or undertake 
any action or employment, which may tend to the good of a commonwealth, 
except it be to fight, or to do country justice, with common sense, which every 
yeoman can likewise do. And so they bring up their children, rude as they 
are themselves, unqualified, untaught, uncivil most part. * Quis e nostra juven- 
tute legitime instituitur Uteris ? Quis oratores aut philosophos tangit ? quis his- 
toriam legit, illam rerum agendarum quasi animam 1 prmcipitant parentes vota 
tua, (kc. 'twas Lipsius' complaint to his illiterate countrymen, it may be ours. 
Now shall these men judge of a scholar's worth, that have no worth, that know 
not what belongs to a student's labours, that cannot distinguish between a true 
scholar and a drone % or him that by reason of a voluble tongue, a strong voice, 
a pleasing tone, and some trivially polyanthean helps, steals and gleans a few 
notes from other men's harvests, and so makes a fairer show, than he that is 
truly learned indeed: that thinks it no more to preach, than to speak, "'or to 
run away with an empty cart;" as a grave man said ; and thereupon vilify us, 
and our pains; scorn us, and all learning. ""Because they are rich, and have 

» Primum locum apud omnes gentes habet patritius deorum cultus, et geniorum, nam hunc diutissimb 
custodiunt, tarn Gr^ci quam Barbari, &c. -Tom. 1. de steril trium annorum sub Elil sermone 

b Ovid. Fast. « De male qusesitis vix gaudet tertius hseres. " Strabo, lib. 4. Geog. _ « Nihil facihus 
opes evertet, quam avaritia et fraude parta. Et si enim seram addas tali arcae, et exteriore janua et vecte 
earn communias, intus tamen fraudem et avaritiam, &c. In 5. Corinth. f Acad. cap. 7. 6Ars 

neminem habet inimicum prseter ignorantem. ^ u e that cannot dissemble cannot live. * Lpist. ques-t. 
lib. 4. epist. 21. Lipsius. i Dr. King, in his last lecture on Jonah, sometime right reverend lord bishop 

of London. k QuitMis Oive^-et otium, hi barbaro fastu literas contemnunt. 



Mera. 3. Subs. 1-5.] Study, a Cause. 209 

otlier means to live, tliey tliink it concerns them not to know, or to trouble 
themselves with it; a fitter task for younger brothers, or poor men's sons, to 
be pen and inkhorn men, pedantical slaves, and no whit beseeming the calling 
of a gentleman, as Frenchmen and Germans commonly do, neglect therefore 
all human learning, what have they to do with it % Let mariners learn astro- 
nomy; merchants, factors study arithmetic ; surveyors get them geometry; 
spectacle-makers optics; landleapers geography; town-cleiks rhetoric, what 
should he do with a spade, that hath no ground to dig; or they with learning, 
that hath no use of it ] thus they reason, and are not ashamed to let mariners, 
apprentices, and the basest servants, be better qualified than themselves. lu 
former times, kings, princes, and emperors, were the only scholars, excellent 
in all faculties. 

Julius Caesar mended the year, and writ his own Comtaentaries, 

media inter prjelia semper, 



Stellarum coelique plagis, superisque vacavit." 

^Antonius, Adrian, Nero, SeA^e. Jul. (fee. ™ Michael the emperor, and Isacius, 
were so much given to their studies, that no base fellow would take so much 
pains: Orion, Perseus, Alphonsus, Ptolomeus, famous astronomers; Sabor, 
Mithridates, Lysimachus, admired physicians: Plato's kings all: Evax, that 
Arabian prince, a most expert jeweller, and an exquisite philosopher ; the kings 
of Egypt were priests of old, chosen and from thence, — Idem rex hominum, 
Phcehique sacerdos : but those heroical times are past; the Muses are now 
banished in this bastard age, adsordida tuguriola, to meaner persons, and con- 
fined alone almost to universities. In those days, scholars were highly beloved, 
° honoured, esteemed; as old Ennius by Scipio Africanus, Vii'gil by Augustus; 
Horace by Mecsenas: princes' companions; dear to them, as Anacreon to Poly- 
crates; Philoxenus to Dionysius, and highly rewarded, Alexander sent Xeno- 
crates the Philosopher fifty talents, because he was poor, visu rerum, aut ei^Ur- 
ditione prcestantes viri, mensis oUm regmn adhibiti, as Philostratus relates of 
Adrian and Lampridius of Alexander Severus : famous clerks came to these 
princes' courts, velut in Lycceum, as to a university, and were admitted to their 
tables, quasi diviim epidis accumbentes; Archilaus, that jMacedonian king, would 
not willingly sup without Euripides (amongst the rest he drank to him at 
supper one night and gave him a cup of gold for his pains), delectatus poetce 
suavi sermone; and it was fit it should be so; because, as t Plato in his Pro- 
tagoras well saith, a good philosopher as much excels other men, as a great 
king doth the commons of his country; and again, °qico?iiam illis nihil dkest, 
et minime egere solent, et disciplinas quas profitentur, soli a contemptu vindicare 
possunt, they needed not to beg so basely, as they compel ^scholars in our times 
to complain of poverty, or crouch to a rich chufi" for a meal's meat, but could 
vindicate themselves, and those arts which they professed. Now they would 
and cannot : for it is held by some of them, as an axiom, that to keep them 
poor, will make them study; they must be dieted, as horses to a race, not 
pampered, '^Alendos volunt, non saginandos, ne melioris mentis flammida extin- 
guatur; a fat bird will not sing, a fat dog cannot hunt, and so by this dei)res- 
sion of theirs, ""some want means, others will, all want ^encouragement, as 
being forsaken almost; and generally contemned. 'Tis an old saying, Sint 
3IeccEnates, non deerunt, Flacce, Mar ones, and 'tis a true saying still. Yet 
oftentimes, I may not deny it, the main fault is in oui selves. Our academics 

* Lncan. lib. 8. i Spartian. Soliciti de rebus nimis. m Xicet. 1. Anal. Fumis lucubrationum- 

Bordebant. " Grammaticis olim et dialectices jurisqne professoribus, qui specimen eruditionis dedissent, 

eadem dignitatis insignia decreverunt Imperatores, quibus ornabant lieroas. Krasm. ep. Jo. Fabio epis. 
Vien. t Probus vir et Fliilosophus magis pra-stat inter alios honxines, quam rex inclitus inter plebeios. 

o lleinsius prsefat. Poematum. p Servile nomen Scholaris jam. i Seneca. ^ijaud facile 

eniergunt, &c. « Media quod noctis ab hora sedisti qua nemo faber, qua nemo sedebat, qui docet obliquo 
luuaui deducere ferro : rara tameu merces. Juv. Sat. 7. 



210 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

too frequently offend in neglecting patrons, as * Erasmus well taxetli, or making 
ill choice of them ; negligimus oblatos aut amjplectimur 'parmn aptos, or if we 
get a good one, non studemus Tuutuis officiis favorem ejus alere, we do not ply 
and follow him as we should. Idem mihi accidit Adolescenti (saith Erasmus) 
acknowledging his fault, et gravissiTne peccavi, and so may 1 1 say myself, I 
have offended in this, and so peradventure have many others. "We did not 
spondere magnatum favorihus, qui cceperunt nos am^olecti, apply ourselves with 
that readiness we should : idleness, love of liberty, immodicus amor libertatis 
effecit ut diu cum perfidis amicis, as he confesseth, et pertinaci paupertate col- 
luctarer, bashfulness, melancholy, timorousness, cause many of us to be too 
backward and remiss. So some offend in one extreme, but too many on the 
other, we are most part too forward, too solicitous, too ambitious, too impudent ; 
we commonly complain deesse Mcecenates, of want of encouragement, want of 
means, when as the true defect is in our own want of worth, our insufficiency : 
did Msecenas take notice of Horace or Yirgil till they had shown themselves 
first '? or had Bavins and Me vius any patrons ? Egregium specimen dent, saith 
Erasmus, let them approve themselves worthy first, sufficiently qualified for 
learning and manners, before they presume or impudently intrude and put 
themselves on great men as too many do, with such base flattery, parasitical 
colloguing, such hyperbolical elogies they do usually insinuate, that it is a shame 
to hear and see. Immodicce laudes conciliant invidiam, p)Otius quam laudem, 
and vain commendations derogate from truth, and we think in conclusion, non 
melius de laudato, pejits de laudante, ill of both, the cornmender and commended. 
So we oftend, but the main fault is in their harshness, defect of patrons. How 
beloved of old, and how much respected was Plato to Diony sins'? How dear to 
Alexander was Aristotle, Demeratus to Philip, Solon to Croesus, Anexarcus 
and Trebatius to Augustus, Cassius to Vespatian, Plutai'ch to Trajan, Seneca 
to Nero, Simonides to Hiero? how honoured? 

" t Sed hffic prius fuere, nunc rccondita 
Senent quiete," 

those days are gone; Et spes, et ratio studiorum in Crnsare tantum:^ as he 
said of old, we may truly say now, he is our amulet, our "sun, our sole comfort 
and refuge, our Ptolemy, our common Msecenas, Jacobus munificus. Jacobus 
pacificus, mysta Musarum, Rex Platonicus : Grande decus, columenque nos- 
trum: a famous scholar himself, and the sole patron, pillar, and sustain er of 
learning : but his worth in this kind is so well known, that as Paterculus of 
Cato, Jam ipsum laudare nefas sit: and which § Pliny to Trajan, Seria te 
carmina, honorque mternus annalium, non licec brevis et pudenda proidicatio colet. 
But he is now gone, the sun of ours set, and yet no night follows, Sol occubuit, 
nox mdla sequuta est. We have such another in his room, \\aureus alter. 
Avuls2is,similifrondescitvirgametaUo, and long may he reign and flourish 
amongst us. 

Let me not be malicious, and lie against my genius, I may not deny, but 
that we have a sprinkling of our gentry, here and there one, excellently well 
learned, like those Fuggeri in Germany; Dubartus, Du Plessis, Sadael, in 
France; Picus Mirandula. Schottus, Barotius, in Italy; Apparent rarinanies 
in gurgite vasto. But they are but few in respect of the multitude, the major 
part (and some again excepted, that are indifferent) are wholly bent for hawks 
and hounds, and carried away many times with intemperate lust, gaming and 
drinking. If they read a book at any time (si quod est interim otii a venatu, 
poculis, aled, scortis) 'tis an English Chronicle, St. Huon of Bordeaux, Amadis 

* Chil. 4. Cent. 1. adag. 1. f Had I done as others did, put myself forward, I might have haply 

heen as great a man as many of my equals. ^ Catullus, Juven. $ All our hopes and inducements to 

study are centred in Csesar alone. " Nemo est quern non Phcehus hie noster, solo intuitu lubentiorem 

reUdat. § Panegyr. || Yirgil. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 15.] 



Study, a Cause. 



211 



de Gaul, kc, a play book, or some pamphlet of news, and that at sucli seasons 
only, when they cannot stir abroad, to drive away time, ^ their sole discourse 
is dogs, hawks, horses, and what news? If some one have been a traveller in 
Italy, or as far as the emperor's court, wintered in Orleans, and can court 
his mistress in broken French, wear his clothes neatly in tlie newest fashion, 
sing some choice outlandish tunes, discourse of lords, ladies, towns, palaces, 
and cities, he is complete and to be admired : ^ otherwise he and they are 
much at one ; no difference between the master and the man, but worshipful 
titles : wink and choose betwixt him that sits down (clothes excepted) and 
him that holds the trencher behind him : yet these men must be our patrons, 
our governors too sometimes, statesmen, magistrates, noble, great, and wise 
by inheritance. 

Mistake me not (I say again) Vos, 6 Patritius sanguis, you that are worthy 
senators, gentlemen, I honour your names and persons, and with all sub mis- 
si veness, prostrate myself to your censure and service. There are amongst 
you, I do ingenuously confess, many well-deserving patrons, and true patriots, 
of my knowledge, besides many hundreds which I never saw, no doubt, or 
heard of, pillars of our commonwealth, ''whose worth, bounty, learning, for- 
wardness, true zeal in religion, and good esteem of all scholars, ought to be 
consecrated to all posterity; but of your rank, there are a debauched, cor- 
rupt, covetous, illiterate crew again, no better than stocks, merum pecus 
(testor Deum, non mihi videri dignos ingenui hominis appellatione), barbarous 
Thracians, et quis ille thrax qui hoc neget ? a sordid, profane, pernicious com- 
pany, irreligious, impudent and stupid, I know not what epithets to give them, 
enemies to learning, confounders of the church, and the ruin of a common- 
wealth ; patrons they are by right of inheritance, and put in trust freely to 
dispose of such livings to the church's good; but (hard task-masters they 
prove) they take away their straw, and compel them to make their number of 
brick; they commonly respect their own ends, commodity is the steer of all 
their actions, and him they present in conclusion, as a man of greatest gifts, 
that will give most; no penny, * no pater-noster, as the saying is. Nisi preces 
auro fulcias, amj)lius ii-ritas : ut Cerberus offa, their attendants and officers 
must be bribed, feed, and made, as Cerberus is with a sop by him that goes 
to hell. It was an old saying, Ovinia Romce venalia, (all things are venal at 
Rome), 'tis a rag of Popery, which will never be rooted out, there is no hope, 
no good to be done without money. A clerk may offer himself, approve his 
^ worth, learning, honesty, religion, zeal, they will commend him for it ; but 
^prohitas laudatur et alget. If he be a man of extraordinary parts, they will 
flock afar off to hear him, as they did in Apuleius, to see Psyche : 'iiiulti mortales 
conjiuebant ad mdendum sceculi decus, speculum gloriosum, laudatur ab omni- 
bus, spectatur ab ornnibus, nee quisquam non rex, non regius, ciqndus ejus mip- 
iiarum petitor accedit; mirantur quidem divinam /ormam omnes, sed ut si~ 
midacrum fabre politum mirantur; many mortal men came to see fair Psyche 
the glory of her age, they did admire her, commend, desire her for her divine 
beauty, and gaze upon her; but as on aipicture; none would marry her, qu/^d 
indotata, fair Psyche had no money. ""So they do by learning; 



. d didicit jam dives avarus 



Tantum admirari, tantum laudaie disertos, 
Ut pueri Junonis avem — " 



" Yonr rich men have now learn'd of latter days 
T" admire, commend, and come together 
To hear and see a worthy scholar ipeak. 
As children do a peacock's leather." 



s Earns enim ferme sensus commnnis in ilia Fortnna. Juv. Sat. 8. y Quis enim generosum dixerit 

hunc que Indignus genere, et pra^claro nomine tantum, Insignis. Juv^. Sat. 8. 'I have often met with 

myself and conferred with divers worthy gentlemen in the countiy, no whit inferior, if not to be preferred 
for divers kinds of learning to many of our academics. ' Ipse licet Musis venias comitatus, Homere, Mil 
tamen attuleris, ibis, iiomere, foras. b Et legat historicos auctores, noverit omnes Tanquam tmgues 

digitosque suos. Juv. Sat. 7. * Juvenal. <= Tu vero licet Orpheus sis, saxa sona testudinis emolliensj 
nisi plumbea eorum corda, auri vel argenti malleo emollias, &c. balisburiensis Policrat. lib. 6. c lU. 
* Juven. Sat. 7. 



212 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

He shall liave all the good words that may be given, ® a proper man, and 'tis 
pity he hath no preferment, all good wishes, but inexorable, indurate as he is, 
he will not prefer him, though it be in his power, because he is indotatus, he 
hath no money. Or if he do give him entertainment, let him be never so well 
qualified, plead affinity, consanguinity, sufficiency, he shall serve seven years, 
as Jacob did for Rachel, before he shall have it. ^If he "will enter at first, he 
must yet in at that Simoniacal gate, come off soundly, and put in good security 
to perform all covenants, else he will not deal with, or admit him. But if 
some poor scholar, some parson chaff, will offer himself; some trencher chap- 
lain, that will take it to the halves, thirds, or accept of what he will give, he 
is welcome; be conformable, preach as he will have him, he likes him before 
a million of others ; for the best is always best cheap : and then as Hierom 
said to Cromatius, patella dignum operculum, such a patron, such a clerk; the 
cure is well supplied, and all parties pleased. So that is still verified in our 
age, which ^Chrysostom complained of in his time, Qui opulentiores sunt, in or- 
dinem parasitorum cogunt eos, et ipsos tanquam canes ad mensas suas enutriunt, 
eorumque impudentes Ventres iniquarum ccenarum reliquiis differtiunt, iisd'im 
pro arbitrio abutentes : Rich men keep these lecturers, and fawning parasites, 
like so many dogs at their tables, and filling their hungry guts with the offals 
of their meat, they abuse them at their pleasure, and make them say what they 
propose. " ^ As children do by a bird or a butterfly in a string, pull in and 
let him out as they list, do they by their trencher chaplains, prescribe, com- 
mand their wits, let in and out as to them it seems best." If the patron be 
precise, so must his chaplain be ; if he be papistical, his clerk must be so too, 
or else be turned out. These are those clerks which serve the turn, whom 
they commonly entertain, and present to chm^ch livings, whilst in the meantime 
we that are University men, like so many hide-bound calves in a pasture, tarry 
out our time, wither away as a flower ungathered in a garden, and are never 
used; or as so many candles, illuminate ourselves alone, obscuring one an- 
other's light, and are not discerned here at all, the least of which, translated 
to a dark room, or to some country benefice, where it might shine apart, would 
give a lair light, and be seen over all. Whilst we lie waiting here as those 
sick men did at the Pool of * Bethesda, till the Angel stirred the water, ex- 
pecting a good hour, they step between, and beguile us of our preferment, 
I have not yet said, if after long expectation, much expense, travel, earnest 
suit of ourselves and friends, we obtain a small benefice at last ; our misery 
begins afresh, we are suddenly encountered with the flesh, world, and devil, 
with a new onset ; we change a quiet life for an ocean of troubles, we come to 
a ruinous house, which before it be habitable, must be necessarily to our great 
damage repaired ; we are compelled to sue for dilapidations, or else sued our- 
selves, and scarce yet settled, we are called upon for our predecessor's arrear- 
ages ; first-fruits, tenths, subsidies, are instantly to be paid, benevolence, pro- 
curations, &c., and which is most to be feared, we light upon a cracked title, 
as it befel Clenard, of Brabant, for his rectory and charge of his Begince; he 
was no sooner inducted, but instantly sued, coepimusque (tsaith he) strenue 
litigare, et implacabili bello confligere: at length, after ten years' suit, as long 
as Troy's siege, when he had tired himself, and spent his money, he was fain 
to leave all for quietness' sake, and give it up to his adversary. Or else we are 
insulted over, and trampled on by domineering officers, fleeced by those greedy 
harpies to get more fees; we stand in fear of some precedent lapse; we tall 

^Euge bene, no need, Dousa epod. lib. 2 dos ipsa scientia sibique congiarium est. fQuatuor ad portas 

Ecclesias itiis ad omnes; sanguinis aut Simonis, pr£esulis atque Dei. Holcot. 8 Lib. contra Gentiles de 

Babila martyre. h Prfescribunt, imperant, in ordinem cogunt, ingenium nostrum prout ipsis videbitur, 

astringunt et relaxant ut papilionem pueri aut bruchum nlo demittunt, aut attrahunt, nos a libidine sua 
pendere Ecquum censentes. Heinsius. t Joh. 5. fEpist. lib. 2. Jam suffectus in locum deniortui, 

protinus exortus est adversarius, &c., post multos labores, sumptus, &c. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 15.] Study, a Cause. 213 

amongst refractory, seditious sectaries, peevish puritans, perverse papists, a 
lascivious rout of atheistical Epicures, that will not be reformed, or some liti- 
gious people (those wild beasts of Ephesus must be fought with) that will not 
pay their dues without much repining, or compelled by long suit; Laid clericis 
ojypido infesti, an old axiom, all they think well gotten that is had from the 
church, and by such uncivil, harsh dealings, they make their poor minister 
weary of his place, if not his life ; and put case they be quiet honest men, make 
the best of it, as often it falls out, from a polite and terse academic, he must 
turn rustic, rude, melancholise alone, learn to forget, or else, as many do, 
become maltsters, graziers, chapmen, kc. (now banished from the academy, all 
commerce of the muses, and confined to a country village, as Ovid was from 
Home to Pontus), and daily converse with a company of idiots and clowns. 

Nos interim quod attmet {jiec enim immunes ah hac noxd sumus) idem 
reatus manet, idem nobis, etsi non multo gravius-, crimen objici potest : nostra 
enim culpa sit, nostra incurid, nostra avaritid, quod tarn frequentes, foedceque 
fiant in Ecclesid nundinatio)ies, templum est vcenale, deusque) tot sordes incc- 
hantur, tanta grassetur impietas, tanta nequitia, tarn insa.nus m'seriarum 
Euripus, et turbarum cestuariuni, nostro inquam, omnium {Academicorum im- 
primis) vitio sit. Quod tot Resp. ma lis afficiatur, a yiobis seminarium ; ultrd 
malum hoc accersimus, et qudvis contumclid, qudvis interim miserid digni. qui 
pro virili non occurrimus. Quid etrim fieri posse speramus, quum tot indies 
sine delectu pauperes alumni, terrcefilii, et cujuscunque or dines homunciones ad 
gradus certatim admittantur? qui si definitionem, distinctionemque unam aut 
alteram memoriter edidicerint,et pro more tot annos in dialecticd posuerint,non 
refert quo profectu, quales demum sint, idiot(B, nugatores, otiatores, aleatores^ 
compotores, indignijihidinis voluptatumque administri, '■'• Sponsi Penelopes, ne- 
bulones,Alcinoique'' modo tot annos in academid insumpserint, et sepro togatis 
venditarint; lucri causa, et amicorum intercessu prcEsentantur : addo etiam 
et magnificis nonnunquam elogiis morum et scientice: et jam valediciuri 
testimonialibus hisce litteris, amplissime conscriptis in eorum gratiam hono- 
rantur, ah iis, qui Jidei slice, et existimationis jacturam jy^oculduhio faciunt. 
Doctores enim et professores {quod ait ' ille) id unum curant, ut ex professio- 
nibus frequentibus, et tnmultuariis potias quam legitimis, commoda sua pro- 
mo veant, et ex dispendio publico suu m faciant incrementum. Id solum in votis ha- 
bentannui pier unique magistratus,ut ah incipientium numero^ pecunias emuri- 
gant,nec multum interest qui sint, liter atores an literati,modd pingues, nitidi, ad 
aspectum speciosi, et quod verho dicam, pecuiiiosi sint. ^ Philosophastri licen- 
tiantur in artibus, artem qui non habent,"^ Eosque sapientes esse jabent, qui 
nulla pr^editi sunt sapientia, et nihil ad gradum prseterquam velle adferunt. 
Theologastri {solvant modo) satis superque docti, per omnes honorum gradus 
evehuntur et ascendunt Atque hincjit quod tam viles scurrce, tot passim idiotce, 
Uterarum crepusculo positi, larvae pastorum, circumforanei, vagi, harbi, fungi, 
erassi, asini, merum pecus, insacrosanctos theologioe aditus, illotispedibus irrum- 
pant,pr(Bterinverecundamfrontemadferentes nihil, vulgar es quasdani quis- 
qudias, et scholarium qucedam nugamenta, indigna quce vel recipiantur in 
triviis. Hoe illud indignum genus hominum et famelicum, indigum, vagum, 
ventris mancipium, ad stivam potiiis relegandum, ad haras aptius quam ad 
aras, quod divinas hasce literas turpiter prostituit; hi sunt qui pulpita com- 
plent, m <Bdes nohilium irrepunt, et quum reliquis vitce destituantur subsidiis, 
oh corporis et atiimi egestatem, aliarum in repuh. partium niinirne capaces 
sint; adsacram hanc anchor am co7ifugiunt,sacerdotium quovismodo captantes, 
non ex sinceritate, quod ™ Paulus ait, sed cauponantes verbum Dei. Ne quis 

• Jun. Acad. cap. 6. ^ Accipiamus pecnniam, demittamus asinum ut apud Patavinos, It.ilos. ' Mos 

non ita pridera perstrinxi in Philosophastro, Com^dia Latina, in .tEde Cliristi Oxon. publice habita, Anno 
1617. Feb. 16. * Sat. Menip. ^ 2 Cor. ii. 17. 



214 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

interim viris bonis detr actum quid putet,quos hahelecclesiaAnglicanaquamplu- 
rimos, egregie dodos, iUustres^ intactcc famce homines, et plures forsan quam 
qucBvis Europce provincia; ne quis a Jiorentissimis Academiis, quce vivos undi- 
qudque doctissimos, omni virtutum genere suspiciendos, abunde producunt. Et 
multo plures utraque hahitura,multo splendidiorfutura,sinon hcESordes splen- 
didum lumen ejus obfuscarent, obstaret corruptio, et cauponantes qucedam har- 
pyce, proletariique bonum hoc nobis non inviderent. Nemo enim tarn cceca 
tnente, qui non hoc ipsum videat: nemo tarn stolido ingenio, qui non intelligai; 
tarn pertinaci judicio, qui non agnoscat, ab his idioiis circumforaneis, sacram 
pollui Theologiatn, ac ccelestes Musas quasi prophanum quiddam prostiiui. 
Viles animse et effrontes {sic enim Lutherus " alicubi vocat) lucelli causa, ut 
muscse ad niulctra,ad nobilium. et heroum mensas ad volant, in spem sacerdotii, 
cujuslibet honoris, officii, in quamvis aulam, urhem se ingcrunt, ad quodvis se 

ministerium componunt. " Ut nervis alienis mobile lignum Ducitur'* 

Hor, Lib. II. Sat, 7. " ofikm sequentes, psittacorum more, in prsedse 

spem quid vis effutiunt : obsecundantes Par asiti ( ^Fti'Sismus ait) quidvis decent, 
dicunt, scribunt, siiadent,et contra conscientiam probant,non ut salutarem red- 
dant gregem, sed ut magnificam sibi parent fortunam. ^ Opiniones quasvis et 
decreta contra verbum Deiastniunt,ne nonoffendantpatronum, sed ut retineant 
favoremprocerum,etpopuli plausum, sibique ipsis opes accumulent. Eo etenim 
plerunque animo ad Theologiam accedant, non ut rem divinam, sed ut suam 
faciant; nonadEcclesi(Bbonumpromovendum,sed expilandum; qucerentes, quod 
Paulus ait, non quae Jesu Christi, sed quae sua, non domini thesaurum, sed ut 
sibi, suisque thesaurizent. Nee tantum iis, qui vilioris fortunce, et abjectcB 
sortis sunt, hoc in usu est: sed et medios, summos, elates, ne dicam Epi- 
scopos, hoc malum invasit. "'^ Dicite, pontifices, in sacris quidfacit aurumT 

* summos ssepe viros transversos agit avaritia, et qui reliquis morum probitate 
prcelucerent ; hi face m prceferunt ad Simoniam, et in corruptionis hunc scopu- 
lum im.pingentes, non tondent pecus, sed deglubunt, et quocunque se conferunty 
expilant, exhauriunt, abradunf, magnum, famce suce, si non animce naufragiunh 
facientes; ut non ab infimis ad summos, sed a summis ad infimos malum pro- 

mandsse videatur, et illud verum sit quod ille olim lusit, emerat ille prius, ven- 
dere jure potest. Simoniacus enim {quod cum Leone dicam) gratiam non 
accepit, si non accipit, non babet, et si non babet, nee gratus potest esse ; 
tantum enim absunt istorum nonnulli, quiadcla.vum sedent, apromovendo reli- 
quos, ut penitus impediant, probe sibi conscii, quibus artibus illic pervenerint. 

* Nam qui ob literas emersisse iilos credat, desipit ; qui vero ingenii, eruditio- 
nis, experientise, probitatis, pietatis, et Musarum id esse pretium putat {quod 
olim reverd fuit, hodie promittitur) planissime insanit. Utcunque vel undecu7i- 
que malum hoc originem ducat, non ultra queer am, ex his primordiis coepitviti- 
orum coUuvies, om^iis calamitas, omne miseriarum agmen in Ecclesiam inve- 
hitur. Hinc tam frequens simonia, hinc or tee querelce, fraudes, imposturce, ab 
hoc fonte se derivdrunt omnes nequitice. Ne quid obiter dicam de ambitione, 
adulatione plusquam aulicd,ne tristi domiccenlo laborent, de luxu, defoedo non- 
iiunquam vitce exemplo, quo nonnullos offendttnt., de compotatione Sybariticd^ 
<Scc. hinc ille squalor academicus, tristes hac tempestate Camense, quum quivis 
homunculus, artium ignarus^his artibus assurgat, hunc in modum, promoveatur 
et ditescat, ambitiosis appellationibus insignis^ et multis dignitatibus augustus 
vulgi oculos per string at, bene se habeat, et grandia gr adieus majestatem quan- 
dam ac amplitudinem prce se ferens, miramque solicitudinem, barbd reverendus, 
togd nitidus, purpurd coruscus, supellectilis splendore, etfamulorum numero 
maxime conspicuus. Quales statuce {(luod ait * ille) quse sacris in sedibus 

" Comment, in Gal. o Heinsius. p Ecclesiast. « Lutli. in Gal. ' Pers. Sat, 2. « Sallust. 

* Sat. Menip. tBuclajus de Asse, lib. 5. 



Mem. 3. Subs. 15.] Study, a Cause. 215 

columnis imponuntur, velat oneri cedentes videntur, ac si insudarent, quum. 
re vera seusii sint carentes, et nihil saxeam adjuvant firmitatem. : atlantes videri 
volunt, quum sintstatuce lapideoB, umhratiles reverd homunciones, fungi, forsan 
et bardi, 7iihil a saxo differentes. Quum interim docti viri, et vitcE sanctioris 
ornamentis prcBdlti, qui cBstum diet sustinent, his iniqud sorte servlant, minimo 
forsan salario contenti, puris nominibus nuncupati, humiles, obscuri, multoque 
dlgniores licet, egentes, inhonorati vitam privam privatum agant, tenuique 
sepulti sacerdotio, vel in collegiis suis in oeternum incarcerati, inglorie delitcs- 
cant, Sed nolo diutius hane movere sentinam, hinc illce lachrymce, lugubris 
niusarum habitus, *hinc ipsa religio {quod cum Secellio dicam) in ludibdum et 
contemptum. adducitur, abjectum sacerdotium {atque hcec ubi fiunt, ausim 
dicere, etputidum "^ putidi dicterium de clero usurpare) piitidum vulgns, inops, 
rude^ sordidum, melancholicum^ miserum, despicabiky contemnenduin* 

* As for ourselves (for neither are we free from this fault) the same guilt, the same crime, maj^ be objected 
against us : for it is through our fault, negligence, and avarice, that so many atid such shameful corrup- 
tions occur in the church (both the temple and the Deity are offered for sale), that such sordidness is 
introduced, such impiety committed, such wickedness, such a mad gulf of wretchedness and irregularity — 
these I say arise from all our faults, but more particularly from ours of the University. We are the nursery 
in wliich those ills are bred witli which tlie state is afflicted ; we voluntarily introduce them, and are deserving 
01 every opprobrium and suffering, since we do not afterwards encounter them according to our strength. 
For what better can we expect when so many poor, beggarly fellows, men of every order, are readily and 
witliout election, admitted to degrees? Who, if they can only commit to memory a few definitions and 
divisions, and pass the customary period in the study of logics, no matter with what effect, whatever sort 
they prove to be, idiots, trifiers, idlers, gamblers, sots, sensualists, 

" mere ciphers in the book of life 

Like those who boldly woo'd Ulysses' wife; 
Born to consume the fruits of earth : in truth, 
As vain and idle as Pheacia's youth;" 

only let them have passed the stipulated period in the University, and professed themselves collegians : either 
for the sake of profit, or through the influence of their friends, they obtain a presentation ; nay, sometimes 
even accompanied by brilliant eulogies upon their morals and acquirements; and when they are about to 
take leave, they are honoured with the most flattering literary testimonials in their favour, by those who 
undoubtedly sustain a loss of reputation in granting them. For doctors and professors (as an author says) 
are anxious about one thing only, viz., that out of their various callings they may promote their o^vn 
advantage, and convert the public loss into their private gains. For our annual officers wisli this only, that 
those M'iio commence, whether they are taught or untaught is of no moment, shall be sleek, fat, pigeons, 
wortli the plucking. The Philosophastic are admitted to a degree in Arts, because they have no acquaint- 
ance with them. And they are desired to be wise men, because they are endowed with no wisdom, and 
bring no qualification for a degree, except the wish to have it. The Theologastic (only let them pay) thrice 
learned, are promoted to every academic honour. Hence it is that so many vile buffoons, so many idiots 
everywhere, placed in the twilight of letters, the mere ghosts of sholars, wanderers in tlie market place, 
vagrants, barbels, mushrooms, dolts, asses, a growling herd, with unwashed feet, break into the sacred 
precincts of tlieology, bringing nothing along with them but an impudent front, some vulgar trifles and 
foolish scholastic technicalities, unworthy of respect even at the crossing of the highways. This is the 
unworthy, vagrant, voluptuous race, fitter for the hog-sty (haram) than the altar (aram), that basely pros- 
titute divine literature; these are they who fill the pulpits, creep into the palaces of our nobility after all 
other prospects of existence fail them, owing to their imbecility of body and mind, and their being incapable 
of sustaining any other parts in the commonwealth; to this sacred refuge they fly, undertaking the offlce 
of the ministry, not ft-om sincerity, but as St. Paul says, huckstering the v.-ord of God. Let not any 
one suppose that it is here intended to detract from those many exemplary men of Avhich the Church of 
England may boast, learned, eminent, and of spotless fame, for they are more numerous in that than in any 
other church of Europe : nor from those most learned universities which constantly send forth men 
endued with eveiy form of virtue. And these seminaries would produce a still greater number of inesti- 
mable scholars hereafter if sordidness did not obscure the splendid light, corruption interrupt, and certain 
truckling harpies and beggars envy them their usefulness. Nor can any one be so blind as not to perceive 
this— any so stolid as not to understand it — any so perverse as not to acl£nowledge how sacred Theology has 
been contammated by those notorious idiots, and the celestial Muse treated with profanity. Vile and 
shameless souls (says Luther) for the sake of gain, like flies to a milk-pail, crowd round the tables of the 
nobility in expectation of a church living, any office, or honour, and flock into any public hall or city ready 
to accept of any employment that may offer. 

"A thing of wood and wires by others played." 

Following the paste as the parrot, they stutter out any thing in hopes of reward : obsequious parasites, says 
Erasmus, teach, saj', write, admire, approve, contrary to their convcition, anything you please, not to benefit 
the people but to improve their owm fortunes. They subscribe to any opinions and decisions contrarj- to 
the word of God, that they may not offend their patron but retain the favour of the gi-eat, the applause of 
the multitude, and thereby acquire riches for themselves; for they approach Theologj^, not that they may 
perform a sacred duty, but make a fortune: not to promote the interest of the church, but to pillage it: 
seeking, as Paul says, not the things which are of Jesus Christ, but what may be their own : not the treasure 
of their Lord, but the enrichment of themselves and their followers. Nor does this evil belong to those of 
humbler birth and fortunes only, it possesses the middle and higher ranks, bishops excepted. 

" Pontiffs, tell the efficacy of gold in sacred matters ! " Avarice often leads the highest men astray, and 
men, admirable in all other respects: these find a salvo for simony; and, striking against this rock of 
corruption, they do not shear but flay the flock; and, wherever they teem, plunder, exhaust, raze, making 
shipwreck of their reputation, if not of their souls also. Hence it appears that this malady did not flow 

* Lib. de rep. Gallorum. " Campian. 



^IS Causes of Melancholy. J^Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

from the liuml)lest to the highest classes, hut vice versa, so that the maxim is true although spoken in jest — 
" he hought first, therefore has the best right to sell." For a Simoniac (that I may use the phraseology of 
Leo) has not received a favour : since he has not received one he does not possess one; and since he does not 
possess one he cannot confer one. So far indeed are some of those who are placed at the helm from 
promoting others, that they completely obstruct them, from a consciousness of the means by which themselves 
obtained the honour. For he who imagines that they emerged from their obscurity through tlieir learning, is 
deceived; indeed, whoever supposes promotion to be the reward of genius, erudition, experience, probity, 
piety, and poetry (whicli formerly was the case, but now-a-days is only promised) is evidently deranged. 
How or when this malady commenced, I shall not farther inquire; but from these beginnings, tliis accumula- 
tion of vices, all her calamities and miseries have been brouglit upon the Church; hence such frequent acts of 
simony, complaints, fraud, impostures— from this one fountain spring all its conspicuous iniquities. I shall 
not press the question of ambition and courtly flattery, lest they may be chagrined about luxury, base 
examples of life, which offend the honest, wanton drinking parties, &c. Yet, hence is that academic 
squalor, the muses now look sad, since every low fellow ignorant of the arts, by those very arts rises, is 
promoted, and grows rich, distinguished by ambitious titles, and puffed up by his numerous honours : he just 
shows himself to the vulgar, and by his stately carriage displays a species of majesty, a remarkable solicitude, 
letting down a flowing beard, decked in a brilliant toga resplendent with purple, and respected also on 
account of the splendour of his household and number of his servants. There are certain statues placed in 
sacred edifices that seem to sink under their load, and almost to perspire, when in reality they are void of 
sensation, and do not contribute to the stony stability, so these men would wish to look like Atlases, when 
they are no better than statues of stone, insignificant scrubs, funguses, dolts, little different from stone. 
Meanwhile really learned men, endowed with all that can adorn a holy life, men who have endured the heat 
of mid-day, by some mijust lot obey these dizzards, content probably with a miserable salary, known by 
honest appellations, humble, obscare, although eminently worthy, needy, leading a private life without 
honour, buried alive in some poor benefice, or incarcerated for ever in their college chambers, lying hid 
ingloriously. But I am unwilling to stir this sink any longer or any deeper; hence those tears, this melan- 
choly habit of the muses; hence (that I may speak with Secellius) is it that religion is brought into dis- 
repute and contempt, and the priesthood abject; (and since this is so, I must speak out andii» filthy- 
witticism of the filthy) a foetid crowd, poor, sordid, melancholy, miserable, despicable, contemptible. 



MEMB. lY. 

SuBSECT. I. — Non-necessary, remote, outward, adventitious, or accidental 
causes: as first from the Nurse. 

Of those remote, outward, ambient, necessary causes, I have sufficiently 
discoursed in the precedent member, the non-necessary follow ; of which, saith 
'^Fuchsius, no art can be made, by reason of their uncertainty, casualty, and 
multitude; so called "not necessary" because according to ^ Fernelius, "they 
may be avoided, and used without necessity." Many of these accidental 
causes, which I shall entreat of here, might have well been reduced to the for- 
mer, because they cannot be avoided, but fatally happen to us, though acci- 
dentally, and unawares, at some time or other : the rest are contingent and 
inevitable, and more properly inserted in this rank of causes. To reckon up 
all is a thing impossible; of some therefore most remarkable of these contin- 
gent causes which produce melancholy, I will briefly speak and in their order. 

From a child's nativity, the first ill accident that can likely befall him in this 
kind is a bad nurse, by whose means alone he may be tainted with this ^malady 
from his cradle, Aulus Gellius I. 12, c. 1, brings in Phavorinus, that eloquent 
philosopher, proving this at large, " ''that there is the same virtue and property 
in the milk as in the seed, and not in men alone, but in all other creatures; he 
gives instance in a kid and lamb, if either of them suck of the other's milk the 
lamb of the goat's, or the kid of the ewe's, the wool of the one will he hard, 
and the hair of the other soft," Giraldus Camhrensis Itinerar. Cambrice, I. 1. 
c. 2. confirms this by a notable example which happened in his time. A sow- 
pig by chance sucked a brach, and when she was grown, "** would miraculously 
hunt all manner of deer, and that as well, or rather better, than any ordinary 
hound." His conclusion is, """that men and beasts participate of her nature 
and conditions by whose milk they are fed," Phavorinus urges it farther, and 
demonstrates it more evidently, that if a nurse be "° misshapen, unchaste, 

•^ Proem, lib. 2. Nulla ars constitui potest. xLib. 1. c. 19. de morborum causis. Quas declinare licet 

ant nulla necessitate utimm*. y Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa diu. Hor. z Sicut 
valet ad nngendas corporis atque animi similitudines vis et natura seminis, sic quoque lactis proprietas. 
Neque id in hominibus solum, sed in pecudibus animadversum. ISTam si ovium lacte hcsdi, aut capraruni 
agni alerentur, constat fieri in his lanam duriorem, in illis capillum gigni severiorem. » Adulta in 

terartim persequutione ad miraculum usque sagax. b Tam animal quodlibet quara homo, ab ilia ctijus 

Inete nutritur, naturam contrahit. c Improba, informis, impudica, temulenta nutrix, &c, quoniam, in 

moribus efformandis, magnam ssepe partem iugenium altricis et natura lactis tenet. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 1.] Nurse, a Cause. 217 

dishonest, impudent, ^cruel, or the like, the child thcat sucksuponher breast will 
be so too;" all other affections of the mind and diseases are almost ingrafted, 
as it were, and imprinted into the temperature of the infant, by the nurse's 
milk; as pox, leprosy, melancholy, (fee. Cato for some such reason would 
make his servants' children suck upon his wife's breast, because by that means 
they would love him and his the better, and in all likelihood agree with them. 
A more evident example that the minds are altered by milk cannot be given, 
than that of ^Dion, which he relates of Caligula's cruelty; it could neither be 
imputed to father nor mother, but to his cruel nurse alone, that anointed her 
paps with blood still when he sucked, which made him such a murderer, and to 
express her cruelty to a hair: and that of Tiberius, who was a common 
drunkard, because his nurse was such a one. Etsi delirafuerit (^one observes) 
infantulum delirum faciei, if she be a fool or dolt, the child she nurseth will 
take after her, or otherwise be misaffected ; which Franciscus Barbarus, I. 2. 
c. ult. de re uxorid, proves at full, and Ant. Guivarra, lib. 2. de Marco Aurelio: 
the child will surely participate. For bodily sickness there is no doubt to be 
made. Titus, Vespasian's son, was therefore sickly, because the nurse was so, 
Lampridius. And if we may believe physicians, many times children catch the 
pox from a bad nurse, Botaldus, cap. 61. de hie vener. Besides evil attendance, 
negligence, and many gross inconveniences, which are incident to nurses, mucn. 
danger may so come to the child. ^For these causes Aristotle, Folit. lib. 7. 
c. 17. Phavorinus and Marcus Aurelius would not have a child put to nurse at 
all, but every mother to bring up her own, of what condition soever she be ; 
for a sound and able mother to put out her child to nurse, is naturce intemperies, 
so * Guatso calls it, 'tis fit therefore she should be nurse herself; the mother 
will be more careful, loving, and attendant, than any servile woman, or such 
hired creatures; this all the world ackowledgeth, convenientissimuni est (as 
Kod. a Castro de nat. mulierum, lib. 4. c. 12. in many words confesseth) 
matrem ipsam lactare infantem, " It is most fit that the mother should suckle 
her own infant" — who denies that it should be so? — and which some women 
most curiously observe; amongst the rest, ^that queen of France, a Spaniard 
by birth, that was so precise and zealous in this behalf, that when in her 
absence a strange nurse had suckled her child, she was never quiet till she had 
made the infant vomit it up again. But she was too jealous. If it be so, as 
many times it is, they must be put forth, the mother be not fit or well able to 
be a nurse, I would then advise such mothers, as 'Plutarch doth in his book de 
Uteris educaiidis, and ^ S. Hierom, li. 2. epist. 27. Lcetce de institut. fil. Mag- 
ninus part. 2. Heg. sanit. cap. 7. and the said Rodericus, that they make 
choice of a sound woman, of a good complexion, honest, free from bodily dis- 
eases, if it be possible, all passions and perturbations of the mind, as sorrow, 
fear, grief, ^folly, melancholy. For such passions corrupt the milk, and alter 
the temperature of the child, which now being "^ Udum et molle lutum, " a 
moist and soft clay" is easily seasoned and perverted. And if such a nurse 
may be found out, that will be diligent and careful withal, let Phavorinus and 
M. Aurelius plead how they can against it, I had rather accept of her in some 
cases than the mother herself, and which Bonacialus the physician, Nic. Biesius 
the politician, lib. 4. de repub. cap. 8. approves, " tSome nurses are much to 
be preferred to some mothers." For why may not the mother be naught, a 
peevish drunken flirt, a waspish choleric slut, a crazed piece, a fool (as many 
mothers are), unsound, as soon as the nurse? There is more choice of nurses 

d Hircanaeque admSrunt ubera Tigi-es, Virg. eLib. 2. de Csesaribus, ^Beda, c. 27. 1. 1. Eccles. hist. 
gNe insitivo lactis alimento de^eneret corpus, et animus corrumpatur. *Lib. 3. de civ. convers 

h Stephanus. >To 2. Nutrices non quasvis, sed maxirne probas deligamus. ^ Nutrix non sit lasciva 

ftut teraulenta, Hier. ' Proliibendum ne stolida Ltctet. «> Pars. f tutrices interdum matribus 

sxmt meliores. 



2r8 Causes of Melancholy. [Part 1. Sec. 2. 

than mothers; and therefore except the mother be most virtuous, staid, a 
woman of excellent good parts, and of a sound complexion, I would have all 
children in such cases committed to discreet strangers. And 'tis the only way; 
as by marriage they are ingrafted to other families to alter the breed, or if 
any thing be amiss in the mother, as Ludovicus Mercatus contends, Tom. 2. lib. 
de morh. hcered. to prevent diseases and future maladies, to correct and qualify 
the child's ill-disposed temperature, which he had from his parents. This 
is an excellent remedy, if good choice be made of such a nurse. 

SuBSECT. II. — Education a Cause of Melanclioly. 

Education, of these accidental causes of Melancholy, may justly challenge 
the next place, for if a man escape a bad nurse, he may be undone by evil 
bringing up. "^ Jason Pratensis puts this of education for a principal cause; 
bad parents, step-mothers, tutors, masters, teachers, too rigorous, too severe, 
too remiss or indulgent on the other side, are often fountains and furtherers 
of this disease. Parents and such as have the tuition and oversight of children, 
offend many times in that they are too stern, always threatening, chiding, 
brawling, whipping, or striking; by means of which their poor children are so 
disheartened and cowed, that they never after have any courage, a merry hour 
in their lives, or take pleasure in any thing. There is a great moderation to be 
had in such things, as matters of so great moment to the making or marring of 
a child. Some fright their children with beggars, bugbears, and hobgoblins, if 
they cry, or be otherwise unruly : but they are much to blame in it, many 
times, saith Lavater, de spectris, part 1 . cap. 5. ex onetu in tnorbos graves inci- 
dunt et noctu dormientes clamant, for fear they fall into many diseases, and cry 
out in their sleep, and are much the worse for it all their lives : these things 
ought not at all, or to be sparingly done, and upon just occasion. Tyrannical, 
impatient, hare-brained schoolmasters, aridi magistri, so * Fabius terms them 
Ajaces flagelliferi, are in this kind as bad as hangmen and executioners, they 
make many children endure a martyrdom all the while they are at school, with 
bad diet, if they board in their houses, too much severity and ill-usage, they 
quite pervert their temperature of body and mind: still chiding, railing, 
frowning, lashing, tasking, keeping, that they arefracti animis, moped many 
times weary of their lives, t nimia severitate drfciunt et desperant, and think 
no slavery in the world (as once I did myself) like to that of a grammar 
scholar. Frceceptorum ineptiis discruciantur ingenia puerorum, ° saith Eras- 
rnus, they tremble at his voice, looks, coming in. St. Austin, in the first book 
of his confess, et 4. ca. calls this schooling meticulosam necessitatem, and else- 
where a martyrdom, and confesseth of himself, how cruelly he was tortured in 
mind for learning Greek, mdla verba oioveram, et scevis terroribus et poenis, ut 
nossera, instabatur mihi vehementer, I knew nothing, and with cruel terrors and 
punishment I was daily compelled, p Beza complains in like case of a rigorous 
schoolmaster in Paris, that made him by his continual thunder and threats 
once in a mind to drown himself, had he not met by the way with an uncle of 
his that vindicated him from that misery for the time, by taking him to 
his house. Trincavellius, lib. 1. consil. 16. had a patient nineteen years of 
age, extremely melancholy, ob nimium studium, Tarvitii et prceceptoris minas, 
by reason of overmuch study, and his "^tutor's threats. Many masters are 
hard-hearted, and bitter to tlieir servants, and by that means do so deject, with 
terrible speeches and hard usage so crucify them, that they become desperate, 
and can never be recalled. 

n Lib. de morbis capitis, cap. de mania; Hand postrema causa supputatitr educatio, inter has mentis 
abalienationis causas. Injusta novei'ca. * Lib. 2. cap. 4. f Idem. Et quod maxime nocet, dum in 

teneris ita timent nihil conantur. o"The pupil's faculties are perverted by the indiscretion of tli^ 

ma.ster." p Prajfat. ad Testam. <i Tlus mentis psedagogico supercilio abstulit, quam unquaiu 

prseceptis suls sapientifie instillavit. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 3.] Education, a Cause. 219 

Others again, in that opposite extreme, do as great harm by their too much 
remissness, they give them no bringing up, no calling to busy themselves 
about, or to live in, teach them no trade, or set them in any good course ; by 
means of which their servants, children, scholars, are carried away with that 
stream of drunkenness, idleness, gaming, and many such irregular courses, that 
in the end they rue it, curse their parents, and mischief themselves. Too 
much indulgence causeth the like, '■i/ie/)^(]^ pa^?'i5 lenitas et facilitas prava, when 
as Mitio-like, with too much liberty and too great allowance, they feed their 
children's humours, let them revel, wench, riot, swagger, and do what they 
will themselves, and then punish them with noise of musicians; 

"■Obsonet, potet, oleat ungiienta de meo ; 

Amat ? dabitur a me argentum ubi erit commodura. 
Fores effregit ? vestituenti;r : descidit 

Vestem ? resarcietur. Faciat quod lubet, 

Suraat, consumat, perdat, decretum est pati." 

But as Demeo told him, tu ilium corrumpi sinis, your lenity will be his undoing, 
prcevidere videor jam diem ilium, quum hie egens profugiet aliquo Tiiilitatum, I 
foresee his ruin. So parents often err, many fond mothers especially, dote so 
much upon their chilclren, like *^sop's ape, till in the end they crush them to 
death, Corporum nutrices animarum novercce, pampering up their bodies to the 
undoing of their souls; they will not let them be ''corrected or controlled, but 
still soothed up in every thing they do, that in conclusion "they bring sorrow, 
shame, heaviness to their parents, (Ecclus. cap. xxx. 8, 9.) become wanton, 
stubborn, wilful, and disobedient ; rude, untaught, headstrong, incorrigible, 
and graceless ; " "they love them so foolishly," saith ^Cardan, " that they 
rather seem to hate them, bringing them not up to virtue but injury, not to 
learning but to riot, not to sober life and conversation, but to all pleasure and 
licentious behaviour." Who is he of so little experience that knows not this 
of Fabius to be true ? " ^Education is another nature, altering the mind and 
will, and I would to God (saith he) we ourselves did not spoil our children's 
manners, by our overmuch cockering and nice education, and weaken the 
strength of their bodies and minds, that causeth custom, custom nature," &c. 
For these causes Plutarch in his book de lib. educ. and Hierom, epist. lib. 1. 
epist. 17. to Lmta de institut. filice, gives a most especial charge to all parents, 
and many good cautions about bringing up of children, that they be not com- 
mitted to indiscreet, passionate, bedlam tutors, light, giddy-headed, or covetous 
persons, and spare for no cost, that they may be well nurtured and taught, it 
being a matter of so great consequence. For such parents as do otherwise, 
Plutarch esteems of them " ^that are more careful of their shoes than of their 
feet," that rate their wealth above their children. And he, saith ^ Cardan, 
" that leaves his son to a covetous schoolmaster to be informed, or to a close 
Abbey to fast and learn wisdom together, doth no other, than that he be a 
learned fool, or a sickly wise man." 

SuBSECT. III. — Terrors and Affrights, Causes of Melancholy. 
TuLLY, in the fourth of his Tusculans, distinguishes these terrors which 
arise from the apprehension of some terrible object heard or seen, from other 

'Ter. Adelph. 3. 4. »Idem. Act. 1. sc. 2. "Let him feast, drink, perfume himself at my expense: If 
he be in love, I shall supply him with money. Has he broken in the gates ? they shall be repaired. Has 
he torn his garments ? they shall be replaced. Let him do what he pleases, take, spend, waste, I am resolved 
to submit. 'Camerarius em. 77. cent. 2. hath elegantly expressed it an emblem, perdit amando, &c. 

nProv. xiii. 24. " He that spareth the rod hates his son." ''Lib. 2. de consol. Tarn stulte pueros 

diliginius ut odisse potius videamur, illos non ad virtutem sed ad injui'iam, non ad eruditionem sed ad 
luxum, non ad virtutem sed voluptatem educantes. *Lib. 1. c. 3. Educatio altera natura, alterat animos 

et voluntatem, atque utinam (inquit) liberorum nostrorum mores non ipsi perderemus, quum infantiam 
statim deliciis solvimus : molHor ista educatio, quam indulgentiam vocamus, nervos omnes, et mentis et 
corporis frangit; fit ex his consuetude, inde natura. JPerinde agit ac si quis de calceo sit soli.itus, 

pedem nihil curet. Juven. Nil patri minus est quam filius. * Lib. 3. de sapient : qui avaris 

paedagogis pueros alendos dant, vel clausos in coenobiis jejunare simul et sapere, nihil aiiad aguat, nisi ut 
sint vel uon sine stultitla eruditi, vel non Integra vita sapieutes. 



220: Causes of MelancUoly. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

fears, and so dotli Patritius, lib. 5. Tit. L de regis institut. Of all fears they 
are most pernicious and violent, and so suddenly alter the whole temperature 
of the body, move the soul and spirits, strike such a deep impression, that the 
parties can never be recovered, causing more grievous and fiercer melancholy, 
as Felix Plater, c. 3. dementis alienat. "^ speaks out of his experience, than any 
inward cause whatsoever : and imprints itself so forcibly in the spirits, brain, 
humours, that if all the mass of blood were let out of the body, it could hardly 
be extracted. This horrible kind of melancholy (for so he terms it) had been 
often brought before him, and troubles and affrights commonly men and women, 
young and old of all sorts." * Hercules de Saxonia calls this kind of melan- 
choly {ah agitatione spirituum) by a peculiar name, it comes from the agitation, 
motion, contraction, dilatation of spirits, not from any distemperature of 
humours, and produceth strong effects. This terror is most usually caused, 
as ^Plutarch will have, " from some imminent danger, when a terrible object 
i^ at hand," heard, seen, or conceived, " "truly appearing, or in a ^ dream : " 
and many times the more sudden the accident, it is the more violent. 

" t Stat terror animis, et cor attonitum salit, I " Their soul's affright, their heart amazed quakes, 

Pavidumque trepidis palpitat venis jecur." j The trembling liver pants i'th' veins, and aches." 

Arthemedorus the grammarian lost his wits by the unexpected sight of a 
crocodile, Laurentius, 7. demelan. ^The massacre at Lyons, 1572, in the reign 
of Charles IX., was so terrible and fearful, that many ran mad, some died, 
great-bellied women were brought to bed before their time, generally all 
affrighted aghast. Many lose their wits " ^by the sudden sight of some spec- 
trum or devil, a thing very common in all ages, saith Lavater, part 1 . cap. 9. 
as Orestes did at the sight of the Puries, which appeared to him in black (as 
JPausanias records). The Greeks call them iMo^iMX\j-)(iia, which so terrify 
their souls, or if they be but affrighted by some counterfeit devils in jest, 

" § ut pueri trepidant, atque omnia cascis 

In tenebris metuunt " 

as children in the dark conceive hobgoblins, and are so afraid, they are 
the worse for it all their lives. Some by sudden fires, earthquakes, inundations, 
or any such dismal objects : Themison the jthysician fell into a hydrophobia, 
by seeing one sick of that disease : [Dioscorides, I. 6. c. 33.) or by the sight of 
a monster, a carcase, they are disquieted many months following, and cannot 
endure the room where a corpse hath been, for a world would not be alone 
with a dead man, or lie in that bed many years after in which a man hath died. 
At ® Basil many little children in the spring time went to gather flowers in 
a meadow at the town's end, where a malefactor hung in gibbets j all gazing at 
it, one by chance flung a stone, and made it stir, by which accident, the children 
aftVighted ran away ; one slower than the rest, looking ba,ck, and seeing the 
stirred carcase wag towards her, cried out it came after, and was so terribly 
affrighted, that for many days she could not rest, eat, or sleep, she could not 
be pacified, but melancholy, died. ^In the same town another child, beyond 
the Rhine, saw a grave opened, and upon the sight of a carcase, was so troubled 
in mind that she could not be comforted, but a little after departed, and 

•Terror etmetus maxime ex improviso accedentesita animum conimovent, ut spiritus nunquara recuperent, 
gravioremque melancholiam terror facit, quam quse ab interna causa fit. Impressio tarn fortis in spiritibus 
liumoribusque cerebri, ut extracts tota sanguinea massa, icgre exprimatur, et hiBc horrenda species melan- 
cholise frequenter oblata mihi. omnes exercens, viros, juvenes, senes. *Tract. de melan. cap. 7. et 8. non 
ab intemperie, sed agitatione, dilatatione, contractione, motu spirituum. bLib. de fort, et virtut. Alex. 
pnEsertim ineunte periciilo, ubi resprope adsunt terribiles. =Fit a visione horrenda, revera apparente, 

vel per insomnia, Platerus. ^ A painter's wife in Basil, 1600. Somniavit filium bello mortuum, inde 

Melancholica consolari noluit. f Senec. Here. Get. eQuarta pars Comment, de statu religionisin 

Gallia sub Carolo 9. 1572. f Ex occursu dsemonum aliqui furore corripiuntur, et experientia notum est. 

X Lib. 8. in Arcad. § Lucret. s Puellte extra urbem in prato concurrentes, &c. moesta et melancholica 
domum rediit per dies aliq lot vexata, dum mortua est. Plater. ''Altera trans-Rhenana ingressa sepul- 

chrum recens apertum, vidit cadaver, et domum. subito reversa putavit eam vocare, post paucos dies obiit, 
proximo sepulchro collocata. Altera patibulum sero prccterien.s, metuebat ne urbe exclusa illic pernoctaret, 
unde melancholica facta, per multos annos laboravit. Platerus. 



Mam. 4. Subs. 3.] Terrors and Affrights, Causes. 221 

was buried up. Platerus. observat. I. 1, a geutlewoman of the same city saw 
a fat liog cut up, when the entrails were opened, and a noisome savour offended 
her nose, she much misliked, and would not lunger abide: a physician in 
presence told her, as that hog, so was she, full of filthy excrements, and aggra- 
vated the matter by some other loathsome instances, insomuch this nice gentle- 
woman apprehended it so deepl}^, that she fell forthwith a-vomiting, was so 
mightily distempered in mind and body, that with all his art and persuasions, 
for some months after, he could not restore her to herself again, she could not 
forget it, or remove the object out of her sight. Idem. Many cannot endure to 
see a wound opened, but they are offended; a man executed, or labour of any 
fearful disease, as possession, apoplexies, one bewitched ; ' or if they read by 
chance of some terrible thing, the symptoms alone of such a disease, or that 
which they dislike, they are instantly troubled in mind, aghast, ready to apply 
it to themselves, they are as much disquieted as if they had seen it, or were so 
affected themselves. Hecatas sibi videntur somniare, they dream and conti- 
nually think of it. As lamentable effects are caused by such terrible objects 
heard, read, or seen, auditus maximos onotus in corpore facit., as ^ Plutarch 
holds, no sense makes greater alteration of body and mind : sudden speech 
sometimes, unexpected news, be they good or bad, prcevisa minus oratio, will 
move as much, animum obruere, et de sede sua clejicere, as a * philosopher 
observes, will take away our sleep and appetite, disturb and quite overturn us. 
Let them bear witness that have heard those tragical alarms, outcries, hideous 
noises, which are many times suddenly heard in the dead of the night by 
irruption of enemies and accidental fires, &c., those ^ panic fears, which often 
drive men out of their wits, bereave them of sense, understanding and all, some 
for a time, some for their whole lives, they never recover it. The ""Midianites 
were so affrighted by Gideon's soldiers, they breaking but every one a pitcher; 
and " Hannibal's army by such a panic fear was discomfited at the walls of 
Home. Augusta Livia hearing a few tragical verses recited out of Virgil, Tu 
Marcellus eris, d'c, fell down dead in a swoon. Edinus king of Denmark, by 
a sudden sound which he heard, " ° was turned into fury with all his men," 
Cranzius, /. 5, Dan. hist, et Alexander ah Alexandra I. 3. c. 5. Amatus 
Lusitanus had a patient, that by reason of bad tidings became epilepticus, cen. 
2. cura 90, Cardan sid>til. I. 18, saw one that lost his wits by mistaking of an 
echo. If one sense alone can cause such violent commotions of the mind, what 
may we think when hearing, sight, and those other senses are all troubled at 
once? as by some earthquakes, thunder, lightning, tempests, &c. At Bologna 
in Italy, Anno lo04, there was such a fearful earthquake about eleven o'clock 
in the night (as ^Beroaldus, in his book de terrce motu, hath commended to pos- 
terity) that all the city trembled, the people thought the world was at an end, 
actum de mortalibus, such a fearful noise, it made such a detestable smell, the 
inhabitants were infinitely affrighted, and some ran mad. Audi rem atrocem, et 
annalibus memorandam (mine author adds), hear a strange story, and worthy 
to be chronicled : I had a servant at the same time called Fulco Argelanus, a 
bold and proper man, so grievously terrified with it, that he '^ was first melan- 
choly, after doted, at last mad, and made away himself. At "" Fuscinum in 
Japona " there was such an earthquake, and darkness on a sudden, that many 
men were offended with headache, many overwhelmed with sorrow and melan- 
choly. At Meacum whole streets and goodly palaces were overturned at the 

i Subitus occursus, inopinata lectio. ^Li^, de auditione. * Theod. Prodromus, lib. 7. Amorura. 

1 Kffuso cernens fugientes agmine tm-mas, Quis mea nunc inflat cornua Faunus ait. Alciat. embl. 122. 
«n Jud. 6. 19. ° Plutarchus vita ejus. » In furorem cum sociis versus. p Subitarius terrte motus. 

<i Coepit inde desipere cum dispendio sanitatis, inde adeo dementans, ut sibi ipsi mortem inferret. •■ Historica 
relatio de rebus Japonicis Tract. 2. de legat. regis Chinensis, a Lodovico Frois, Jesuita. A. 1596. Fusciui 
de repente tanta aeris caligo et terrai motus, ut multi capite dolerent, plurimis cor moerore et melancbolia 
obrueretur. Tantum fremitum edebat, ut tonitru fragorem imitavi videretur, tantamque, &c. In urbe 
Sacai tam homficus fuit, ut homines vix sui compotes essent a sens;bu3 abalienati, moerore oppress! tarn 
borrendo spectaculo, <i:c. 



222 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

same time, and there was such a hideous noise withal, like thunder, and filthy- 
smell, that their hair stared for fear, and their hearts qual?:ed, men and beasts 
were incredibly terrified. In Sacai, another city, the same earthquake was so 
terrible unto them, that many were bereft of their senses; and others by that 
horrible spectacle so much amazed, that they knew not what they did." 
Blasius, a Christian, the reporter of the news, was so affrighted for his part, that 
though it were two months after, he was scarce his own man, neither could he 
drive the remembrance of it out of his mind. Many time, some years follow- 
ing, they will tremble afresh at the ^remembrance or conceit of such a terrible 
object, even all their lives long, if mention be made of it. Cornelius Agrippa 
relates out of Gulielmus Parisiensis, a story of one, that after a distasteful 
purge which a physician had prescribed unto him, was so much moved, " Hhat 
at the very sight of physic he would be distempered," though he never so 
much as smelled to it, the box of physic long after would give him a purge ; 
nay, the very remembrance of it did effect it ; " " like travellers and seamen," 
saith Plutarch, " that when they have been sanded, or dashed on a rock, for 
ever after fear not that mischance only, but all such dangers whatsoever." 



SuBSECT. TV. — Scoffs, Calumnies, hitter Jests, how they cause Melancholy. 

It is an old saying, """A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with 
a sword :" and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrilous and 
bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-play or the like, 
as with any misfortune whatsoever. Princes and potentates that are other- 
wise happy, and have all at command, secure and free, quibus potentia sceleris 
impunitatem fecit, are grievously vexed with these pasqiiilling libels, and 
satires: they fear a railing ""Aretine, more than an enemy in the field, which 
made most princes of his time (as some relate) " allow him a liberal pension, 
that he should not tax them in his satires."^ The gods had their Momus, 
Homer his Zoilus, Achilles his Thersites, Philip his Demades: the Caisars 
themselves in Pome were commonly taunted. There was never wanting a 
Petronius, a Lucian in those times, nor will be a Rabelais, an Euphormio, a 
Boccalinus in ours. Adrian the sixth pope ^ was so highly offended, and 
grievously vexed with Pasquillers at Pome, he gave command that his statue 
should be demolished and burned, the ashes flung into the river Tiber, and had 
done it forthwith, had not Lodovicus Suessanus, a facete companion, dissuaded 
him to the contrary, by telling him, that Pasquil's ashes would turn to frogs in 
the bottom of the river, and croak worse and louder than before, — genus irrita- 
hile vatum, and therefore * Socrates in Plato adviseth all his friends, " that 
respect their credits, to stand in awe of poets, for they are terrible fellows, can 
praise and dispraise as they see cause." Hinc quam sit calamus scevior ense, 
patet. The prophet David complains. Psalm cxxiii. 4. " that his soul was fall 
of the mocking of the wealthy, and of the despitefulness of the proud," and 
Psalm Iv. 4. " for the voice of the wicked, &c., and their hate : his heart 
trembled within him, and the terrors of death came upon him ; fear and hor- 
rible fear," &c., and Psalm Ixix. 20. " Rebuke hath broken my heart, and I 
am full of heaviness." Who hath not like cause to complain, and is not so 
troubled, that shall fall into the mouths of such men? for many are of so 

• Quum subit illius tristissima noctis Imago. * Qui solo aspectu medicinse movebatur ad purgandum. 

n Sicut viatores si ad saxum impegerint, aut nautae, memores sui casus, non ista modo quaj oflfendunt, sed et 
similia horrent perpetud et ti'emunt. " Leviter volant, graviter vulnerant. Bernardus. ^ Ensissauciat 
corpus, mentem sermo. y Sciatis eum esse qui anemine fere asvi sui magnate, non illustre stipendium 

habuit, ne mores ipsorura Satyris suis notaret. Gasp. Barthius prtefat. purnodid. « Jovius in vita ejus, 

gravissime tulit famosis libellis nomen suura ad Pasquilli statuam fuisse laceratum, decrevitque ideo sta- 
tuam demoliri, &c. " Plato, lib. 13. de legibus. Qui existiinationem curant, poetas vereantur, quia 

magnam vim liabent ad laudandum et vituperandum. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 4.] Scoffs, Calumnies, hitter Jests, &c. 223 

^petulant a spleen; and have that figure Sarcasmus so often in their mouths, 
so bitter, so foolish, as "Baltasar Castillo notes of them, that "they cannot 
speak, but they must bite;" they had rather lose a friend than a jest; and 
what company soever they come in, they will be scoffing, insulting over their 
inferiors, especially over such as any way depend upon them, humouring, mis- 
using, or putting gulleries on some or other till they have made by their 
humouring or gulling ^ex stulto iyisanum, a mope or a noddy, and all to make 
themselves merry : 

*'« dummodo risum 

Excutiat sibi; non liic cuiquam parcit amico; " 

Friends, neuters, enemies, all are as one, to make a fool a madman, is their 
sport, and they have no greater felicity than to scoff and deride others ; they 
must sacrifice to the god of laughter, with them in ^A.puleius, once a day, or 
else they shall be melancholy themselves; they care not how they grind and 
misuse others, so they may exhilarate their own persons. Their wits indeed 
serve them to that sole purpose, to make sport, to break a scurrile jest, which 
is levissimus ingenii fructus, the froth of wit, as ^'Tully holds, and for this they 
are often applauded, in all other discourse, dry, barren, stramineous, dull and 
heavy, here lies their genius, in this they alone excel, please themselves and 
others. Leo Decimus, that scoffing pope, as Jovius hath registered in the Fourth 
book of his life, took an extraordinary delight in humouring of silly fellows, and 
to put gulleries upon them, ''by commending some, persuading others to this 
or that ; he made ex stolidis stultissimos, et maxinie ridiculos, ex stultis insanos; 
soft fellows, stark noddies; and such as were foolish, quite mad before he 
left them. One memorable example he recites there, of Tarascomus of Parma, 
a musician that was so humoured by Leo Decimus, and Bibiena his second in 
this business, that he thought himself to be a man of most excellent skill (who 
was indeed a niuny), they '"made him set foolish songs, and invent new ridicu- 
lous precepts, which they did highly commend," as to tie his arm that played 
on the lute, to make him strike a sweeter stroke, "''and to pull down the 
Arras hangings, because the voice would be clearer, by reason of the rever- 
beration of the wall." In the like manner they persuaded one Baraballius of 
Caieta, that he was as good a poet as Petrarch; would have him to be made 
a laureate poet, and invite all his friends to his instalment ; and had so possessed 
the poor man with a conceit of his excellent poetry, that when some of his 
more discreet friends told him of his folly, he was very angry with them, a,nd 
said "'they envied his honour, and prosperity:" it was strange (saith Jovius) 
to see an old man of 60 years, a venerable and grave old man, so gulled. But 
what cannot such scoffers do, especially if they find a soft creature, on whom 
they may work? nay, to say truth, who is so wise, or so discreet, that may not 
be humoured in this kind, especially if some excellent wits shall set upon him ; 
he that mads others, if he were so humoured, would be as mad himsell^ as much 
grieved and tormented ; he might cry with him in the comedy, Proh Jupiter y 
tu homo me adigas ad insaniam. For all is in these things as they are taken ; 
if he be a silly soul, and do not perceive it, 'tis well, he may haply make 
others sport, and be no whit troubled himself; but if he be apprehensive of his 
folly, and take it to heart, then it torments him worse than any lash : a bitter 
jest, a slander, a calumny, pierceth deeper than any loss, danger, bodily pain, 
or injury whatsoever ; leviter enim volat (it flies swiftly), as Bernard of an 
arrow, sed graviter vulnerat (but wounds deeply), especially if it shall proceed 
from a virulent tongue, "it cuts (saith David) like a two-edged sword. They 

t Petulant! splene cachinno. cCurial. lib. 2. Ea quorundam est inscitia, ut quoties loqui, toties mordere 
liceve sibi patent. ^Ter. Eunucli. eHor. sev. lib. 2. sat. 4. "Provided lie can only excite laughter, 
he spares not his best friend." 'Lib. 2. g De orat. h Laudando, et mira iis persuadendo. » Et 

vana inflatus opinione, incredibUia ac ridenda qusedam Musices praecepta coinmentaretur, &c. '' Ut voces 
nudis parietibus illisse, suavius ac acutius resilii-ent. ' Immortalitati et glorise su£e prorsus invidentes. 



224 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

shoot bitter words as arrows," Psalm Ixiv. 3. " And they smote with their 
tongues," Jer. xviii. 1 8. and that so hard, that they leave an incurable wound 
behind them. Many men are undone by this means, moped, and so dejected, 
that they are never to be recovered ; and of all other men living, those which 
are actually melancholy, or inclined to it, are most sensible (as being suspicious, 
choleric, apt to mistake) and impatient of an injury in that kind: they 
aggravate, and so meditate continually of it, that it is a perpetual corrosive, 
not to be removed till time wear it out. Although they peradventure that so 
scoff, do it alone in mirth and merriment, and hold it optimum aliendfrui 
insanid, an excellent thing to enjoy another man's madness; yet they must 
know, that it is a mortal sin (as ""Thomas holds), and as the propheti" David 
denounceth, " they that use it, shall never dwell in God's tabernacle." 

Such scurrilous jests, flouts, and sarcasms, therefore, ought not at all to be 
used j especially to our betters, to those that are in misery, or any way dis- 
tressed : for to such, cerumnarum increm£nta sunt, they multiply grief, and as 
°he perceived. In m,ultis pudor, in multis iracundia, <^c., many are ashamed, 
many vexed, angered, and there is no greater cause or fartherer of melancholy. 
Martin Cromerus, in the Sixth book of his history, hath a pretty story to this 
purpose, of Uladislaus, the second king of Poland, and Peter Dunnius, earl of 
Shrine; they had been hunting late, and were enforced to lodge in a poor 
cottage. When they went to bed, Uladislaus told the earl in jest, that his wife 
lay softer with the abbot of Shrine; he not able to contain, replied, Et tua cum 
Dahesso, and yours with Dabessus, a gallant young gentleman in the court, 
whom Christina the queen loved, Tetigit id dictum Principis animum, these 
words of his so galled the prince, that he was long after tristis et cogitabundus, 
very sad and melancholy for many months; but they were the earl's utter undo- 
ing : for when Christina heard of it, she pei'secuted him to death. Sophia the 
empress, Justinian's wife, broke a bitter jest upon Narsetes the eunuch, a 
famous captain then disquieted for an overthrow which he lately had : that he 
was fitter for a distaff and to keep women company, than to wield a sword, or 
to be general of an army : but it cost her dear, for he so far distasted it, that 
he went forthwith to the adverse part, much troubled in his thoughts, caused 
the Lombards to rebel, and thence procured many miseries to the common- 
wealth, Tiberius the emperor withheld a legacy from the people of Rome, 
which his predecessor Augustus had lately given, and perceiving a fellow round 
a dead corse in the ear, would needs know wherefore he did so; the fellow 
replied, that he wished the departed soul to signify to Augustus, the commons 
of Rome were yet unpaid: for this bitter jest the emperor caused him forth- 
with to be slain, and carry the news himself For this reason, all those that 
otherwise approve of jests in some cases, andfacete companions, (as who doth 
not?) let them laugh and be merry, rumpantur et ilia Codro, 'tis laudable and 
fit, those yet will by no means admit them in their companies, that are any 
way inclined to this malady; non jocandum cum iis qui 7niseri sunt, et 
cerumnosi, no jesting with a discontented person, 'Tis Castillo's caveat, ^ Jo. 
Pontanus, and '^Galateus, and every good man's, 

** Play witli me, but hurt me not : 
Jest with me, but shame me not." 

Comitasis a virtue between rusticity and scurrility, two extremes, as affability 
is between flattery and contention, it must not exceed ; but be still accom- 
panied with that "■ a^KaBiia. or innocency, quce nemini nocet, omnem injurice 
oblationem abhorrens, hurts no man, abhors all offer of injury. Though a man 
be liable to such a jest or obloquy, have been overseen, or committed a foul 

"'2. 2d« qusest. 75. Irrisio mortale peccatura. "Psal. xv. 3, oBalthasar Castillo, lib. 2. de aulico. 

P^De seruioue lib. 4, cap. 3. q Fol. 55. Galateus. rXully Tusc. quasst. 



Mem. i. Subs. 5.] Loss of Liherly, Servitude, Sc. 225 

fact, yet it is no good manners or liumanity to upbraid, to bit bim in tbe teeth 
with bis offence, or to scoff at such a one ; 'tis an old axiom, turpis in reum 
omnis exprohratio* I speak not of such as generally tax vice, Barclay, Gen- 
tilis, Erasmus, Agrippa, Fishcartus, &c., tbe Yarronists and Lucians of our 
time, satirists, epigrammatists, comedians, apologists, (fee, but such as per- 
sonate, rail, scoff, calumniate, perstringe by name, or in presence offend ; 

" 3 Liidit qui stolida procacitate, 
Non est Sestius ille sed caballus ;" 

'Tis horse-play this, and those jests (as be *saitb) " are no better than inju- 
ries," biting jests, mor denies et aculeati, they are poisoned jests, leave a sting 
behind them, and ought not to be used. 

""Set not thy foot to make the blind to fall; 
Nor wilfully offend thy weaker brother : 
Nor wound the dead witli thy tongue's bitter gall, 
Neither rejoice thou in the fall of other." 

If these rules could be kept, we sbould have much more ease and quietness 
than we have, less melancholy; whereas, on the contrary, we study to misuse 
each other, how to sting and gall, like two fighting boors, bending all our 
force and wit, friends, fortune, to crucify "^ one another's souls ; by means of 
which, there is little content and charity, much virulency, hatred, malice, and 
disquietness among us. 

SuBSECT. Y. — Loss of Liberty, Servitude, Imprisonment, how tJiey cause 

Melancholy. 

To this catalogue of causes, I may well annex loss of liberty, servitude, or 
imprisonment, which to some persons is as great a torture as any of the rest. 
Though tbey have all things convenient, sumptuous houses to their use, fair 
walks and gardens, delicious bowers, galleries, good fare and diet, and all 
things correspondent, yet they are not content, because they are confined, may 
not come and go at their pleasure, have and do what they will, but live ^aliend 
quadra, at another man's table and command. As it is ^ in meats so it is in 
all other things, places, societies, sports; let them be never so pleasant, 
commodious, wholesome, so good; yet omnium rerum est satietas, there is a 
loathing satiety of all things. The children of Israel were tired with manna, 
it is irksome to them so to live, as to a bird in a cage, or a dog in his kennel, 
they are weary of it. They are happy, it is true, and have all things, to 
another man's judgment, that heart can wish, or that they themselves can 
desire, bona si sua norint : yet they loathe it, and are tired with the present : 
Est natura hominum novitatis avida; men's nature is still desirous of news, 
variety, delights ; and our wandering affections are so irregular in this kind, 
that they must change, though it must be to the worst. Bachelors must be 
married, and married men would be bachelors; they do not love their own 
wives, though otherwise fair, wise, virtuous, and well qualified, because they 
are theirs; our present estate is still the worst, we cannot endure one course 
of life long, et quod modo voverat, odit, one calling long, esse in honore juvat, 
moxdisplicet; one place long, ^ Romce Tyhur amo, ventosus Tyhure Romam, 
that which we earnestly sought, we now contemn. Hoc quosdam agit ad mor- 
tem (saith ^ ScDeca) quod proposita scepe mutando in eadem revolvuntur, etnon 
relinquunt novitati locum : Fastidio ccepit esse vita, et ipsus mundus, et suhit 
illud rapidissimarum deliciarum, Quousque eadem ? this alone kills many a 
man, that they are tied to the same still, as a horse in a mill, a dog in a wheel, 

* " Every reproach uttered against one already condemned, is meai-spirited." » Mart. lib. 1. epig. 35. 
' Tales joci ab injuriis non possint discerni. Galaceus fo. 55. " Pybrac in his Quadraint 37. -^ Ego 

hujus niisera fatuitate et dementia conflictor. TuU. ad Attic, li. 11. y Miserum est aliena vivera 

quadi-a. Juv. » Crambte bis coctae. Vitce me redde priori. aHor. ^ De tranquill. animjje. 



226. Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

they run round, without alteration or news, their life groweth odious, the world 
loathsome, and that which crosseth their furious delights, what ? still the 
same % Marcus Aurelius and Solomon, that had experience of all worldly 
delights and pleasure, confessed as much of themselves; what they most de- 
sired, was tedious at last, and that their lust could never be satisfied, all was 
vanity and affliction of mind. 

Now if it be death itself, another hell, to be glutted with one kind of sport, 
dieted with one dish, tied to one place; though they have all things otherwise 
as they can desire, and are in heaven to another man's opinion, what misery 
and discontent shall they have, that live in slavery, or in prison itself % Quod 
tristius morte, in servitute vivendum, as Hermolaus told Alexander in 
•" Curtius, worse than death is bondage : * hoc animo scito omnes fortes ut 
mortem servituti anteponant, All brave men at arms (Tully holds) are so affected. 
^ Equidem ego is sum qui servitute ni extremum omnium malorum esse arbit7'or: 
I am he (saith Boterus) that account servitude the extremity of misery. And 
what calamity do they endure, that live with those hard taskmasters, in gold 
mines (like those 30,000 tindian slaves at Potosi, in Peru), tin-mines, lead- 
mines, stone-quarries, coal-pits, like so many mouldwarps under ground, con- 
demned to the galleys, to perpetual drudgery, hunger, thirst, and stripes, 
without all hope of delivery? How are those women in Turkey affected, that 
most part of the year come not abroad; those Italian and Spanish dames, 
that are mewed up like hawks, and locked up by their jealous husbands? how 
tedious is it to theui that live in stoves and caves half a year together? as in 
Iceland, Muscovy, or under the ® pole itself, where they have six months' per- 
petual night. Nay, what misery and discontent do they endure, that are in 
prison? They want all those six non-natural things at once, good air, good 
diet, exercise, company, sleep, rest, ease, &c., that are bound in chains all 
day long, suifer hunger, and (as ^Lucian describes it) " must abide that filthy 
stink, and rattling of chains, bowlings, pitiful outcries, that prisoners usually 
make; these things are not only troublesome, but intolerable." They lie 
nastily among toads and frogs in a dark dungeon, in their own dung, in pain 
of body, in pain of soul, as .Joseph did, Psalm cv. 18, "They hurt his feet in 
the stocks, the iron entered his soul." They live solitary, alone, sequestered 
from all company but heart-eating melancholy ; and for want of meat, must 
eat that bread of affliction, prey upon themselves. Well might ^ Arculanus 
put long imprisonment for a cause, especially to such as have lived jovially, 
in all sensuality and lust, upon a sudden are estranged and debarred from all 
manner of pleasures : as were Huniades, Edward, and Richard II., Valerian 
the Emperor, Bajazet the Turk. If it he irksome to miss our ordinary com- 
panions and repast for once a day, or an hour, what shall it be to lose them 
for ever? If it be so great a delight to live at liberty, and to enjoy that variety 
of objects the world afibrds; what misery and discontent must it needs bring 
to him, that shall now be cast headlong into that Spanish inquisition, to fall 
from heaven to hell, to be cubbed up upon a sudden, how shall he be perplexed, 
what shall become of him? ^Robert Duke of Normandy being imprisoned by 
his youngest brother Henry I., ah illo die inconsolabili dolore in carcerecontabuit, 
saith Matthew Paris, from that day forward pined away with grief. J Jugurtha 
that generous captain, " brought to Rome in triumph, and after imprisoned, 
through anguish of his soul, and melancholy, died." 'Roger, Bishop of Salis- 
bury, the second man from King Stephen, (he that built that famous castle of 

eLib. 8. * Tullius Lepido, Fam. 10. 27. ^ Boterus, 1. 1. polit. cap. 4. fLaet. descript. Americae. 
• If there be any inhabitants. f In Taxari. Interdiu quidein collum vinctum est, et man us constricta, 

noctu vero totum corpus vincitur, ad has miserias accidit corporis foetor, strepitus ejulantium, somni 
brevitas, hsec omnia plane molesta et intolerabilia. s In 9 Ivhasis. '' Vv^illiam the Conqueror s eldest 

son. X Sallust. Komam iriumpho ductus tandemque in carcerem conjectus, animi dolore periit. 

» Camden in Wiltsh. miserum senem ita fame et calamitatibus in cai-cere fi-egit, inter mortis metum, et vitJB 
tormeuta, &c. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 6.] Poverty and Want, Causes. 227 

•" Devizes in Wiltshire), was so tortured in prison with hunger, and all those 
calamities accompanying such men, ^ut vivere noluerit, Qnori nescierit, he would 
not live, and could not die, between fear of death, and torments of life. Francis, 
King of France, was taken prisoner by Charles Y., ad mortem fere melan- 
cholicus, saith Guicciardini, mela,ncholy almost to death, and that in an instant. 
But this is as clear as the sim, and needs no further illustration. 

SuBSECT. YI. — Poverty and Want, Causes of Melancholy. 

Poverty and want are so violent oppngners, so unwelcome guests, so much 
abhorred of all men, that I may not omit to speak of them apart. Poverty, 
although (if considered aright, to a wise, understanding, truly regenerate, and 
contented man) it be donum Dei, a blessed estate, the way to heaven, as 
"Chrysostom calls it, God's gift, the mother of modesty, and much to be pre- 
ferred before riches (as shall be shown in his ''place), yet as it is esteemed in 
the world's censure, it is a most odious calling, vile and base, a severe torture, 
summum scelus, a most intolerable burden; we °shun it all, cane pejus et 
angue (worse than a dog or a snake), we abhor the name of it, * Paupertas 
fugitur, totoque arcessitur orbe, as being the fountain of all other miseries, cares, 
woes, laboiirs, and grievances whatsoever. To avoid which, we will take any 
pains, — extremos currit mercator ad Indos, we will leave no haven, no coast, 
no creek of the world unsearched, though it be to the hazard of our lives ; we 
will dive to the bottom of the sea, to the bowels of the earth, tfive, six, seven, 
eight, nine hundred fathom deep, through all five zones, and both extremes of 
heat and cold : we will turn parasites and slaves, prostitute ourselves, swear 
and lie, damn our bodies and souls, forsake God, abjure religion, steal, rob, 
murder, rather than endure this insufferable yoke of poverty, which doth so 
tyrannise, crucify, and generally depress us. 

For look into the world, and you shall see men most part esteemed according 
to their means, and happy as they are rich : % Ubique tanti quisque quantum 
habuitfuit. If he be likely to thrive, and in the way of preferment, who but 
he 1 In the vulgar opinion, if a man be wealthy, no matter how he gets it, of 
what parentage, how qualified, how virtuously endowed, or villainously inclined ; 
let him be a bawd, a gripe, an usurer, a villain, a pagan, a barbarian, a 
wretch, § Lucian's tyrant, " on whom jow may look with less security than on 
the sun;" so that he be rich (and liberal withal) he shall be honoured, admired, 
adored, reverenced, and highly ^ magnified. " The rich is had in reputation 
because of his goods," Eccl. x. 31. He shall be befriended: "for riches 
gather many friends," Pro v. xix. 4, — multos numerabit amicos, all *^ happiness 
ebbs and flows with his money. He shall be accounted a gracious lord, a 
MecaDnas, a benefactor, a wise, discreet, a proper, a valiant, a fortunate man, 
of a generous spirit, Pullus Jovis, et gaUince filius albce : a hopeful, a good 
man, a virtuous, honest man. Quando ego te Junonium pueo-wn et matris 
partum vere aureum, as ' Tully said of Octavianus, while he was adopted 
Csesar, and an heir * apparent of so great a monarchy, he was a golden child. 
All Mionour, offices, applause, grand titles, and turgent epithets are put upon 
him, omnes omnia bona dicere ; all men's eyes are upon him, God bless his 
good worship, his honour ; "every man speaks well of him, every man presents 
him, seeks and sues to him for his love, favour and protection, to serve him, 

k Vies, hodie. i Seneca. " Com. ad Hebrseos. nPart. 2. Sect. 3. Memb. 3. o Quern ut 

difficilem morbum piieris tradere formidamus. Plut. * Lucan. 1. 1. f As in the silver mines at 

Friburgh in Germany. Fines Morison. % Euripides. § Tom. 4. dial, minore periculo solem quam 

hunc defixis oculis licet intueri. p Omnis enim res, virtus, faraa, decus, divina humanaque pulcliris 

Divitiis parent. Hor. Ser. 1. 2. Sat. 3. Clarus eris, fortis, Justus, sapiens, etiam rex. Et quicquid volet. Hor. 
q Et genus, et formam, regina pecunia donat. Money adds spirits, courage, &c. >" Epist. ult. ad Atticum. 
■ Our young master, a fine towardly gentleman, God bless him, and hopeful ; why ? he is heir apparent to the 
right worshipful, to the I'ight honourable, &c. t nummi, nummi : vobis hunc priEStat honorem. 

« Exinde sapere eum omnes dicinius, ac quisque fortunam habet. Plaut., Pseud. 



228 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

belong unto him, every man riseth to him, as to Themistocles in the Olympics, 
if he speak, as of Herod, Vox Dei, non hominis, the voice of God, not of man. 
All the graces, Veneres, pleasures, elegances attend him, "" golden fortune 
accompanies and lodgeth with him; and as to those Roman emperors, is 
placed in his chamber. 

-Secura naviget aura, 



Fortunaraque suo teiiiperet arbitrio : " 

he may sail as he will himself, and temper his estate at his pleasure, jovial 
days, splendour and magnificence, sweet music, dainty fare, the good things, 
and fat of the land, fine clothes, rich attires, soft beds, down pillows are at his 
command, all the world labours for him, thousands of artificers are his slaves 
to drudge for him, run, ride, and post for him : * Divines (for Pythia Philip- 
2nsat), lawyers, physicians, philosophers, scholars are his, wholly devote to his 
service. Everyman seeks his "" acquaintance, his kindred, to match with him, 
though he be an oaf, a ninny, a monster, a goosecap, uxorein ducat Danaen, t 

when and whom he will, hunc optant generum Rex et Regina he is an 

excellent ''match for my son, my daughter, my niece, &c. Quicquid calcaverit 
hie, Rosafiet, let him go whither he will, trumpets sound, bells ring, &c., all 
happiness attends him, every man is willing to entertain him, he sups in 
''Apollo wheresoever he comes; what preparation is made for his '^ entertain- 
ment ! fish and fowl, spices and perfumes, all that sea and land affords. What 
cookery, masking, mirth to exhilarate his person ! 

" ^ Da Ti-ebio, pone ad Trebium, vis frater ab illis 
Ilibus ? 

What dish will your good worship eat of 1 

" % dulcia poma, I " Sweet apples, and wliate'er thy fields afford, 

Et quoscunque feret cultus tibi fundus honores, Before thy Gods be served, let serve thy Lord." 

Ante Lareni, gustet venerabilior Lare dives." | 

What sport will your honour have ? hawking, hunting, fishing, fowling, bulls, 
bears, cards, dice, cocks, players, tumblers, fiddlers, jesters, &c., they are at 
your good worship's command. Fair houses, gardens, orchards, terraces, gal- 
leries, cabinets, pleasant walks, delightsome places, they are at hand : ''in 
aureis lac, vinum in argenteis, adolescentulce ad nutuiii speciosce, wine, 
wenches, &c., a Turkish paradise, a heaven upon earth. Though he be a 
silly soft fellow, and scarce have common sense, yet if he be born to fortunes 
(as I have said), ^jure licEveditario sape7'e juhetur, he must have honour and 
office in his course: ^Nenio nisi dives honore dignus (Ambros. offic. 21.) none 
so worthy as himself: he shall have it, atqiie esto quicquid Servius aut Labeo. 
Get money enough and command § kingdoms, provinces, armies, hearts, hands, 
and affections ; thou shalt have popes, patriarchs to be thy chaplains and para- 
sites: thou shalt have (Tamerlane-like) kings to draw thy coach, queens to be 
thy laundresses, emperors thy footstools, build more towns and cities than 
great Alexander, Babel tovvers, pyramids and mausolean tombs, &c., command 
heaven and earth, and tell the world it is thy vassal, aura emitur diadema, 
argento ccelum panditu7', denarius philosophum conducit, nummus jus cogit, 
obolus literatum pascit, metaUam sanitatem conciliat, ces amicos conglutinat \\ 
And therefore not without good cause, John de Medicis, that rich Florentine, 
when he lay upon his death-bed, calling his sons, Cosmo and Laurence, before 
him, amongst other sober sayings, repeated this, animo quieto digredior, quod 

» Aurea fortuna, principum cubiculis reponi solita. Julius Capitolinus vita Antonini. y Petronius. 

* Theologi opulentis adhserent, Jui-isperiti pecuniosis, literati nummosis, liberalibus artifices. « Multi 

ilium juvenes, multte petiere puellae. t " He may have Danae to wife." » Dummodo sit dives, 

barbarus ille placet. ^ Plut. in Lucullo, a rich chamber so called. « Pauls pane melior. 

<J Juv. Sat. 5. $ Hor. Sat. 5. lib. 2. e Boheraus tie Turcis et Bredenbach. fEuphormio. 

«Qui pecuniam habent, elati sunt animis, lofty spirits, brave men at arms; all rich men are generous, 
courageous, &c. § Nummus ait pro me nubat Cornubia Rom;T3. || " a diadem is purchased with 

gold; silver opens the way to heaven; philosophy may be hired for a penny ; money controls justice; one 
obolus satisfies a man of letters; precious metal procures health; wealth attaches friends." 



Mem. 4. Subs. 6] Poverty and Want, Causes. 229 

vos sanos et divites post me relinqioam, "It doth me good to think yet, though 
I be dying, that I shall leave you, my children, sound and rich :" for wealth 
sways all. It is not with us, as amongst those Lacedemonian senators of 
Lycurgus in Plutarch, " He preferred that deserved best, was most virtuoiTB 
and worthy of the place, ''not swiftness, or strength, or wealth, or friends car- 
ried it in those days:" but inter optimos optimus, inter temperantes teiwperan- 
tissimus, the most temperate and best. We have no aristocracies but in con- 
templation, all oligarchies, wherein a few rich men domineer, do what they 
list, and are privileged by their greatness. * They may freely trespass, and do 
as they please, no man dare accuse them, no not so much as mutter against 
them, there is no notice taken of it, they may securely do it, live after their 
own laws, and for their money get pardons, indulgences, redeem their souls 
from purgatory and hell itself, — clausum possidet area Jovem, Let them be 
epicures, or atheists, libertines, machiavelians (as they often are), " ^ Et quam- 
vis perjurus erit, sine gente, cruentus,^'' they may go to heaven through the eye 
of a needle, if they will themselves, they may be canonised for saints, they 
shall be 'honourably interred in mausolean tombs, commended by poets, regis- 
tered in histories, have temples and statues erected to their names, — e mani- 
bus illis — nascentur violoi.—li he be bountiful in his life, and liberal at his 
death, he shall have one to swear, as he did by Claudius the Emperor in Taci- 
tus, he saw his soul go to heaven, and be miserably lamented at his funeral. 
Amhubaiarum collegia, ^c. Trimalcionis topanta in Petronius recta in coelum 
abiit, went right to heaven : a base quean, " ™thou wouldst have scorned once 
in thy misery to have a penny from her;" and why? modio nummos metiit, she 
measured her money by the bushel. These prerogatives do not usually belong 
to rich men, but to such as are most part seeming rich, let him have but a good 
° outside, he carries it, and shall be adored for a god, as ° Cyrus was amongst 
the Persians, ob splendidum apparatum, for his gay attires; now most men 
are esteemed according to their clothes. In our guUish times, whom you 
peradventure in modesty would give place to, as being deceived by his habit, 
and presuming him some great worshipful man, believe it, if you shall examine 
his estate, he will likely be proved a serving man of no great note, my lady's 
tailor, his lordship's barber, or some such gull, a Fastidius Brisk, Sir Petro- 
nel Flash, a mere outside. Only this respect is given him, that wheresoever 
he comes, he may call for what he will, and take place by reason of his out- 
ward habit. 

But on the contrary, if he be poor. Pro v. xv. 15. " all his days are miser- 
able," he is under hatches, dejected, rejected and forsaken, poor in purse, 
poor in spirit ; ^ prout res nobis Jiuit, ita et animus se habet; "^ money gives life 
and soul. Though he be honest, wise, learned, well-deserving, noble by birth, 
and of excellent good parts ; yet in that he is poor, unlikely to rise, come to 
honour, office or good means, he is contemned, neglected, frustra sapit, inter 
literas esurit, amicus molestus. " "^ If he speak, what babbler is thisf Ecclus. 
his nobility without wealth, is ^projecta vilior alga, and he not esteemed : 7ios 
viles pulli nati infelicibus avis, if once poor, we are metamorphosed in an 
instant, base slaves, villains, and vile drudges : ^for^ to be poor, is to be a 
knave, a fool, a wretch, a wicked, an odious fellow, a common eye-sore, say 
poor and say all: they are born to labour, to misery, to carry burdens like 
^\nn.QTii^,pistum stercus comedere with Ulysses' companions, and as Chremilus 

••Non fn.xt apud mortales iilltim excellentius certamen, non inter celeres celerrimo, non inter robustos 
robustisiimo, &c. ' Quicquid libet licet. ^ Hor. Sat. 5. lib. 2. 'Cmn moritiir dives 

concurrunt undique cives : Pauperis ad fun us vix est ex niillibus uuus. ^ Et modo quid fuit 

ignoscat milii genius tuus, noluisses de manu ejus nummos accipere. n He that wears silk, satin, 

velvet, and gold lace, must needs be a gentleman. o Est sanguis atque spiritus pecunia moi-- 

talibus. p Euripides. <J Xenophon. Cyropced. 1. 8. '' In tenui rara est facundia panno. 

Juv. » Hor. " more worthless than rejected weeds." * Egere est offendere, et indigere scelestum 

esse. Sat. Menip. 



230 Causes ofMelaiicholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

objected in Aristoplianes, " salem linger e, lick salt, to empty jakes, fay chan- 
nels, '^^ carry out dirt and dungliills, sweep chimneys, rub horse-heels, &c. I 
say nothing of Turks, galley-slaves, which are bought "" and sold like juments, 
or those African negroes, or poor ^Indian drudges, qui indies hinc inde d^fe- 
rendis oneribus occumbunt, nam quod apud nos boves et asini vehunt, trahunt, 
^•c.* Id omne misellis India, they are ugly to behold, and though erst spruce, 
now rusty and squalid, because poor, ^immundasfirtunas cequum est squalorem 
sequi, it is ordinarily so. " ^ Others eat to live, but they live to drudge," 
^ servilis et misera gens nihil recusare audet, a servile generation, that dare 

refuse no task. "" Heus tu^ Dromo, cape hocflabellum, ventulum hincfacito 

dum lavamus," sirrah, blow wind upon us while we wash, and bid your fellow 
get him up betimes in the morning, be it fair or foul, he shall run fifty miles 
afoot to-morrow, to carry me a letter to my mistress, Socia ad pistrinum, Socia 
shall tarry at home and grind malt all day long, Tristan thresh. Thus are 
they commanded, being indeed some of them as so many footstools for rich 
men to tread on, blocks for them to get on horseback, or as " ^ walls for them 
to piss on." They are commonly such people, rude, silly, superstitious idiots, 
nasty, unclean, lousy, poor, dejected, slavishly humble : and as ^ Leo Afer 
observes of the commonalty of Africa, natura vlliores sunt, nee apud suos duces 
majore in precio quam si canes essent : ^base by nature, and no more esteemed 
than dogs, miseram^ laboriosam^ calamltosam vitam agunt, et inopem, infmli' 
cem, rudiores asinis, ut e brutis plane natos dicas : no learning, no knowledge, 
no civility, scarce common sense, naught but barbarism amongst them, belluino 
more vivunt, neque calceos gestant, neque vestes, like rogues and vagabonds, they 
go barefooted and barelegged, the soles of their feet being as hard as horse- 
hoofs, as ^ Radzivilus observed at Damietta in Egypt, leading a laborious, 
miserable, wretched, unhappy life, "^like beasts and juments, if not worse:" 
(for a ' Spaniard in Incatan, sold three Indian boys for a cheese, and a hun- 
dred negro slaves for a horse) their discourse is scurrility, their swnmum 
bonum a pot of ale. There is not any slavery which these villains will not 
undergo, inter illos plerique latrinasevacuant, alii culinariam cur ant, alii stabu- 
larios agunt^ urinatores, et id genus similia exercent, dsc. like those people that 
dwell in the ^ Alps, chimney-sweepers, jakes -farmers, dirt-daubers, vagrant 
rogues, they labour hard some, and yet cannot get clothes to put on, or bread 
to eat. For what can filthy poverty give else, but ' beggary, fulsome nasti- 
ness, squalor, content, drudgery, labour, ugliness, hunger and thirst; pedicu- 
lorum, etpulicum numerum ? as ^ he well followed it in Aristophanes, fleas and 
lice, pro pallio vestem laceram, et pro pulvinari lapidem bene magnum ad caput, 
rags for his raiment, and a stone for his pillow, pro cathedra, ruptce caput urnce, 
he sits in a broken pitcher, or on a block for a chair, et malvce ranios pro pani- 
bus comedit, he drinks water, and lives on wort leaves, pulse, like a hog, or 
scraps like a dog, ut nunc nobis vita afficitur, quis non putabit insaniam esse, 
infelicitatemque ? as Chremilus concludes his speech, as we poor men live now- 
a-days, who will not take our life to be ° infelicity, misery, and madness? 

If they be of little better condition than those base villains, hunger-starved 
beggars, wandering rogues, those ordinary slaves, and day-labouring drudges; 

" Plaut. act. 4. ■y Nullum tam barbarum, tam vile munus est, quod non lubentissimfe obire velit gens 

villssima. -^Lausius orat. in Hispaniaui. y Laet. descript. Americfe. *" Wlio daily faint 

beneath the burdens they are compelled to carry from place to place : for they carry and draw the loads 
which oxen and asses formerly use ," &c. '^Plautus. ^Leo Afer, ca. ult. 1. 1. ediint non ut bene 

vivant, sed ut fortiter laborent. Heinsius. ^ Munster de rusticis Germanise, Cosmog. cap. 27. lib. 3, 

«=Ter. Eunuch. ^ Pauper paries factus, quera caniculie commingant. « Lib. 1. cap. ult. ^Deos 

omnes illis infensos diceres : tam pannosi, famefracti, tot assidue malis afficiuntur, tanquam pecora quibus 
splendor rationis emortuus. s Peregrin. Hieros. •» Nihil omnino meliorem vitam degunt, quam 

feree in silvis, jumentain terris. Leo Afer. » Bartholomeus a Casa. kOrtelius in Helvetia. Qui 

hab tant in CiBsia valle ut plurimiim latomi, in Oscella valle cultrorum fabri fumarii, in Vigetia sordidum 
genus hominum, quod repurgandis caminis victum parat. ' I write not this any ways to upbraid, or 

scoff at, or misuse poor men, but rather to condole and pity them by expressing, &.c. » Chremilus, 

6ct. 4. Plaut. "Faupertas dm-uni onus miseris mortalibus. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 6.] Poverty and Want, Causes. 231 

yet they are commonly so preyed upon by **poUiDg oficers for breaking tbe 
laws, by theii' tyrannizing landlords, so flayed and fleeced by perpetual ^ ex- 
actions, that though they do drudge, fare hard, and starve their genius, they 
cannot live in "^some countries; but what they have is instantly taken frori 
them, the very care they take to live, to be drudges, to maintain their poor 
families, their trouble and anxiety " takes away their sleep," Sirac xxxi. 1. 
it makes them weary of their lives: when they have taken all pains, done 
their utmost and honest endeavours, if they be cast behind by sickness, or 
overtaken with years, no man pities them, ]iard-hearted and merciless, un- 
charitable as they are, they leave them so distressed, to beg, steal, murmur, 
and 'rebel, or else starve. The feeling and fear of this misery compelled 
those old Komans, whom Menenius Agrippa pacified, to resist their governors : 
outlaws, and rebels in most places, to take up seditious arms, and in all ages 
hath caused uproars, murmurings, seditions, rebellions, thefts, murders, muti- 
nies, jars and contentions in every commonwealth: grudging, repining, com- 
plaining, discontent in each private family, because they want means to live 
according to their callings, bring up their cliildren, it breaks their hearts, 
they cannot do as they would. No greater misery than for a lord to have a 
knight's living, a gentleman a yeoman's, not to be able to live as his birth 
and place recjuire. Poverty and want are generally corrosives to all kind of 
men, especially to such as have been in good and flourishing estate, are sud- 
denly distressed, ^ nobly born, liberally brought up, and by some disaster and 
casualty miserably dejected. For the rest, as they have base fortunes, so have 
they base minds correspondent, like beetles, e stercore orti, e stercore victus, in 
stercore delicium, as they were obscurely born and bred, so they delight in 
obscenity ; they are not so thoroughly touched with it. Augustas animas 
angusto in 'pectore versant. *Yea, that which is no small cause of their tor- 
ments, if once they come to be in distress, they are forsaken of their fellows, 
most part neglected, and left unto themselves; as poor "Terence in E-ome 
was by Scipio, Lselius, and Euiuus, his great and noble friends. 

"Nil Publius Scipio profuit, nil ei Lffilius, nil Furius, 
Tres per idem tempus qui agitabant nobiles facillimfe, 
Horum ille opera ue domum quidem liabuit conductitiam." * 

'TIS generally so, Temj^ora si fuerint nubila, solus eris, he is left cold and 
comfortless, mdlus ad amissas ibit amicus opes, all flee from him as from a 
rotten wall, now ready to fall on their heads. Pro v. xix. 4. "Poverty separates 
them from their "^ neighbours." 

"xDum fortuna favet, vultum servatis, amici, I "Whilst fortune favour' d, friends, you smiled on me, 
Cum cecidit, turpi vertitis ora fuga." | But when she fled, a friend I could not see." 

Which is worse yet, if he be poor ^ every man contemns him, insults over 
him, oppresseth him, scofis at, aggravates his misery. 

"z Quum ccepit quassata domus subsidere, partes I " When once the tottering house begins to shrink. 
In proclinatas omne recombit onus." | Thither comes all the weight by au instinct." 

Nay, they are odious to their own brethren and dearest friends, Prov. xix. 7. 
"His brethren hate him if he be poor," ^ omnes vicini oderunt, "his neigh- 
bours hate him," Prov. xiv. 20. ^ omnes me noti ac ignoti deseruat, as he com- 
plained in the comedy, friends and strangers, ail forsake me. AYhich is most 
grievous, poverty mal?;es men ridiculous, JYil hahet infelix paupertas durius in 
$e, quam quod ridiculos homines facit, they must endure ''jests, taunts, flouts, 

o Vexat censura colnmbas. p Deux ace non possunt, et sixcinque solvere nolunt : Omnibus est notum 
quater tre solvere totum. <iScandia, Africa, Lituania. •■Montaigne, in his Essays, speaks of certain 

Indians in France, that being asked how they liked the cotmtry, wondered how a few rich men could keep 
so many poor men in subjection, that they did not cut their throats. « Angustas animas animoso in 

pectore versans. '"A narrow breast conceals a narrow soul." "Donatus, vit. ejus. *"Fublius 

Scipio, Lffilius and Furius, three of the most distinguished noblemen at that day in Rome, were of so httle 
service to him, that he could scarcely procm-e a lodging through their patronage." ■^ Prov. xix. T. 

" Though he be instant, yet they will not." ^ Petronius. y Aon est qui doleat vicem, ut Petrus 

Chriatum, j,urant se homiuera non novisse. ^ Ovid, in Trist. '-^ Horat. b Ter. Eimuchus, act. 2. 

cQuid quod materiam praibet causamque jocandi : Si toga sordida sit, Juv. ;jat. 2. 



232 Causes of Melanclioly, [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

blows of tlieir betters^ and take all in good part to get a meal's meat : '^mag- 
num pauperies o^yprohrium, juhet quidvis et facere et pati. He must turn 
parasite, jester, fool, cum desipientihus desipere; saith ^ Euripides, slave, vil- 
lain, drudge to get a poor living, apply himself to each man's humours, to M'in 
and please, &c., and be buffeted when he hath all done, as Ulysses was by 
Melanthius ^ in Homer, be reviled, baffled, insulted over, for ^ p)otentioru7n 
stuUitia perferenda est, and may not so much as mutter against it. He must 
turn rogue and villain ; for as the saying is, Necessitas cogit ad turpia, poverty 
alone makes men thieves, rebels, murderers, traitors, assassins, "because of 
poverty we have sinned," Ecclus. xxvii. 1. swear and forswear, bear false 
witness, lie, dissemble, any thing, as I say, to advantage themselves, and to 
relieve their necessities : ^Culpce scelerisque magistra est, when a man is driven 
to his shifts, what will he not do 1 



miserum fortuna Sinonem 



Finxit, vanum etiam mendacemque improba finget." 

he will betray his father, prince, and country, turn Turk, forsake religion, 
abjure God and all, nulla tarn hurrenda proditio, quam illi lucri causa (saith 
' Leo Afer) peiyetrare nolint. ^ Plato, therefore, calls poverty, " thievish, sa- 
crilegious, filthy, wicked, and mischievous:" and well he might. For it makes 
many an upright man otherwise, had he not been in want, to take bribes, to 
be corrupt, to do against his conscience, to sell his tongue, heart, hand, &c., 
to be churlish, hard, unmerciful, uncivil, to use indirect means to help his 
present estate. It makes princes to exact upon their subjects, great men 
tyrannise, landlords oppress, justice mercenary, lawyers vultures, physicians 
harpies, friends importunate, tradesmen liars, honest men thieves, devout 
assassins, great men to prostitute their wives, daughters, and themselves, 
middle sort to repine, commons to mutiny, all to grudge, murmur, and com- 
plain. A great temptation to all mischief, it compels some miserable wretches 
to counterfeit several diseases, to dismember, make themselves blind, lame, to 
have a more plausible cause to beg, and lose their limbs to recover their 
present wants. Jodocus Damhoderius, a lawyer of Bruges, pi'axi rerum cri- 
minal. G. 112. hath some notable examples of such counterfeit cranks, and every 
village almost will yield abundant testimonies amongst us; we have dum- 
merers, Abraham men, &c. And that which is the extent of misery, it en- 
forceth them, through anguish and wearisomeness of their lives, to make away 
themselves : they had rather be hanged, drowned, &c., than to live without 
means. 



•'I In mare caetiferum, ne te premat aspera egestas, 
Desili, et h celsis corrue Ceme jugis." 



'Miicli better 'tis to break thy neck. 
Or drown thyself i' the sea. 

Than sutler irksome povei'ty; 
Go make thyself away." 



A Sybarite of old, as I find it registered in " Athenseus, supping in Phiditiis 
in Sparta, and observing their hard fare, said it was no marvel if the Laceda3- 
monians were valiant men ; " for his part he would rather rim upon a sword 
point (and so would any man in his wits), than live v/ith such base diet, or lead 
so wretched a life." "" In Japonia 'tis a common thing to stifle their children 
if they be poor, or to make an abortion, which Aristotle commends. In that 
civil commonwealth of China, " the mother strangles her child if she be not 
able to bring it up, and had rather lose than sell it, or have it endure such 
misery as poor men do. Arnobius, lih. 7. adversus gentes, ^ Lactantius, lib. 5. 
cap. 9. objects as much to those ancient Greeks and Romans, " they did ex- 
pose their children to wild beasts, strangle or knock out their brains against 

* Hor. ^InPhasnis. eOdyss. 17. fldem. gMantuan. •"" Since cruel fortune has made Sinon 
poor, she has made him vain and mendacious." iDe Africa lib. 1. cap. ult. ^A. de legibus. furacissima 
paupertas, sacrilega, turpis, flagitiosa, omnium malorum opifex. i Theognis. ™Dipnosophist. lib. 12. 
Millies potius moriturum (si quis sibi mente constaret) quam tam vilis et «rumnosi victus communionem 
habere. "Gasper Vilela Jesuita epist. Japon. lib. "Mat. Kiccius expedit. in Sinas, lib. 1. e. 3. pYos 
Komani procreatos filios feris et canibus expouitis, nunc strangulatis vel in saxum eliditis, &c. 



Mem. 4. Subs, G.] Poverty and Want, Causes. 233 

a stone, in such cases." If we may give credit to "Munster, amongst us 
Clu-istians in Lithuania, they voluntarily mancipate and sell themselves, their 
wives and children to rich men, to avoid hunger and beggary; "^many make 
away themselves in this extremity. Apicius the Roman, when he cast up his 
accounts, and found but 100,000 crowns left, murdered himself for fear he 
should be famished to death. P. Forestus, in his medicinal observations, hath 
a memorable example of two brothers of Louvain that, being destitute of means, 
became both melancholy, and in a discontented humour massacred themselves. 
Another of a merchant, learned, wise otherwise and discreet, but out of a deep 
apprehension he had of a loss at seas, would not be persuaded but as ^Yenti- 
dius in the poet, he should die a beggar. In a word, thus much I may 
conclude of poor men, that though they have good 'parts they cannot show or 
make use of them : "a6 inopid ad virtutem ohsepta est via, 'tis hard for a poor 
man to ''rise, haud facile evnergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat res angusta domi/ 
" The wisdom of the poor is despised, and his words are not heard." Eccles. 
vi. 19. His works are rejected, contemned, for the baseness and obscurity of 
the author, though laudable and good in themselves, they will not likely take. 

" Nulla placere diu, neque vivere carmina possunt, 
Quce scribuntLir aquas potoribus" 

" No verses can please men or live long that are written by water-drinkers." 
Poor men cannot please, their actions, counsels, consultations, projects, are 
vilified in the world's esteem, amittunt consilium in re, which Gnatho long 
since observed. ''Saioiens crepidas sibi nunquam nee soleas fecit, a wise man 
never cobbled shoes; as he said of old, but how doth he prove it? I am sure 
we find it otherwise in our days, ^piruioiosis horret facundia pannis. Homer 
himself must beg if he want means, and as by report sometimes he did " ^go 
from door to door, and sing ballads, with a company of boys about him." This 
common misery of theirs must needs distract, make them discontent and 
melancholy, as ordinarily they are, wayward, peevish, like a weary traveller, for 
'^ Fames et mora bilem in nares conciunt, still murmuring and repining: Ob 
inojnam morosi sunt, quibus est male, as Plutarch quotes out of Euripides, and 
that comical poet well seconds, 

" = Omnes quibus res siint minus secundee, nescio quomodo 
Suspitiosi, ad contumeliam omnia accipiunt magis, 
Propter suam impotentiam se credunt negligi." 

"If they be in adversity, they are more suspicious and apt to mistake: they 
think themselves scorned by reason of their misery :" and therefore many gene- 
rous spirits in such cases withdraw themselves from all company, as that come- 
dian t Terence is said to have done; when he perceived himself to be forsaken 
and poor, he voluntarily banished himself to Stymphalus, a base town in 
Arcadia, and there miserably died. 

" $ ad summam inopiam redactus, 

Itaque e conspectu omnium abiit Grseciae in terram ultimam." 

Neither is it without cause, for we see men commonly respected according to 
their means (§c«z dives sit omnes qucerunt, nemo an bonus), and vilified if they 
be in bad clothes. ''Philophagmen the orator was set to cut wood, because he 
was so homely attired, ^Terentius was placed at the lower end of Cecilius' table, 
because of his homely outside. ^Dante, that famous Italian poet, by reason 
his clothes were but mean, could not be admitted to sit down at a feast. Gnatho 

iCosmog. i. lib. cap. 22, vendunt liberos victu carentes tanquam pecora interdum et seipsos: ut apud 
divites saturentm- cibis. ' Vel honorum desperatione vel malorum pwpessione fracti et futigati, plures 

violentas manus sibi inferunt. 'Hor. t Ingenio poteram superas voliture per aixes : Ut me pJuma levat 
sic grave mergit onus, « Terent. ^ Hor. Sat. 3, lib. 1. y " They cannot easilv rise in the woild who arc 
pinched by poverty at home." ^Paschalius. "Petronius. *> Herodotus vita ejus. Scaliger in poet. 
Potcntiorum £edes ostiatim adiens, aliquid accipiebat, canens carmina sua, concomitante eum puerorum 
choro. * Plautus Ampl. <= Ter. Act. 4 .Seen. 3. Adelph. Plegio. f l-)onat. vita ejus. j " liedi.ced 
to the greatest necessity, he withdrew from the gaze of the public to tlie most remote village in Ureece " 
§ Euiipides. ^ Plutarch, vita ejus. e Vita Ter. 'Gomesius, lib. 3. c, 21, de sale. 



234 Causes of Melanchohj. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

scorned his old familiar friend because of his apparel, ^Hominem video pannis, 
annisque ohsitum, hie ego ilium contempsi prce me. King Persius overcome 
sent a letter to * Paul us ^milius, the Koman general; Persius P. Consuli, S. 
but he scorned him any answer, tacite exprohrans fortunam suam (saith mine 
author), upbraiding him with a present fortune, t Carolus Pugnax, that great 
duke of Burgundy, made H. Holland, late duke of Exeter, exiled, run after 
his horse like a lackey, and would take no notice of him; '"tis the common 
fashion of the world. So that such men as are poor may justly be discontent, 
melancholy, and complain of their present misery, and all may pray with 
^Solomon, " Give me, O Lord, neither riches nor poverty; feed me with food 
convenient for me." 

SuBSECT. VII. — A heap of other Accidents causing Melancholy, Death of 
Friends, Losses, Sc. 

In this labyrinth of accidental causes, the farther I wander, the more intri- 
cate 1 find the passage, multce ambages, and new causes as so many by-paths 
offer themselves to be discussed : to search out all, were an Herculean work, 
and fitter for Theseus : I will follow mine intended thread ; and point only at 
some few of the chiefest. 

Death of Friends.] Amongst which, loss and death of friends may chal- 
lenge a first place, inulti tristantur, as J Yives well observes, post delicias, con- 
vivia, dies festos, many are melancholy after a feast, holiday, merry meeting, 
or some pleasing sport, if they be solitary by chance, left alone to themselves, 
without employment, sport, or want their ordinary companions, some at the 
departure of friends only whom they shall shortly see again, weep and howl, 
and look after them as a cow lows after her calf, or a child takes on that goes 
to school after holidays. Ut nis levarat tuus adventus, sic discessus affiixit, 
(which §Tully writ to Atticus) thy coming was not so welcome to me, as thy 
departure was harsh. Montanus, consil. 132. makes mention of a country 
woman that parting with her friends and native place, became grievously melan- 
choly for many years ; and Trallianus of another, so caused for the absence of 
her husband : which is an ordinary passion amongst our good wives, if their 
husband, tarry out a day longer than his appointed time, or break his hour, they 
take on presently with sighs and tears, he is either robbed, or dead, some 
mischance or other is surely befallen him, they cannot eat, drink, sleep, or be 
quiet in mind, till they see him again. If parting of friends, absence alone 
can work such violent effects, what shall death do, when they must eternally 
be separated, never in this world to meet again? This is so grievous a tor- 
ment for the time, that it takes away their appetite, desire of life, extinguisheth 
all delights, it causeth deep sighs and groans, tears, exclamations, 

(" dulce germen matris, 6 sanguis meus, 
Elieu tepentes, &c. 6 llos tener.")|l 

howling,' roaring, many bitter pangs (^lamentis gemituque et fcemineo ululatu 
Tecta fremunt), and by frequent meditation extends so far sometimes, " ^ they 
think they see their dead friends continually in their eyes," ohservantes imagi- 
nes, as Conciliator confesseth he saw his mother's ghost presenting herself still 
before him. Quod nijiiis miseri volunt, hoc facile credunt, still, still, still, that 
good father, that good son, that good wife, that dear friend runs in their minds : 
l^otus animus hue una cogitatioae defixus est, all the year long, as ** Pliny com- 



eTer. Eunuch. Act. 2. Seen. 2. * Liv. dec. 9. 1. 2. f Cominens. »> lie that hath 5/. 

per annum coming in more than others, scorns him that hath less, and is a better man. ' Prov. xxx. 8. 
$ ])e anima, cap. Ue marore. § Lib. 12. Epist. || " Oh sweet offspring, oh my very blood; 

oh tender flower," &c. ^ Virg. 4. ^En. ^ Patres mortuos coram astantes et filios, &c. Marcellus 

Douatus. ** Epist. lib. 2. Yirginium video, audio, detunctuni cogito, allo^uor. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 7.] Oilier Accidents and Grievances. 235 

plains to Romanus, "metliiiiks I see Virginius, I Jiear Virginias, I talk with 
Yirginius," &c. 

"*Te sine, vjb miscro mihi, lilia ni.^a vidcntur, 
Pallentesque rosa\ nee dulce rubens hyacinthus, 
NuUos nee myrtus, nee lauras spirat odores." 

They that are most staid and patient, are so furiously carried headlong by the 
passion of sorrow in this case, that brave discreet men otherwise, oftentimes 
forget themselves, and weep like children many months together, " t as if that 
they to water would," and will not be comforted. They are gone, they are 
gone; what shall I do? 



" Fountains of tears "wlio gives, who lends me groans. 
Deep sighs siitficient to express my moans ? 
Mine eyes are dry, ray breast in pieces torn, 
My loss so great, I cannot enough mourn." 



" Abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo, 
Quis dabit in lachrj'mas t'ontem mihi ? quis satis altos 
Accendetgemitus, et acerbo verba dolori? 
Exhaurit pietas oculos, et hiantia frangit 
Pectora, nee plenos avido sinit edere questus, 
Magna adeo jactura preniit," &c. 

So Stroza Filius, that elegant Italian poet, in his Epicedium, bewails his 
father's death, he could moderate his passions in other matters (as he confess- 
eth), but not in this, he yields wholly to sorrow, 

" Nunc fateor do terga malis, mens ilia fatiscit, 
Indomitus quondam vigor et constantia mentis." 

How doth ' Quintilian complain for the loss of his son, to despair almost : Cardan 
lament his only child in his book da libris propriis, and elsewhere in many other 
of his tracts, :|:St. Ambrose his brother's death? an e^o possum non cogitare 
de te, aut sine lachrymis cogitare? amari dies, oflehiles noctes, <^c. "Can 
1 ever cease to think of thee, and to think with sorrow? bitter days, O 
nights of sorrow," &c. Gregory Nazianzen, that noble Pulcheria ! decorem, 
doc. fios recens, pullulans, d'c. Alexander, a man of most invincible courage, 
after Hephestion's death, as Curtius relates, triduumjacuit ad moriendum obsti- 
natus, lay three days together upon the ground, obstinate, to die with him, and 
would neither eat, drink, nor sleep. The woman that communed with Esdras 
(lib. 2. cap. 10.) when her son fell down dead, "fled into the field, and would 
not return into the city, but there resolved to remain, neither to eat nor drink, 
but mourn and fast until she died." "E^achel wept for her children, and would 
not be comforted because they were not." Matt. ii. 18. So did Adrian the 
emperor bewail his Antinous; Hercules, Hylas; Orpheus, Eurydice; David, 
Absalom; (0 my dear son Absalom;) Austin his mother Monica, Niobe her 
children, insomuch that the ™ poets feigned her to be turned into a stone, as 
being stupified through the extremity of grief ^jEgeus, signo lugubrifitii 
consternatus, in mare se prcecipitem dedit, impatient of sorrow for his son's 
death, drowned himself Our late physicians are full of such examjDles. Mon- 
tanus, consil. 242. ° had a patient troubled with this infirmity, by reason of her 
husband's death, many years together. Trincavellius, I. 1. c. 14. hath such 
another, almost in despair, after his ^ mother's departure, ut se ferine prcecipi- 
tem daret; and ready through distraction to make away himself : and in his 
Eifteenth counsel, tells a story of one fifty years of age, "that grew desperate 
upon his mother's death;" and cured by Fallopius, fell many years after into 
a relapse, by the sudden death of a daughter which he had, and could never 
after be recovered. The fury of this passion is so violent sometimes, that it 
daunts whole kingdoms and cities. Vespasian's death was pitifully lamented 
all over the Koman empire, totus orbis lugebat, saith Aurelius Victor. Alex- 
ander commanded the battlements of houses to be pulled down, mules and 
horses to have their manes shorn off, and many common soldiers to be slain, 
to accompany his dear Hephestion's death; which is now practised amongst 

* Calphumius Grsecus. " Without thee, ah ! wretched me, the lilies lose their whiteness, the roses be- 
come pallid, the hyacinth forgets to blush ; neither the myrtle nor the laurel retains its odours," t Chaucer. 
1 PriBfat. lib. 6. JLib. de obitu Satyrifratris. ""^ Ovid. Met. " Plut. vita ejus. oNobilia 

martoiiii melancholica ob mortem mariti. fEx matris obitu in desperatiouem iucidit. 



236 



Causes of Melancholy, 



[Part. 1. Sec. 2. 



the Tartars, when "^a great Cham dieth, ten or twelve thousand must be slain, 
men and horses, all they meet; and among those the 'Pagan Indians, their 
wives and servants voluntarily die with them. Leo Decimus was so much be- 
wailed in Eome after his departure, that as Jovius gives out, ^ communis solus, 
puhlica hilaritas, the common safety of all good fellowship, peace, mirth, and 
plenty died with him, tanquam eodem septdchro cum Leone condita lugebantur; 
for it was a golden age whilst he lived, *but after his decease, an iron season 
succeeded, harbara vis et/oeda vastitas, et dira malorum omnium incommoda, 
wars, plagues, vastity, discontent. When Augustus Caesar died, saith Paterculus, 
orhis ruinam timueramus, we were all afraid, as if heaven had fallen upon our 
heads, ^Budseus records, how that, at Lewis the Twelfth his death, tarn suhita 
mutatio, ut qui prius digito coelum attingere videbantur, nunc humi derepente 
serpere, sideratos esse diceres, they that were erst in heaven, upon a sudden, as 
if they had been planet-strucken, lay grovelling on the ground; 

" t Concussis cecidere animis, seu frondibus ingens 
Sylva dolet lapsis" 

they looked like cropped trees. ^ At Kancy in Lorraine, when Claudia Yalesia^ 
Henry the Second French king's sister, and the duke's wife deceased, the 
temples for forty days were all shut up, no prayers nor masses, but in that 
room where she was. The senators all seen in black, and for a twelve- 
month's space throughout the city, they were forbid to sing or dance. 

"§1^011 ulli pastores illis egcre diebus "The swains forgot their sheep, nor near the brink 
Frigida (Daphne) boves ad flumina, nulla nee Of running waters brought their herds to drink; 

amnem The tliirsty cattle, of themselves, abstain'd 

Libavit quadrupes, nee graminis attigit herbam." From water, and their gi-assy fare disdain' d." 

How were we affected here in England for our Titus, delicice humani generis, 
Prince Henry's immature death, as if all our dearest friends' lives had exhal- 
ed with his? ||Scanderbeg's death was not so much lamented in Epirus. In 
a word, as ''he saith of Edward the First at the news of Edward of Caernar- 
von his son's birth, immortaliter gavisus, he was immortally glad, may we 
say on the contrary of friends' deaths, immortaliter gementes, we are diverse 
of us as so many turtles, eternally dejected with it. 

There is another sorrow, which arises from the loss of temporal goods and 
fortunes, which equally afflicts, and may go hand in hand with the preced- 
ing; loss of time, loss of honour, office, of good name, of labour, frustrate 
hopes, will much torment; but in my judgment, there is no torture like unto 
it, or that sooner procureth this malady and mischief: 

" ^ Ploratur lachrymis amissa pecunia veris : " | " Lost money is bewailed with grief sincere : " 

it wrings trne tears from our eyes, many sighs, much sorrow from our hearts, 
and often causes habitual melancholy itself, Guianerius, tract. 15. 5. repeats 
this for an especial cause: "^Loss of friends, and loss of goods, make many 
men melancholy, as I have often seen by continual meditation of such things." 
The same causes Arnoldus Villanovanus inculcates, Breviar. I. 1. c. 18. ex 
rerum amissione, damno, amicorum morte, &c. Want alone will make a man 
mad, to be Sans argent will cause a deep and grievous melancholy. Many 
persons are affected like ^ Irishmen in this behalf, who if they have a good 
scimitar, had rather have a blow on their arm, than their weapon hurt : they 
will sooner lose their life, than their goods : and the grief that cometh hence, 



qMathias ^ Michou. Boter. Amphitheat. 'Lo. Vertoman. M. Polus Venetus, lib. 1. cap. 54. perimunt 
eos quos in via obvios habent, dicentes, Ite, et domino nostro regi servite in alia vita. Nee tam in homines 
insaniunt sed in equos, &c. s vita ejus. * Lib. 4. vitaa ejus, auream tetatem condiderat ad humani 

generis salutem quum nos statim ab optimi principis excessu, vere ferream pateremur, famem, pestem, &c. 
» Lib. 5. de asse. f Maph. " They bacame fallen in feelings, as the great forest laments its fallen leaves." 
$0rtelius Itinerario: ob annum integrum k cantu, tripudiis, et saltationibus tota civitas abstinei-e jubetur, 
§Virg. II See Barletius de vita et ob. Scanderbeg. lib. 13. hist. "Mat. Paris. ^juvenalis. 

y Multi qui res araatas perdiderant, ut filios, opes, non sperantes recuperare, propter assiduam talium con- 
siderationem melancholici fiunt, ut ipse vidi. » Stanihurstus, Hib, Hist. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 7.] Other Accidents and Grievances. 237 

continuetli long (saith * Plater) " and out of many dispositions procureth an 
habit." ^ Montanus and Frisemelica cured a young man of 22 years of age, 
that so became melancholy, oh amissam pecuniam, for a sum of money which 
he had unhappily lost. Skenckius hath such another story of one melancholy, 
because he overshot himself, and spent his stock in unnecessary building. 
^ Roger, that rich bishop of Salisbury, exutus opibus et castris a Reye Step)hano, 
spoiled of his goods by king Stephen, vi doloris absorptus, atque in amentiam 
versus,indecentia/ecit,thYough. grieirsiii. mad, spoke and did he knew not what. 
Nothing so familiar, as for men in such cases, through anguish of mind to 
make away themselv^es. A poor fellow went to hang himself (which Ausonius 
hath elegantly expressed in a neat t Epigram), but finding by chance a pot of 
money, flung away the rope, and went merrily home, but he that hid the gold, 
when he missed it, hanged himself with that rope which the other man had 
left, in a discontented humour. 

" At qui condiderat, postquam non reperit aunim, 
Aptavit collo, quern reperit laqueum." 

Such feral accidents can want and penury produce. Be it by suretyship, ship- 
wreck, fire, spoil and pillage of soldiers, or what loss soever, it boots not, it 
will work the like effect, the same desolation in provinces and cities, as well 
as private persons. The Komans were miserably dejected after the battle of 
Cannae, the men amazed for fear, the stupid women tore their hair and cried. 
The Hungarians, when their king Ladislaus and bravest soldiers were slain by 
the Turks, Luctus publicus, (&c. The Venetians, when their forces were over- 
come by the French king Lewis, the French and Spanish kings, pope, emperor, 
all conspired against them at Cambray, the French lierald denounced open 
war in the senate : Lauredane Venetorum dux, SfC, and they had lost Padua, 
Brixia, Yerona, Forum Julii, their territories in the continent, and had now 
nothing left but the city of Venice itself, ef urhi quoque ipsi (saith \ Bembus) 
timendum putarent,SiTid the loss of that was likewise to be feared, ^an^ws repente 
dolor omnes tenuit, ut nunquam alias, ^c, they were pitifully plunged, never 
before in such lamentable distress. Anno 1527, when Pome was sacked by 
Burbonius, the common soldiers made such spoil, that fair § churches were 
turned to stables, old monuments and books made horse-litter, or burned like 
straw; relics, costly pictures defaced; altars demolished, rich hangings, 
car2:)ets, &c., trampled in the dirt. || Their wives and loveliest daughters con- 
stuprated by every base cullion, as Sejanus' daughter was by the hangman in 
public, before their fathers' and husbands' faces. Noblemen's children, and of 
the wealthiest citizens, reserved for princes' beds, were prostitute to every com- 
mon soldier, and kept for concubines; senators and cardinals themselves 
dragged along the streets, and put to exquisite torments, to confess where 
their money was hid ; the rest murdered on heaps, lay stinking in the streets ; 
infants' brains dashed out before their mothers' eyes. A lamentable sight it 
was to see so goodly a city so suddenly defaced, rich citizens sent a begging to 
Venice, Naples, Ancona, &c., that erst lived in all manner of delights. "^ Those 
proud palaces that" even now vamited their tops up to heaven, were dejected as 
low as hell in aninstant." Whom will not such misery make discontent? Terence 
the poet drowned himself (some say) for the loss of his comedies, which suffered 
shipwreck. When a poor man hath made many hungry meals, got together a 
small sum, which he loseth in an instant ; a scholar spent many an hour's study 
to no purpose, his labours lost, &c., how should it otherwise be? I may con- 

* Cap. 3. Melancholia semper venit ob jacturam pecunise, victorise, repulsam, mortem liberorum, quibus 
longo post tempore animus torquetur, et a dispositione sit habitus. »Consil. 26. ^ Nubrigensis. 

t Epig. 22. % Lib. 8. Venet. hist. § Templa ornamentis nudata, spoliata, in stabula equorum et 

asinorum versa, &c. Insulas hurai conculcatse, peditte, &c. || In ocuUs maritovum dilectissimie conjuges 
ab Hispanorum lixis constupratje sunt. FiliiTj magnatum thoris destinataj, &c. ^ Ita fastu ante unum 

mensem turgida civitas, et cacuminibus coelum pulsai'e visa, ad inferos usque paucis diebus dejecta. 



^3S Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

elude with Gregory, temporalium amor, quantum affi^cit mm hmret possession 
tantum qxmm suhtraMtur, urit dolor; riches do not so much exhilarate us with 
their possession, as they torment us with their loss. 

Next to sorrow still I may annex such accidents as procure fear; for 
besides those terrors which I have *" before touched, and many other fears 
(which are infinite) there is a superstitious fear, one of the three great causes 
of fear in Aristotle, commonly caused by prodigies and distoal accidents, which 
much trouble many of us. (Nescio quid animus mihi prcesac/it mali.) As if a 
hare cross the way at our going forth, or a mouse gnaw our clothes : if they 
bleed three drops at nose, the salt fall towards them, a black spot appear in 
their nails, &c., with many such, which Delrio, Tom. 2. I. 3. sect. 4, Austin 
Niphus in his book de Auyuriis, Polydore Virg., I. 3. de Prodigiis, Saris- 
huriensis, Polycrat. l.\. c. 13., discuss at large. They are so much affected, 
that with the very strength of imagination, fear, and the devil's craft, " "^they 
pull those misfortunes they suspect upon their own heads, and that which they 
fear shall come upon them," as Solomon foretelleth, Prov. x. 24. and Isaiah 
denounceth, Ixvi, 4. which if " ^ they could neglect and contemn, would not 
come to pass, Eorum vires nostrd resident opinione, ut morhi gravitas cegrotan- 
tiitm cogitatione, they are intended and remitted, as our opinion is fixed, more 
or less. N. N. dat poenas, saith ^ Crato of such a one, utincojn non attralieret : he 
is punished, and is the cause of it ^ himself: 

* Dum fata fug imus, fata stulti incurrimus, the thing that I feared, saith 
Job, is fallen upon me. 

As much we may say of them that are troubled with their fortunes; or ill 
destinies foreseen : multos angit prcescientia malorum : The foreknowledge of 
what shall come to pass, crucifies many men : foretold by astrologers, or 
wizards, iratam ob caelum, be it ill accident, or death itself: which often falls 
out by God's permission ; quia dwmonem timent (saith Chrysostom) Deus idea 
permittit accidere. Severus, Adrian, Domitian, can testify as much, of whose 
fear and suspicion, Sueton, Herodian, and the rest of those writers, tell strange 
stories in this behalf. ^ Montanus, consil. 31. hath one example of a young 
man, exceeding melancholy upon this occasion. Such fears have still tormented 
mortal men in all ages, by reason of those lying oracles, and juggling priests, 
t There was a fountain in Greece, near Ceres' temple in Achaia, where the 
event of such diseases was to be known; "A glass let down by a thread," <fec. 
Amongst those Cyanean rocks at the springs of Lycia, was the oracle of 
Thrixeus Apollo, " where all fortunes were foretold, sickness, health, or what 
they would besides :" so common people have been always deluded with future 
events. At this day, Metus futurorum maxime torquet Sinas, this foolish fear 
mightily crucifies them in China : as ' Matthew Riccius the Jesuit informeth 
us, in his commentaries of those countries, of all nations they are most super- 
stitious, and much tormented in this kind, attributing so much to their divina- 
tors, ut ipse m£tus fidem faciat, that fear itself and conceit cause it to *" fall 
out : if he foretell sickness such a day, that very time they will be sick, vi metus 
afflicti in cegritudinem cadunt; and many times die as it is foretold. A true 
saying, Timor mortis, morte pejor, the fear of death is worse than death itseltj 
and the memory of that sad hour, to some fortunate and rich men, "is as bitter 
as gall," Ecclus. xli. 1. Inquietam nobis vitam facit mortis metus, a worse 
plague cannot happen to a man, than to be so troubled in his mind; 'tis triste 
divortium, a heavy separation, to leave their goods, with so much labour got, 

e Sect. 2. Memb. 4. Subs. 3. fear from ominous accidents, destinies foretold. <J Accersunt sibi malum, 

e Si non observeraus, nihil valent. Polidor. 'Consil. 26. 1.2. s Harm watch, harm catch. _ _ * Geor. 
Buchanan. •» Juvenis solicitus de futuris frustra, factus melancholicus. f Pausanius in Achaicis, lib. 7. 
Ubi omnium eventus dignoscuntur. Speculum tenui suspensura funiculo demittunt : et ad Cyaneas petras 
ad LyciJB fontes, &c. i Expedit. in Sinas, lib. 1. c. 3. ^ Timendo prosoccupat, quod vitat, ultra 

provocatque quod fugit, gaudetque raoerens et lubens miser fuit. Heinsius Austriac. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 7.] Other Accichiits and Grievances. 239 

pleasures of tlie world, which they have so dellciously enjoyed, friends and com- 
panions whom they so dearly loved, all at once. A xicchus the philosopher was 
bold and courageous all his life, and gave good precepts de conternnenda morte, 
and against the vanity of the world, to others ; but being now ready to die him- 
self, he was mightily dejected, /iac luceprivabor? his orhabor bonis .?* he lamented 
like a child, &c. And though Socrates himself was there to comfort him, ubi 
pristina virtutumjactatio, Axioche? " where is all your boasted virtue now, 
my friend?" yet he was very timorous and impatient of death, much troubled 
in his mind, ImbeUis pavor et impatientia, d'c. " Clotho," Megapetus the tyrant 
in Lucian exclaims, now ready to depart, " let me live a while longer. ^ I will 
give thee a thousand talents of gold, and two boles besides, which I took from 
Cleocritus, worth ahundred talents apiece." "Woe's me," "^saith another, "what 
goodly manors shall I leave ! what fertile fields ! what a fine house ! what 
pretty children! how many servants! Who shall gather my grapes, my corn? 
Must I novr die so well settled? Leave all, so richly and well provided ? Woe's 
me, what shall I do ?" ""Anirnula vagida, blandula, qucE nunc abibis in loca? 
To these tortures of fear and sorrow, may well be annexed curiosity, that 
irksome, that tyrannising care, nimia solicitudo, " ° superfluous industry about 
unprofitable things and their qualities," as Thomas defines it; an itching 
humour or a kind of longing to see that which is not to be seen, to do that 
which ought not to be done, to know that p secret which should not be known, 
to eat of the forbidden fruit. We commonly molest and tire ourselves about 
things unfit and unnecessary, as Martha troubled herself to little purpose. Be 
it in religion, humanity, magic, philosophy, policy, any action or study, 'tis a 
needless trouble, a mere torment. JFor what else is school divinity, hew many 
doth it puzzle ? what fruitless questions about the Trinity, resurrection, elec- 
tion, predestination, reprobation, hell-fire, &c., how many shall be saved, 
damned? What else is all superstition, but an endless observation of idle 
ceremonies, traditions? What is most of our philosophy but a labyrinth of 
opinions, idle questions, propositions, metaphysical terms? Socrates, therefore, 
held all philosophers, cavillers, and mad men, circa subtilia Gavillatores pro 
insanis habuit, palam eos arguens, saith "^Eusebius, because they commonly 
sought after such things, qucE nee i^ercipi a nobis neque comprehendi possent, or 
put case they did understand, yet they were altogether unprofitable. For 
what matter is it for us to know how high the Pleiades are, how far distant 
Perseus and Cassiopea from us, how deep the sea, &c.? we are neither wiser, 
as he follows it, nor modester, nor better, nor richer, nor stronger for the know- 
ledge of it. Quod supra nos nihil ad nos, I may say the same of those geneth- 
liacal studies, what is astrology but vain elections, predictions? all magic, but 
a troublesome error, a pernicious foppery? physic, but intricate rules and 
prescriptions? philology, but vain criticisms? logic, needless sophisms? meta- 
physics themselves, but intricate subtilties and fruitless abstractions? alchemy, 
but a bundle of errors? to what end are such great tomes? why do we spend 
so many years in their studies? Much better to know nothing at all, as those 
barbarous Indians are wholly ignorant, than as some of us, to be sore vexed 
about unprofitable toys : stultus labor est ineptiarum, to build a house with- 
out pins, make a rope of sand, to what end? cui bono] He studies on, but 
as the boy told St. Austin, when I have laved the sea dry, thou shalt under- 
stand the mystery of the Trinity. He makes observations, keeps times and 
seasons; and as 'Conradus the emperor would not touch his new bride, till an 
astrologer had told him a masculine hour, but with what success ? He travels 

* " Must I be deprived of this life,— of those possessions 1 " ' Tom .4 dial. 8. Cataplo. Auri puri 

mille talenta me hodie tibi daturum promitto, &c. m Ibidem, llei mihi quie relinquenda pr:edia? 

quam fertiles agri ! &c. ° Adrian. » Industria supei-flua circa res in utiles. p FlavsB secreta 

Minervas ut yiderat Aglauros. Ov. Met 2. i Contra Philos. cap. 61. r Mat. Paria. 



"2iO Causes of 3IeIanchoIy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

into Europe, Africa, Asia, searclietli every creek, sea, citj, mountain, gulf, to 
what endl See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, 
one river, and see all. An alchemist spends his fortunes to find out the phi- 
losopher's stone forsooth, cure all diseases, make men long-lived, victorious, 
fortunate, invisible, and beggars himself, misled by those seducing impostors 
(which he shall never attain) to make gold j an antiquary consumes his trea- 
sure and time to scrape up a company of old coins, statues, rules, edicts, manu- 
scripts, &c,, he must know what was done of old in Athens, Rome, what 
lodging, diet, houses they had, and have all the present news at first, though 
never so remote, before all others, what projects, counsels, consultations, &c., 
quid Juno in aurem insusurret Jovi, what's now decreed in France, what in 
Italy: who was he, whence comes he, which way, whither goes he, &c., 
Aristotle must find out the motion of Euripus ; Pliny must needs see Yesu- 
vius, but how sped they? One loseth goods, another his life; Pyrrhus will 
conquer Africa first, and then Asia; he will be a sole monarch, a second im- 
mortal, a third rich, a fourth commands. ^ Tui'hiue magno spes solicitce in 
urbibus errant; we run, ride, take indefatigable pains, all up early, down late, 
striving to get that which we had better be without (Ardelion's busy-bodies 
as we are), it were much fitter for us to be quiet, sit still, and take our ease. 

His sole study is for words, that they be Lepidce lexeis compostce ut tes- 

serulce omnes, not a syllable misplaced, to set out a stramineous, subject; as thine 
is about apparel, to follow the fashion, to be terse and polite, 'tis thy sole 
busness: both with like profit. His only delight is building, he spends him- 
self to get curious pictures, intricate models and plots, another is wholly 
ceremonioiis about titles, degrees, inscriptions : a third is over-solicitous about 
his diet, he must have such and such exquisite sauces, meat so dressed, so far 
fetched, peregrini aeris vobicres, so cooked, &c., something to provoke thirst, 
something anon to quench his thirst. Thus he redeems his appetite with ex- 
traordinary charge to his purse, is seldom pleased with any meal, whilst a 
trivial stomach useth all with delight, and is never offended. Another must 
have roses in winter, alie7ii temporis flores, snow-water in summer, fruits before 
they can be or are usually ripe, artificial gardens and fish-ponds on the tops of 
houses, all things opposite to the vulgar sort, intricate and rare, or else they 
are nothing worth. So busy, nice, curious wits, make that insupportable in 
all vocations, trades, actions, employments, which to duller apprehensions is 
not offensive, earnestly seeking that which others so scornfully neglect. Thus 
through our foolish curiosity do we macerate ourselves, tire our souls, and run 
headlong, through our indiscretion, perverse will, and want of government, 
into many needless cares and troubles, vain expenses, tedious journeys, pain- 
ful hours ; and when all is done, quorsum hoec 1 cui bono ? to what end % 

" ' Nescire velle quos Magister maximus 
Docere non vult, eradita inscitia est." 

Unfortunate marriage?^ Amongst these passions and irksome accidents^ un- 
fortunate marriage may be ranked : a condition of life appointed by God himself 
in Paradise, an honourable and hajipy estate, and as greiit a felicity as can befall 
a man in this world, ^ if the parties can agree as they ought, and live as 
"^ Seneca lived with his Paulina ; but if they be unequally matched, or at dis- 
cord, a greater misery cannot be expected, to have a scold, a slut, a harlot, a 
fool, a fury or a fiend, there can be no such plague. Eccles. xxvi, 14. " He 
that hath her is as if he held a scorpion," &c. xxvi. 25, " a wicked wife makes 
a sorry countenance, a heavy heart, and he had rather dwell with a lion than 
keep house with such a wife." Her ^ properties Jovianus Pontanus hath 

^ Seneca. * Jos. Scaliger in Gnomit. " To profess a disinclination for that knowledge which is beyond 
our reach, is pedantic ignorance." " " A virtuous woman is the crown of her hushand." Prov. xii 4. 

** but she," &c. «S,c. •* Lib. 17. epist. 105. » Titionatur, candelabratar, &c. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 7.] Other Accidents and Grievances. 



241 



described at large, Ant. dial. Tom. 2, under the name of Euphorbia. Or if 
they be not equal in years, the like mischief happens. Cecilius in Agellius 
lib. 2. cap. 23, complains much of an old wife, dum ejus m,orti inhio, egomet 
inortuus vivo inter vivos, whilst I gape after her death, I live a dead man 
amongst the living, or if they dislike upon any occasion, 

"y Judge who that are unfortunately M-ed 
What 'tis to come into a loathed bed." 

The same inconvenience befals women. 

"« At vos 6 duri miseram lugete parentes, 

Si feiTO aut laqueo liBva hac me exsolvere sorte 
Sustineo : " 



" Hard hearted parents both lament my fate, 
If self I kill or hang, to ease my state." 



* A young gentlewoman in Basil was married, saith Felix Plater, observat. 1. 1, 
to an ancient man against her will, whom she could not affect ; she was con- 
tinually melancholy, and pined away for grief; and though her husband did all 
he could possibly to give her content, in a discontented humour at length she 
hanged herself Many other stories he relates in this kind. Thus men are 
plagued with women ; they again with men, when they are of divers humours 
and conditions; he a spendthrift, she sparing; one honest, the other dishonest, 
&c. Parents many times disquiet their children, and they their parents. " "^ A 
foolish son is an heaviness to his mother." Injusta noverca : a stepmother 
often vexeth a whole family, is matter of repentance, exercise of patience, fuel 
of dissension, which made Cato's son expostulate with his father, why he should 
offer to marry his client Solinius' daughter, a young wench, Gujus causa no- 
vercain induceret; what offence had he done, that he should marry again ? 

Unkind, unnatural friends, evil neighbours, bad servants, debts, and debates, 
&c., 'twas Chilon's sentence, comes ceris alieni et litis est miseria, misery and 
usury do commonly together ; suretyship is the bane of many families, Sponde, 
prcestb noxa est : " he shall be sore vexed that is surety for a stranger," Pro v. 
xi. 15, "^and he that hateth suretyship is sure." Contention, brawling, law- 
suits, falling out of neighbours and friends. discordia demens ( Virg. j^n. 

6,) are equal to the first, grieve many a man, and vex his soul. JVihil sane 
miserabilius eorum meniibus (as '^ Boter holds), " nothing so miserable as such 
men, full of cares, griefs, anxieties, as if they were stabbed with a sharp 
sword, fear, suspicion, desperation, sorrow, are their ordinary companions." 
Our Welshmen are noted by some of their ^ own writers, to consume one 
another in this kind; but whosoever they are that use it, these are their 
common symptoms, especially if they be convict or overcome, ^cast in a suit. 
Arius put out of a bishopric by Eustathius, turned heretic, and lived after 
discontented all his life. ^ Every repulse is of like nature; heu quanta de spe 
decidi ! Disgrace, infamy, detraction, will almost affect as much, and that a 
long time after. Hipponax, a satirical poet, so vilified and lashed two painters 
in his iambics, ut ambo laqueo se suffocarent, ^ Pliny saith, both hanged them- 
selves. All oppositions, dangers, perplexities, discontents, ^ to live in any 
suspense, are of the same rank : potes hoc sub casu ducere somnos ? Who can 
be secure in such cases'? Ill-bestowed benefits, ingratitude, unthankful friends, 
and much disquiet molest some. Unkind speeches trouble as many : uncivil 
carriage or dogged answers, weak women above the rest, if they proceed from 
their surly husbands, are as bitter as gall, and not to be digested. A glass- 
man's wife in Basil became melancholy because her husband said he would 



y Daniel in Rosamund. zChalinorus, lib. 9. de repub. Angl. ^Elegans virgo invita cuidam h 

nostratibus nupsit, &c. iiProv. ^De increm. urb. lib. 3. c. 3. tanquam diro mucrone confossi, his 

nulla i-equies, nulla delectatio, solicitudine, gemitu, furore, desperatione, timore, tanquam ad perpetuaui 
seruranara infeliciter rapti. ^ Humfredus Lluydepist. ad Abraharaum Ortelium. M. Vaughan 

in his Golden Fleece. Litibus et coritroversiis usque ad omnium bonorum consumptionem contendunt. 
e Spretueque injuria forraje. *^QuLeque repulsa gravis. e Lib. 36. c. 5. i> Nihil aique amarum, quiun 
diu pe-'dere: quidam roquiore animo ferunt praicidi spem suam quam trahi. Seneca, cap. 3. lib. 2. da 
Den. Virg. Plater, observat. lib. 1. 



242 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

many again if slie died, " No cut to iinkindness," as the saying is, a frown 
and hard speech, ill respect, a brow-beating, or bad look, especially to cour- 
tiers, or such as attend upon grea.t persons, is present death : Ingenium vultu 
statque caditque suo, they ebb and flow with their masters' favours. Some 
persons are at their wits' ends, if by chance they overshoot themselves, in 
their ordinary speeches, or actions, which may after turn to their disadvan- 
tage or disgrace, or have any secret disclosed. lionseus, epist. miscel. 3, reports 
of a gentlewoman, 25 years old, that falling foul with one of her gossijDS, was 
upbraided with a secret infirmity (no matter Vv^hat) in public, and so much 
grieved with it, that she did thereupon solitudines queer ere, omnes ah se ablegare, 
<iG tandem in gravissimam incidens melancholiam, contahescere, forsake all com- 
pany, quite moped, and in a melancholy humour pine away. Others are as 
much tortured to see themselves rejected, contemned, scorned, disabled, de- 
famed, detracted, undervalued, or "'left behind their fellows." Lucian brings 
in ^tamacles, a philosopher in his Lwpith. convivio, much discontented that 
he was not invited amongst the rest, expostulating the matter, in a long epistle, 
with Aristenetus their host. Prgetextatus, a robed gentleman in Plutarch, 
would not sit down at a feast, because he might not sit highest, but went his 
ways all in a chafe. We see the common quarrellings that are ordinary with 
us, for taking of the wall, precedency, and the like, which though toys in 
themselves, and things of no moment, yet they cause many distempers, much 
heart-burning amongst us. Nothing pierceth deeper than a contempt or dis- 
grace, ^ especially if they be generous spirits, scarce any thing affects them 
more than to be despised or vilified. Crato, consil 16, 1. 2, exemplifies it, and 
common experience confirms it. Of the same nature is oppression, Eccles. vii. 
7, " surely oppression makes a man mad," loss of liberty, which made Brutus 
venture his life, Cato kill himself, and ' Tully complain, Omnem hilarltateirh 
in pei'petuum amisi, mine heart's broken, I shall never look up, or be merry 
again, "^ hcec jactiira intolerabilis, to some parties 'tis a most intolerable loss. 
Banishment a great misery, as Tyrteus describes it in an epigram of his. 



" Nam miserum est patria amissa, laribusque vagari 
Mendicura, et timida voce rogare cibos : 
Omnibus invisus, quocunque accesserit exul 
Semper erit, semper spretus egensque jacet," &.c. 



■ A miserable thing 'tis so to wander, 

And like a beggar for to whine at door, 
Contemn'd of all the world, an exile is, 
Hated, rejected, needy still and poor." 



Polynices in his conference with Jocasta in "Euripides, reckons up five mi- 
series of a banished man, the least of which alone were enough to deject some 
pusillanimous creatures. Oftentimes a too great feeling of our own infirmi- 
ties or imperfections of body or mind, will shrivel us up j as if we be long 
sick : 

"0 beata sanitas, te proesente, amfjeniira 
Ver floret gratiis, absque te nemo beatus :" 

O blessed health! "thou art above all gold and treasure," Ecclus. xxx. 15, 
the poor man's riches, the rich man's bliss, without thee there can be no hap- 
piness : or visited with some loathsome disease, offensive to others, or trouble- 
some to ourselves; as a stinking breath, deformity of our limbs, crookedness, 
loss of an eye, leg, hand, paleness, leanness, redness, baldness, loss or want of 
hair, &c., hie ubijluere coepit, diros ictus cordi infert, saith ° Synesius, he him- 
self troubled not a little ob comce defectum, the loss of hair alone, strikes a 
cruel stroke to the heart. Acco, an old woman, seeing by chance her face in 
a true glass (for she used false flattering glasses belike at other times, as most 
gentlewomen do), animi dolore in, insaniam delapsa est (Cselius Rhodiginus, 1. 1 7, 
c. 2), ran mad. ^ Brotheus, the son of Yulcan, because he was ridiculous for 
his imperfections, flung himself into the fire. Lais of Corinth, now grown old, 

5 Turpe relinqui est, Hor. ^ Scimus enim generosas naturas, nulla re citius mover!, aut gravius affici 

iqua^n contemptu ac despiclentia. * Ad Atticum epist. lib. 12. »" Epist. ad Brutum. " In Fliteniss. 

oin laudem calvit. POvid. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 7.] Other Accidents and Grievances. 2-i3 

gave up lier glass to Yenus, for she could not abide to look upon it. "^Quails 
sum nolo, qualis eram nequeo. Generally to fair nice pieces, old age and foul 
linen are two most odious things, a torment of torments, thev may not abide 



the thought of it, 



-o deorum 



QuisQuis base a-.idis, utinam inter errem 

Nuda leones, 
Antequam turpis macies decentes 
Occup-t malas, tenersque succus 
Deiluat prtedaj, speciosa qiiicro 

Pascere tigres." 



" Hear me, some gracious heavenly power, 
Let lions dire this n-.ked corse devour. 
Jly cheeks ere hollow wrinld.'S seize, 
Ere yet their rosy bloom decays; 
■\Vhiie youth yet rolls its vital flood, 
Let tigers friendly riot in my blood." 



To be foul, ugly, and deformed, much better be buried alive. Some are fair but 
barren, and that galls them. '• Hannah wept sore, did not eat, and was troubled 
in spirit, and all for her barrenness," 1 Sam. i. and Gen. xxx. Rachel said 
" in the anguish of her soul, give me a child, or I shall die :" another hath too 
many : one wtis never married, and that's his hell, another is, and that's his 
plague. Some are troubled in that they are obscin-e ; others by being traduced, 
shindered, abused, disgraced, vilified, or any way injured: mininie miror eos 
(as he said) qid insanire occipiunt ex injiirid, I marvel not at all if oiTences 
make men mad. Seventeen particular causes of anger and offence Aristotle, 
reckons them up, v/hich for brevity's sake I must omit. No tidings troubles 
one; ill reports, rumoiu's, bad tidings or news, hard hap, ill success, cast in a 
suit, vain hopes, or hope deferred, another : expectation, adeo oinnibus in rebus 
molesta semper est expectatio, as ^Polybius observes; one is too eminent, an- 
other too base born, and that alone tortures him as much as the rest : one 
is out of action, company, employment; another overcome and tormented 
with worldly cares, and onerous business. But what Hongue can suffice to 
speak of all ? 

Many men catch this malady by eating certain meats, herbs, roots, at 
unawares; as henbane, nightshade, cicuta, mandrakes, &c. "A company of 
young men at Agrigentum in Sicily, came into a tavern ; where after they had 
freely taken their liquor, whether it were the wine itself, or something mixed 
with ib 'tis not yet known, ^but upon a sudden they began to be so troubled in 
their brains, and their phantasy so crazed, that they thought they w^ere in a 
ship at sea, and now ready to be cast away by reason of a tempest. Wherefore 
to avoid shipwreck and present drowning, they flung all the goods in the house 
out at the windows into the street, or into the sea, as they supposed ; thus they 
continued mad a pretty season, and being brought before the m:igistrate to give 
an account of this their fact, they told him (not yet recovered of their madness) 
that what was done they did, for fear of death, and to avoid imminent danger : 
the spectators were all amazed at this their stupidity, and gazed on them still, 
whilst one of the ancientest of the compa,ny, in a grave tone, excused himself to 
the magistrate upon his knees, viri Trltones, ego in imo jacul, I beseech 
your deities, &c., for I was in the bottom of the ship all the while : another 
besought them as so many sea gods to be good unto them, and if ever he and 
his fellows came to land again, "he would build an altar to their service. The 
magistrate could not sufficiently laugh at this their madness, bid them sleep it 
out, and so went his ways. Many such accidents frequently happen, upon these 
unknown occasions. Some are so caused by philters, wandering in the sun, 
biting of a mad dog, a blow on the head, stinging with that kind of spider called 
tarantula, an ordinary thing if we may believe Skenck., I. 6. de Venems, in 
Calabria and Apulia in Italy, Cardan., subtil. I. 9. Scaliger, exercitat l8o. Their 
symptoms are merrily described by Jovianus Pontanus, Ant. dial, how they 

<JECret. 'Hor. Cann. Lib. 3. Ode 27. « Hist. lib. 6. t Xon mihi si centum lingufe sint, oraqua 

centum, omnia causarum percun-ere nomina possem. u Celius, 1. 17. cap. 2. ^ Ita mente exagitati sunt, 
ut in triremi se constltutos putarent, marique vagabundo tempestate jattatos, proinde naiitragium veriti, 
egestis undique rebus vasa Oiuuia in viam e lenestris, sea 'u\ mare prcecipitarimt: postridie, &c. » Araai- 
Tobis servatoribus diis erigcmus. 



244 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

dance altogether, and are cured by music. ^ Cardan speaks of certain stones, if 
they be carried about one, which will cause melancholy and madness; he calls 
them unhappy, as an ^adamant, selenites, d'c.,'- which dry up the body, increase 
cares, diminish sleep': " Ctesias in Persicis, makes mention of a well in those 
parts, of which if any man drink, " ^he is mad for 24 hours." Some lose their 
wits by terrible objects (as elsewhere I have more ''copiously dilated) and life 
itself many times, as Hippolitus aflrighted by Neptune's sea-horses, Athemas 
by Juno's furies : but these relations are common in all writers. 

"« Hic alias poteram, et plures subnectere caiisas, I " Many such causes, much more could I say, 

Set} jumenta vocant, et Sol iucUnut, Eundiim est." But that for provender my cattle stay : 

I The sun declines, and I must needs away." 

These causes if they be considered, and come alone, I do easily yield, can do 
little of themselves, seldom, or apart (an old oak is not felled at a blow), though 
many times they are all sufficient every one ; yet if they concur, as often they 
do, vis unita fortior ; et quce iioa ohsunt singula, midta nocent, they may batter 
a strong constitution; as '^Austin said, " many grains and small sands sink a 
ship, many small drops make a flood," &c., of oen reiterated j many dispositions 
px'oduce an habit. 



MEIMB. Y. 



StJBSECT. I. — Continent, inioard, antecedent, next causes, and how tlie Body 
works on the Mind. 

As a purly hunter, I have hitherto beaten about the circuit of the forest of 
this microcosm, and followed only those outward adventitious causes, I will 
now break into the inner rooms, and rip up the antecedent immediate causes 
which are there to be found. For as the distraction of the mind, amongst 
other outvvard causes and perturbations, alters the temperature of the body, 
so the distraction and distemper of the body will cause a distemperature of the 
sonl, and 'tis hard to decide which of these two do more harm to the other. 
Plato, Cyprian, and some others, as I have formerly said, lay the greatest fault 
upon the soul, excusing the body; others again accusing the body, excuse the 
Boul, as a principal agent. Their reasons are, because " * the manners do 
follow the temperature of the body," as Galen proves in his book of that sub- 
ject, Prosper Calenius de Atra bile, Jason Fratensis, c. de Mania, Lemniiis, 
1. 4. c. 16. and many others. And that whicli Gualter hath commented, horn. 10. 
in epist. Joliannis, is most true; concupiscence and original sin, inclinations, 
and bad humours, are ^radical in every one of us, causing these pei'turbations, 
affections, and several distempers, offering many times violence unto the soul. 
" Every man is tempted by hisown concu23iscence" (James i. 14), the spirit is 
willing but the flesh is weak, and rebelleth against the spirit, as our ^apostle 
teacheth us: that methinks the soul hath the better plea against the body, 
which so forcibly inclines us, that we cannot resist. Nee nos obniti contra, nee 
tendere tantum sufficimus. How the body being material, worketh upon the 
immaterial soul, by mediation of humours and spirits, which participate of 
both, and ill-disposed organs, Cornelius Agrippa hath discoui-sed, lib. 1. de 
occidt. Philos. cap. 63, 64, Qb. Levinus Lemnius, lib. 1. de occult, nat. mir. 
cap. 12, et 16. et 21. institut. ad opt. vit. Perkins, lib. 1. Cases of Cons. cap. 
12, T, Bright, c. 10, 11, 12. " in his treatise of melancholy," for as ''anger, 

y Lib. de gemmis. ' Quas gestatre infelioem et tristem reddunt, curas augent, corpus siccant, somnum 
minuunt. » Ad unum diem mente alienatus. ^Part. 1. Sect. 2. Subsect. 3. <= Juven. Sat. 3. ^jnt^g 
bestiee minutas multse necaut. Numquid minutissima sunt grana arena ? sed si arena amplius in navem niit- 
tatur, mergit illara ; quam minut* gutt£e pluvia ! et tamen implent fiumina, domus ejiciunt, timenda ergo 
ruina multitudinis, si non magnitudinis. ^ Mores seq.uuntur temperaturara corporis. ''ScintilLt latent in 
corporibus. s Gal. 5. *> Sicut ex animi atfectionibus corpus languescit : sic ex corporis vitiis, et mor- 
' borum plerisque cruciatibus animum videmus hebetari. Galenus. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 1.] Other Accidents and Grievances. 245 

fear, sorrow, obtrectation, emulation, &c., si mentis intimos recessus occupdrint, 
saith 'Lemniiis, corpori quoque infesta sunt, et illi teterrimos onorbos ioiferunt, 
cause grievous diseases in the body, so bodily diseases affect the soul by con- 
sent. Now the chiefest causes proceed from the ^ heart, humours, spirits : as 
they are purer, or impurer, so is the mind, and equally suffers, as a lute out of 
tune, if one string or one organ be distempered, all the rest miscarry, ^corpus 
onustum hesternis vitiis, animum quoque i^rmgravat una. The body is domi-^ 
cilium animcs, her house, abode, and stay ; and as a torch gives a better light, 
a sweeter smell, according to the matter it is made of; so doth our soul per- 
form all her actions, better or worse, as her organs are disposed; or as wine 
savours of the cask wherein it is kept; the soul receives a tincture from the 
body through which it works. We see this in old men, children, Europeans; 
Asians, hot and cold climes; sanguine are merry ; melancholy, sad ; phlegmatic, 
dull ; by reason of abundance of those humours, and they cannot resist such 
passions which are inflicted by them. For in this infirmity of human nature, 
as Melancthon declares, the understanding is so tied to, and captivated by his 
inferior senses, that without their help he cannot exercise his functions, and 
the will being weakened, hath but a small power to restrain those outward 
parts, but suffers herself to be overruled by them ; that I must needs conclude 
with Lemnius, spiritus et humores maximum nocumentum obtinent, spirits and 
humours do most harm in ™ troubling the soul. How should a man choose but 
be choleric and angry, that hath his body so clogged with abundance of gross 
humours? or melancholy, that is so inwardly disposed? That thence comes 
then this malady, madness, apoplexies, lethargies, &c., it may not be denied. 
Now this body of ours is most part distempered by some precedent diseases, 
which molest his inward organs and instruments, andso^sr consequens cause 
melancholy, according to the consent of the most approved physicians. " "This 
humour (as Avicenna, I. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4, c. 18. Arnoldus, breviar. I. I.e. 18. 
JsLCchinufi, comment, in 9 Rhasis, c. 15. Montaltus, c. 10. Nicholas Piso, c. de 
Melan. &c., suppose) is begotten by the distemperature of some inward part, 
innate, or left after some inflammation, or else included in the blood after an 
"ague, or some other malignant disease." This opinion of theirs concurs with 
that of Galen, I. 3. c. 6. de locis affect. Guianerius gives an instance in one 
so caused by a quartan ague, and Montanus, consil. 32. in a young man of 
twenty eight years of age, so distempered after a quartan, which had molested 
him five years together : Hildesheim, sjncel. 2. de Mania, relates of a Dutch 
baron, grievously tormented with melancholy after a long^ague: Galen, I. de 
atra bile, c. 4. puts the plague a cause. Botaldus in his book de lue vener. c. 2. 
the French pox for a cause, others phrensy, epilepsy, apoplexy, because those 
diseases do often degenerate into this. Of suppression of hemorrhoids, 
haemorrhagia, or bleeding at the nose, menstruous retentions (although they 
deserve a larger explication, as being the sole cause of a proper kind of me- 
lancholy, in more ancient maids, nuns and widows, handled apart by Roder- 
icus a Castro, and Mercatus, as I have elsewhere signified), or any other 
evacuation stopped, I have already spoken. Only this I will add, that this 
melancholy which shall be caused by such infirmities, deserves to be pitied 
of all men, and to be respected with a more tender compassion, according to 
Laurentius, as coming from a more inevitable cause. 



5 Lib. 1. c 16. ^ Corporis itidem morbi animam per consensum, a lege consortii afflciunt, et qnan- 

quam objecta mnltos motus turbulentos in homine concitet, prsecipua tamen causa in covde et humoribus 
spiritibusque consistit, &c. i Hor. Vide ante. "' Humores pravi mentem obnubilant. » Hie 

humor vel a partis intemperie generatur A'el relinquiturpostinflammationes, vel crassior in venis conclusus 
vel torpidus malignam qualitatem contrahit. <> Ssepe constat in febre liominem Melancholicum vel post 
febrem reddi, aut alium morbum. Calida intemperies innata, vel a febre contracra. p Raro quis diuturuo 
morbo laborat, qui noa sit melancholicus. Mercurialis de affect, capitis, lib. 1. cap. 10. de Melauc. 



2i6 Causes of Mdancholy, [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 



SuBSECT. II. — Dlstemperature of particular 

There is almost no part of the body, which being distempered, dofch not 
cause this malady, as the brain and his parts, heart, liver, spleen, stomach, 
matrix or womb, pylorus, mirache, mesentery, hypochondries, meseraic veins; 
and in a word, saith '^Arculauus, "there is no part which caasethnot melan- 
choly, either because it is adust, or doth not expel the superflaity of the nutri- 
ment. Savanarola, Pract. major, rubric. 11. Tract. 6. cap. 1. is of the same 
opinion, that melancholy is engendered in each particular part, and " Crato in 
consil. 17. lib. 2. Grordonius, v/ho is instar omnium, lib. med. partic. 2. cap. 19. 
confirms as much, putting the " ® matter of melancholy, sometimes in the 
stomach, liver, heart, brain, spleen, mirache, hypochondries, when as the 
melancholy humour resides there, or the liver is not well cleansed " from 
melancholy blood." 

The brain is a familiar and frequent cause, too hot, or too cold, " Hhrough 
adust blood so caused," as Mercurialis will have it, " within or without the 
head," the brain itself being distempered. Those are most apt to this dis- 
ease, "'^ that have a hot heart and moist brain," which Montaltus, cap. 11. de. 
Melanch. approves out of Halyabbas, Rhasis, and Avicenna. Mercurialis, 
consil. 11. assigns the coldness of the brain a cause, and Salustius Salvianus, 
Tfhed. lect. I. 2. c. 1. ^ will have it "arise from a cold and dry dlstemperature 
pf the brain." Piso, Benedictus Victorius Faventinus, will have it proceed 
from a "^hot dlstemperature of the brain;" and ^ JMontaltus, cts/;. 10. from 
the brain's heat, scorching the blood. The brain is still distempered by him- 
self, or hy consent : by himself or his proper affection, as Pavencinus calls it, 
" * or by vapours which arise from the other parts, and fame up into the 
head, altering the animal faculties." 

Hildesheim, spicel. 2. de Mania, t\\mk.^\t may be caused from a "^distem- 
perature of the heart; sometimes hot; sometimes cold." A hot liver, and a 
cold stomach, are put for usual causes of melancholy: Mercurialis, consil. 11. 
et consil. 6. consil. 86. assigns a hot liver and cold stomach for ordinary causes. 
'^ Monavius, in an epistle of his to Crato in Scoltzius, is of opinion, that hypo- 
chondriacal melancholy may proceed from a cold liver; the question is there 
discussed. Most agree that a hot liver is in fault; " "^the liver is the shop of 
humours, and especially causeth melancholy by his hot and dry dlstemperature. 
® The stomach and meseraic veins do often concur, by reason of their obstruc- 
tions, and thence their heat cannot be avoided, and many times the matter is 
so adust and inflamed in those parts, that it degenera,tes into hypochondriacal 
melancholy." Guianerius, c. 2. Tract. 15. holds the meseraic veins to be a 
sufficient * cause alone. The spleen concurs to this malady, by all their con- 
sents, and suppression of hemorrhoids, dum non expurget altera causa lien, 
saith Montaltus, if it be " ^too cold and dry, and do not purge the other parts 
as it ought," consil. 23. Montanus puts the " ^ spleen stopped," for a great 
cause. * Christopherus a Vega reports of his knowledge, that he hath known 
melancholy caused from putrefied blood in those seed- veins and womb ; " ^ Arca- 

q Ad nonum lib. Rhasis ad Almansor. c. 16. Universaliter h, qnacunqtie parte potest fieri m elan ctiolic us, 
Vel quia adimtar, vel quia non expellit supei-fluitatem excrementi. •• A Liene, jccinore, iitero, et aliis 

partibus o'dtur. ^ Materia Melancholia aliqaandoin corde, in stomacho, hepate, ab hypocondriis, myrache, 
eplene, cum ibi reraanet humor melancholicus. ' Et sanguine adusto, intra vel extra caput. " Qui 

calidum cor habent, cerebrum humidum, facile melancholici. 'f Sequitur melancholia malam intemperiem 
frigidam et siccam ipsius cerebri. SiBpe fit ex calidiore cerebro, ant corpore coUigenti melancholiara, Piso. 
z Vel per propriam affectionera, vel per consensum, cum vapores exhalant in cerebrum. Montalt. cap. 14. 
» Aut ibi gignitur melancholicus furaus, aut aliunde vehitur, alterando aniniales facultates. ^ Ab intern- 
perie cordis, modo calidiore, modo frigidiore. <=Epist. 209. Scoltzii. ^ Oificma Immornm hepar concurrit, 
Ac. « Ventriculus et venog meseraicie concurrunt, quol haj partes obstractte sunt, &e. 'Per so san- 

guinem adurentes. s Lien frigidus et siccus, cap. 13. '> Splen obstriictns. ' De arte med., lib. 3. cap. 'li. 
Ha sanguinis put /edine in vasis serninariis et utero, et quandoque aspennate diuretento, vel sanguine mcn- 
struo in melancholiam verso per putrefactionem, vel adustiouem. 



Mem. 5. Siil)3. 3.] Causes of Ilead-Melanclijhj. 24:7 

laniis, from that menstruons blood turned into melanchol}^, and seed too long 
detained (as I have already declared) by putrefaction or adustion." 

The mesenterium, or midriff, diaphragma, is a cause which the ' Greeks 
called ■^fi^a.r. because by his inflammation the mind is much troubled with 
convulsions and dotage. All these, most part, offend by inflammation, cor- 
rupting humours and spirits, in this non-natural melancholy : for from these 
are engendered fuliginous and black spirits. And for that reason ""Montaltus 
cap. 10. de causis melan. will have "the efficient cause of melancholy to be 
hot and dry, not a cold and dry distemperature, as some hold, from the heat 
of the brain, roasting the blood, immoderate heat of the liver and bowels, and 
inflammation of the pylorus. And so much the rather, because that," as 
Galen holds, "all spices inflame the blood, solitariness, waking, agues, study, 
meditation, all which heat: and therefore he concludes that this distempera- 
ture causing adventitious melanclioly is not cold and dry, but hot and dry." 
But of this I have sufflciently treated in the matter of melancholy, and hold 
that this may be true in non-natural melancholy, which produceth madness, 
but not in that natural, which is more cold, and being immoderate, produceth 
a gentle dotage. ° Which opinion Geraldus de Solo maintains in his com- 
ment upon E-hasis. 

SuBSECT. IIT. — Causes of Head-Melancholy. 

After a tedious discourse of the general causes of melancholy, I am now 
returned at last to treat in brief of the three particular species, and such causes 
as properly appertain unto them. Although these causes promiscuously con- 
cur to each and every particular kind, and commonly produce their effects in 
that part which is most weak, ill-disposed, and least able to resist, and so 
cause all three species, yet many of them are proper to some one kind, and 
saldom found in the rest. As for example, head-melancholy is commonly 
caused by a cold or hot distemperature of the brain, according to Laurentius, 
cap. 5 de melan. but as ° Hercules de Saxonia contends, from that agitation 
or distemperature of the animal spirits alone. Salust. Salvianus, before men- 
tioned, lib. 2. cajj. 3. de re med. will have it proceed from cold : but that I take 
of natural melancholy, such as are fools and dote : for as Galen Y>^rites, lib. 4. 
de puis. 8. and Avicenna, " ^ a cold and moist brain is an insepara,ble com- 
panion of folly." But this adventitious melancholy which is here meant, is 
caused of a hot and dry distemperature, as "^Damascen, the Arabian, lib. 3. cap. 
22. tiiinks, and most writers : Altomarus and Piso call it " '"an innate burning 
intemperateness, turning blood and choler into melancholy." Both these 
opinions may stand good, as Bruel maintains, and Cappivaccius, si cerebrum sit 
calidius, " ' if the brain be hot, the animal spirits will be hot, and thence comes 
madness; if cold, folly." David Grusius, TJieat. morb. Hermet. lib. 2, cap. 6. de 
«^ra6iZ0,grantsmelancholy tobe a disease of an inflamed brain, but coldnotwith- 
standing of itself : calidaper accidens, frigida per se, hot by accident only; I am 
of Capivaccius' mind for my part. Now this humour, according to Salvianus, is 
sometimes in the substance of the brain, sometimes contained in the membranes 
and tunicles that cover the brain, sometimes in the passages of the ventricles of 
the brain, or veins of those ventricles. It follows many times " *phrensy, long 
diseases, agues, long abode in hot places, or under the sun, a blow on the 
head," as Khasis informeth us : Piso adds solitariness, waking, inflammations 

'Magirus. ^ Ergo efficiens causa melan cholioe est calida et sicca intemperies, non frigida et sicca, 

quod multi opinati sunt, oritur enim a calore cerebri assante sanguinem, &c., turn quod aromata sanguinera 
incendunt, solitudo, vigiliiB, febrispriBcedens, meJitatio, studium, et hi'ec omnia caleiaciunt, ergo ratura sit, 
&c. "Lib. 1, cap. 13. de Melanch. "Lib. 3. Tract, posttium. de melan. pA fatuitate insepa- 

rabilis cerebri frigiditas. i Ab interno calore assatur. "^ Intemperies innata exurens, flavam bilem ac 
sangainem in mdancholiam convertens. s Si cerebrum sit calidius, fiet spiritas aninialis caliii'ir, et 

deJirium maniacura; si frigidior, fiet fatuitas. ' Melaacliolia capitis accedit post plireuesim aut lougaui 

muram sub sole, aut percussionem in capite, cap. 13. lib. 1. 



^48 Causes of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 2. 

of the head, proceeding most part " from much use of spices, hot wines, hot 
meats : all which Montanus reckons up, consil. 22. for a melancholy Jew; and 
Heurnius repeats, cap. 1 2. de Mania : hot baths, garlic, onions, saith Guiane- 
rius, bad air, corrupt, much ^waking, &c., retention of seed or abundance, 
stopping of haemorrhagia, the midriff misaffected; and according to Trallianus, 
/. 1. 16. immoderate cares, troubles, griefs, discontent, study, meditation, and, 
in a word, the abuse of all those six non-natural things. Hercules de Saxonia, 
cap. 16. lib. 1. will have it caused from a ^ cautery, or boil dried up, or an 
issue. Amatus Lusitanus, cent. 2. cur a. 67. gives instance in a fellow that had 
a hole in his arm, " "" after that was healed, ran mad, and when the wound 
was open, he was cured again." Trincavellius, consil. 13. lib. 1. hath an example 
of a melancholy man so caused by overmuch continuance in the sun, frequent 
use of venery, and immoderate exercise : and in his cons. 49. lib. 3. from a 
"headpiece overheated, which caused head- melancholy. Prosper Calenus 
brings in Cardinal Csesius for a pattern of such as are so melancholy by long 
study ; but examples are infinite. 

SuBSECT. ly. — Causes of Hypochondriacal, or Windy Melancholy. 

In repeating of these causes, I must crambem bis coctam apponere, say 
that again which I have formerly said, in applying them to their proper species. 
Hypochondriacal or flatuous melancholy, is that which the Arabians call myra- 
chial, and is in my judgment the most grievous and frequent, though Bruel and 
Laurentius make it least dangerous, and not so hard to be known or cured. 
His causes are inward or outward. Inward from divers parts or organs, as 
midriff, spleen, stomach, liver, pylorus, womb, diaphragma, meseraic veins, 
stopping of issues, &c. Montaltus, cap. 15. out of Galen recites, "^heat and 
obstruction of those meseraic veins, as an immediate cause, by which means 
the passage of the chilus to the liver is detained, stopped or corrupted, and 
turned into rumbling and wind." Montanus, consil. 233, hath an evident demon- 
stration, Trincavellius another, lib. 1, cap. 12, and Plater a third, observat. lib. 1, 
for a doctor of the law visited with this infirmity, from the said obstruction 
and heat of these meseraic veins, and bowels; quoniam inter ventriculum etjecur 
vencB effervescunt, the veins are inflamed about the liver and stomach. Some- 
times those other parts are together misaffected; and concur to the production 
of this malady : a hot liver and cold stomach, or cold belly : look for instances 
in Hollerius, Victor Trincavellius, co?zsi^. 35, 1. 3, Hildesheim, Spicel. 2,fol. 132, 
Solenander, consil. 9, pro cive Lugdunensi, Montanus, consil, 229, for the Earl 
of Montfort in Germany, 1549, and Frisimelica in the 233 consultation of the 
said Montanus. I. Caesar Claudinus gives instance of a cold stomach and over- 
hot liver, almost in every consultation, con. 89, for a certain count; and con. 
106, for a Polonian baron, by reason of heat the blood is inflamed, and gross 
vapours sent to the heart and brain. Mercurialis subscribes to them, cons. 89, 
" "^ the stomach being misaffected," which he calls the king of the belly, because 
if he be distempered, all the rest suffer with him, as being deprived of their 
nutriment, or fed with bad nourishment, by means of which come crudities, 
obstructions, wind, rumbling, griping, &c. Hercules de Saxonia, besides heat, 
will have the weakness of the liver and his obstruction a QdiUS>Q, facultatem 
debilem jecinoris, which he calls the mineral of melancholy. Laurentius assigns 
this reason, because the liver over hot draws the meat undigested out of the 
stomach, and burneth the humours. Montanus, cons. 244, proves that some- 

"Qui bibunt vina potentia, et saspe sunt sub sole, ^ Curae validje, largiores vini et aromatum usus. 

r A cauterio et ulcere exsiccato. ^ Ab ulcere curato Incidit in insaniam, aperto vulnere cuvatur. » A 
galea nimis calefacta. b Exuritur sanguis et veniB obstruuntur, quibus obstructls prohibetur transitus 

Chili ad jecur, corruinpitur et in rugitus et flatus vertitur. « Storaacbo laeso I'obur corporis imminuitui', 

et reJiqua membra alimento orbata, &c. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 5.] Other Accidents and Grievances. 249 

times a cold liver may be a cause. Laiirentius, c. 12, Trincavellins, lih. 12, 
consil., and Gualter Bruel, seems to lay tlie greatest fault upon the spleen, 
that doth not his duty in purging the liver as he ought, being too great, or too 
little, in drawing too much blood sometimes to it, and not expelling it, as P. 
Cnemiandrus in a "^ consultation of his noted tumoreni lienis, he names it, and 
the fountain of melancholy. Diodes supposed the ground of this kind of 
melancholy to proceed from the inflammation of the pylorus, which is the nether 
mouth of the ventricle. Others assign the mesenterium or midriff distempered 
by heat, the womb misaffected, stopping of haemorrhoids, with many such. All 
which Laurentius, cap. 12, reduceth to three, mesentery, liver, and spleen, 
from whence he denominates hepatic, splenetic, and meseraic melancholy. 
Outward causes, are bad diet, care, griefs, discontents, and in a word all those 
six non-natural things, as Montanus found by his experience, consil. 244, 
Solenander, consil. 9, for a citizen of Lyons, in France, gives his reader to 
understand that he knew this mischief procured by a medicine of cantharides, 
which an unskilful physician ministered his patient to drink ad vsnerem exci- 
tandam. But most commonly fear, grief, and some sudden commotion, or 
perturbation of the mind, begin it, in such bodies especially as are ill-disposed. 
Melancthou, tract. 14, caj?. 2. de animd, will have it as common to men, as the 
mother to women, upon some grievous trouble, dislike, passion, or discontent. 
Por as Camerarius records in his life, Melancthon himself was much troubled 
with it, and therefore could speak out of experience. Montanus, consil. 22, 
pro delirante Judceo confirms it, ^grievous symptoms of the mind brought him 
to it. Randolotius relates of himself, that being one day very intent to write 
out a physician's notes, molested by an occasion, he fell into a hypochondriacal 
fit, to avoid which he drank the decoction of wormwood, and was freed. ^Melanc- 
thon (" seeing the disease is so troublesome and frequent) holds it a most neces- 
sary and profitable study, for every man to know the accidents of it, and a 
dangerous thing to be ignorant," and would therefore have all men in some 
sort to understand the causes, symptoms, and cures of it. 

SuBSECT. Y. — Causes of Melancholy from the whole Body. 

As before, the cause of this kind of melancholy is inward or outward. In- 
ward, *' ^when the liver is apt to engender such a humour, or the spleen weak 
by nature, and not able to discharge his office." A melancholy temperature, 
retention of haemorrhoids, monthly issues, bleeding at nose, long diseases, 
agues, and all those six non-natural things increase it. But especially ''bad 
diet, as Piso thinks, pulse, salt meat, shell-fish, cheese, black wine, &c. Mer- 
curialis out of Averroes and Avicenna condemns all herbs : Galen, lih. 3. de 
loc. affect, cap. 7, especially cabbage. So likewise fear, sorrow, discontents, 
&c., but of these before. And thus in brief you have had the general and 
particular causes of melancholy. 

Now go and brag of thy present happiness, whosoever thou art, brag of thy 
temperature, of thy good parts, insult, triumph, and boast ; thou seest in what 
a brittle state thou art, how soon thou may est be dejected, how many several 
ways, by bad diet, bad air, a small loss, a little sorrow or discontent, an ague, 
&c. ; how many sudden accidents may procure thy ruin, what a small tenure 
of happiness thou hast in this life, how weak and silly a creature thou art. 
" Humble thyself, therefore, under the mighty hand of God," 1 Peter, v. 6. 
know thyself, acknowledge thy present misery, and make right use of it. 

d Hildesheim. " Habuit sasva animi symptomata quae impediunt concoctionem, &c. ''Usitatissimus 
morbus eiira sit, utile est hujus visceris accidentia considerare, nee leve peric;ilum hujus causas morbi 
ignorantibus. g Jecur aptura ad generandani talem humorem, splen natura imbecillior. Piso, Altomarus, 
Guianerius. ^ Melancholiam, quae fit a i-edundantia humoris in toto corpore, victus imprimis geuerat 

qui eum liumorem parit. 



^^^ Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1, See. 3. 

Qui stat vicleM ne caclat. Thou dost now flourish, and hast hona animi, corpo- 
ris, etfortunce, goods of body, mind, and fortune, nescis quid serus secum vesper 
ferat, thou knowest not what storms eaid tempests the late evening may bring 
with it. Be not secure then, " be sober and watch," 'fortuoiam reverenter 
hahe, if fortunate and rich; if sick and poor, moderate thyself. I have said. 



SECT. III. MEMB. I. 
SuBsECT. I. — Syjiij^toms, or Signs of Melancholy in the Body. 

Parrhasius, a painter of Athens, amongst those Olynthian captives Philip 
of Macedon brought home to sell, ''bought one very old man; and when he 
had him at Athens, put him to extreme torture and torment, the better by his 
example to express the pains and passions of his Prometlieus, whom he was then 
about to paint. I need not be so barbarous, inhuman, curious, or cruel, for this 
purpose to torture any poor melancholy man, their symptoms are plain, obvious 
and familiar, there needs no such accurate observation or far-fetched object, 
they delineate themselves, they voluntarily betray themselves, they are too 
frequent in all places, I meet them still as I go, they cannot conceal it, their 
grievances are too well known, I need not seek far to describe them. 

Symptoms therefore are either 'universal or particular, saith Gordonius, 
lib. Tii'id. cup. 1 9, 2:)ari. 2, to persons, to species : " some signs are secret, some 
manifest, some in the body, some in the mind, and diversely vary, according 
to the inward or outward causes," Cappivaccius : or from stars, according to 
Jovianus Pontanus, cle reh. ccelest. lib. 10. caj). 13, and celestial influences, or 
from the humours diversely mixed, Ficinus, lib. 1, cap. 4c, cle sanit. tuendd: 
as they are hot, cold, natural, unnatural, intended or remitted, so will ^tius 
have nielancholica deliria muUifurniia, diversity of melancholy signs. Lauren- 
tins ascribes them to their several temperatures, delights, natures, inclina-tions, 
continuance of time, as they are simple or mixed with other diseases, as the 
causes are divers, so must the signs be, almost hifinite, Altomarus, cap. 7. art. 
jnied. And as wine produceth divers eftects, or that herb Tortocolla in ™Lau- 
rentius, " which makes some laugh, some weep, some sleep, some dance, some 
sing, some howl, some drink," &c., so doth this our melancholy humour work 
several signs in several parties. 

But to confine them, these general symptoms may be reduced to those of 
the body or the mind. Those usual signs appearing in the bodies of such as 
are melancholy, be these cold and dry, or they are hot and dry, as the humour 
is more or less adust. From "these first qualities arise many other second, 
as that of "colour, black, swarthy, pale, ruddy, &c., some are impense rubri, as 
Montaltus, cap. 16, observes out of Galen, lib. 3, cle locis affectis, very red and 
high coloured. Hippocrates in his book ^de insania et melan. reckons up these 
signs, that they are '• "^lean, withered, hollow-eyed, look old, wrinkled, harsh, 
much troubled with wind, and a griping in their bellies, or belly-ache, belch often, 
dry bellies and hard, dejected looks, flaggy beards, singing of the ears, vertigo, 
light-headed, little or no sleep, and that interrupt, terrible and fearful dreams," 
^ Anna soror, qucB me suspensam insomnia terrent 2 The same symptoms are 
repeated by Melanelius in his book of melancholy collected out of Galen, 

i Ausonius. ^ Seneca, cont. lib. 10, cont. 5. i QuEedam nniversalia, particularia, qusEdara manifesta, 
quffidam in corpore, qusdam in cogitatione et animo, qusedam k stellis, quaidam ab humoribus, quas ut vinum 
corpus varie disponit, &c. Diversa phantasmata pro varietate causis externje vel interna. ™ Lib. 1. de risu. 
fol. 17. Ad ejus .sum alii sudant, alii vomunt, flent, bibunt, saltant, alii rident, tremunt, dormiunt, &c. 
n T. Bright, cap. 20. " Nigrcscit hie humor aliquando supercalefactus, aliquando sup erf rigef actus. Melanel. 
e Gal. P Interprete F. Calvo i Oculi his excavantur, venti gignuntur circum praicordia, et acidi ructus, 
sicci i'ere ventres, vertigo, tinnitus aurium, somni pusilli, somnia terribilia et interrupta. » Virg. Mu. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Symj^toms of the Body. 251 

Buitus, y3i]tius, by PJnasis, Gordonius, and all the janiors, "* continual, sharp, 
and stinking belchings, as if their meat in their stomachs vere putrefied, or 
that they had eaten lish, dry bellies, absurd and interrupt dreams, and many 
phantastical visions about their eyes, vertiginous, apt to tremble, and prone to 
venery." * Some add palpitation of the heart, cold sweat, as usual symptoms, 
and a leaping iii many parts of the body, saltum in multis corporis partiblcs, a 
kind of itching, saith Laurentius, on the superficies of the skin, like a flea- 
biting sometimes. "Montaltus, cap. 21. puts fixed eyes and much twinkling of 
their eyes for a sign, and so doth Avicenna, oculos habeiites pcdpitantes, tremuli, 
vehementer rubicundi, d'c, lib. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4. cap. 18. They stut most part, 
which he took out of Hippocrates' aphorisms. ^ Rhasis makes " head-ache 
and a binding heaviness for a principal token, much leaping of wind about the 
skin, as well as stutting, or tripping in speech, &c., hollow eyes, gross veins, 
and broad lips," To some too, if they be ftir gone, mimical gestures are too 
familiar, laughing, grinning, fleering, murmuring, talking to themselves, with 
strange mouths and faces, inarticulate voices, exclamations, (fee. And although 
they be commonly lean, hirsute, uncheerful in countenance, withered, and not 
so pleasant to behold, by reason of those continual fears, griefs, and vexations, 
dull, heavy, lazy, restless, unapt to go about any business; yet their memories 
are most j)art good, they have happy wits, and excellent apprehensions. Their 
hot and dry brains make them they cannot sleep, Ingentes liabent et erebras 
vi'jUias (Areteus), mighty and often watchings, sometimes w^aking for a month, 
a year together. ^' Hercules de Saxonia ftiithfuUy averreth, that he hath heard 
his mother sv/ear, she slept not for seven months together: Trincavellius, Tom. 
2. cons. 16. speaks of one that waked 50 days, and Skeuckius hath examples 
of two years, and all vritliout oflence. In natural actions their appetite is 
greater than their concoction, multa apjjetant, 2Xouca digerunt, as Rhasis hath 
it, they covet to eat, but cannot digest. And although they " ^ do eat much, 
yet they are lean, ill-liking," saith Areteus, "withered and hard, much troubled 
vv'ith costiveness," crudities, oppilations, spitting, belching, &c. Their pulse is 
rare and slow, except it be of the ^ Carotides, which is very strong; but that 
varies according to their intended passions or perturbations, as Struthius 
h?th proved at large, Spigmaticce arti's, I. 4. c. 13. To say truth, in such 
chronic diseases the pulse is not much to be respected, there being so much 
superstition in it, as ^ Crato notes, and so many difierences in Galen, that he 
dares say they may not be observed, or understood of any man. 

Their urine is most part pale, and low coloured, zirina pauca, acris, hiliosa, 
(Areteus), not much in quantity ; but this, in my judgment, is all out as uncer- 
tain as the other, varying so often according to several persons, habits, and 
other occasions not to be respected in chronic diseases. " " Their melancholy 
excrements in some very much, in others little, as the spleen plays his part," 
and thence proceeds wind, palpitation of the heart, short breath, plenty of 
humidity in the stomach, heaviness of heart and heartache, and intolerable 
stupidity and dalness of spirits. Their excrements or stool hard, black to 
some and little. If the heart, brain, liver, spleen, be misatfected, as usually 
they are, many inconveniences proceed from them, many diseases accompany, 
as incubus, ^ apoplexy, epilepsy, vertigo, those frequent wakings and terrible 

» Assidufe eaque acidse nictationes quss cilnim virulentum culentumqiie nidorein, etsi nil tale in!:;:estuTn 
sit, referaut Ob cruditatem. Ventres hisce aridi, sonmus pleruinque parens et interruptus, somnia absuruis- 
smia, turbiueuta, corporis tremor, cr.vilis gravedo, strepitus circa aures et visiones ante oculos, ad venerem 
prodigi _ t Altomarus, Bruel, Piso, Montalttis. "Frequentes habent oculorum nictationes, aliqui 

tamen fixis oculis plerumque sunt. ^ Cent. lib. 1. Tract. 9. Signa hujus morbi sunt plurimus saltus, 

sonitus auriuni, capitis gravedo, lingua titubat, oculi excavantur, &c. y In Pantheon cap. de Melancholia. 
« Alvus arida nihil dejiciens, cibi capaces, nihilominus tamen cxtenuatisimt. ''Xic. Piso. Inflatio carotidum, 
r?" ,.« Andrteas Dudith Rahamo. ep. lib. 3. Crat. epist. multa in pulsibiis superstitio, ausim etiam dicere, 
tot cilterentias quoj describuntur a Galeno, neque inteiligi a quoquam nee observari posse. c T. Brighr, 

^^Y:- r„ dPost 40 «tat. annum, saith Jacchinus mV^. 9 Ehasis. Idem Mercuiialis, consil. 86. Trinca- 

vtlhus, Tom. 2. cons. 17. 



252 Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 3, 

dreams, ^ intempestive laughing, weeping, sighing, sobbing, bashfulness, blush- 
ing, trembling, sweating, swooning, &c. ^AU their senses are troubled, they 
think they see, hear, smell, and touch that which they do not, as shall be 
proved in the following discourse. 

SuBSECT. II. — Symptoms or Signs in the Mind. 

Fear.'] Arculanus in 9 Rhasis ad Almansor. cap. 16. will have these 
symptoms to be infinite, as indeed they are, varying according to the parties, 
"for scarce is there one of a thousand that dotes alike," ^Laurentius, c. 16. 
Some few of greater note I will point at; and amongst the rest, fear and 
sorrow, which as they are frequent causes, so if they persevere long, according 
to Hippocrates ^ and Galen's aphorisms, they are most assured signs, inse- 
parable companions, and characters of melancholy ; of present melancholy and 
habituated, saith Montaltus, cap. 11. and common to them all, as the said 
Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, and all Neoterics hold. But as hounds many 
times run away with a false cry, never perceiving themselves to be at a fault, 
so do they. For Diodes of old (whom Galen confutes), and amongst the 
juniors, 'Hercules de Saxonitl, with Lod. Mercatus, cap. 17. I. 1. de melan. 
take just exceptions at this aphorism of Hippocrates, 'tis not always true, or 
so generally to be understood, " fear and sorrow are no commoii symptoms to 
all melancholy ; upon more serious consideration, I find some (saith he) that 
are not so at all. Some indeed are sad, and not fearful ; some fearful and not 
sad; some neither fearful nor sad; some both." Four kinds he excepts, fa- 
natical persons, such as were Cassandra, ISTanto, Nicostrata, Mopsus, Proteus, 
the Sybils, whom '''Aristotle confesseth to have been deeply melancholy. Bap- 
tista Porta seconds him, Physiog. lib. 1. cap. 8, they were atrd bile perciti : 
dsemoniacal persons, and such as speak strange languages, are of this rank : 
some poets, such as laugh always, and think themselves kings, cardinals, &c., 
sanguine they are, pleasantly disposed most part, and so continue. ' Baptista 
Porta confines fear and sorrow to them that are cold; but lovers, sybils, 
enthusiasts, he wholly excludes. So that I think I may truly conclude, they 
are not always sad and fearful, but usually so : and that ° without a cause, 
timeni de non timendis (Gordonius), quceque momenti nan sunt, "although not 
all alike (saith Altomarus), ° yet all likely fear, ** some with an extraordinary 
and a mighty fear," Areteus. "^Many fear death, and yet in a contrary 
humour, make away themselves," Galen, lib. 3. de lac. affect, cap. 7. Some are 
afraid tliat heaven will fall on their heads : some they are damned, or shall be. 
'"^They are troubled with scruples of consciences, distrusting God's mercies, 
think they shall go certainly to hell, the devil will have them, and make great 
lamentation," Jason Pratensis. Fear of devils, death, that they shall be so 
sick of some such or such disease, ready to tremble at every object, they shall 
die themselves forthwith, or that some of their dear friends or near allies are 
certainly dead ; imminent danger, loss, disgrace, still torment others, &c. ; that 
they are all glass, and therefore will suffer no man to come near them : that 
they are all cork, as light as feathers; others as heavy as lead; some are afraid 
their heads will fall otf their shoulders, that they have frogs in their bellies, 
&c. 'Montanus, consil. 23, speaks of one "that durst not walk alone from 

e Gordonius. modbrident, modb flent, silent, &c. fFernelius, consil. 43 et 45. Montanus, consil. 230. 

Galen de locis affectis, lib. 3. cap. 6. « Aphorism, etlib. de Melan. i^Lib. 2. cap. 6. de locis affect, timor 
et moestitia, si diutiiis perseverent, &c. ' Tract, posthumo de Melan. edit. Venetiis 1620. per Bolzettara 

Bibliop. Mihi diligentius banc rem consideranti, patet quosdam esse, qui non laborant mcerore et timore. 
kProb. lib. 3. ' Physiog. lib. 1. c. 8. Quibus multa frigida bills atra, stolidi et timidi, at qui calidi, inge- 
niosi, amasii, divinosi, spiritu instigati, &c. ™ Omnes exercent metus et tristitia, et sine causa. •> Omnes 
timent licet non omnibus idem timendi modus. Jitius Tetrab. lib. 2. sect. c. 9. "Ingenti pavore trepidant. 
p Multi mortem timent, et tamen sibi ipsis mortem consciscunt, alii coeli ruinam timent. i Affligit eos 

plena sorupulis couscientia, divinse misericordias diffidentes, Oreo se destinant foeda lamentatione deplo- 
rautes. ' JSou ausus egredi dome ne deiiceret. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Symptoms of the Mind. 253 

home, for fear he should swoon or die." A second "* fears every man he 
meets will rob him, quarrel with him, or kill him." A third dares not venture 
to walk alone, for fear he should meet the devil, a thief, be sick ; fears all old 
women as witches, and every black dog or cat he sees he suspecteth to be a 
devil, every person comes near him is malificiated, every creature, all intend 
to hurt him, seek his ruin; another dares not go over a bridge, come near a 
pool, rock, steep hill, lie in a chamber where cross beams are, for fear he be 
tempted to hang, drown, or precipitate himself If he be in a silent audi- 
tory, as at a sermon, he is afraid he shall speak aloud at unaware.s, some- 
thing indecent, unfit to be said. If he be locked in a close room, he is afraid of 
being stifled for want of air, and still carries biscuit, aquavitae, or some strong 
waters about him, for fear of deli qui urns, or being sick ; or if he be in a throng, " 
middle of a church, multitude, where he may not well get out, though he sit at 
ease, he is so misaffected. He will freely promise, undertake any business 
beforehand, bat when it comes to be performed, he dare not adventure, but 
fears an infinite number of dangers, disasters, &c. Some are " 'afraid to be 
burned, or that the "Aground will sink under them, or ^swallow them quick, or 
that the king will call them in question for some fact they never did (Rhasis 
cont.) and that they shall surely be executed." The terror of such a death 
troubles them, and they fear as much and are equally tormented in mind, 
*'^as they that have committed a murder, and are pensive without a cause, as 
if they were now presently to be put to death." Plater, cap. 3. de mentis 
alienat. They are afraid of some loss, danger, that they shall surely lose their 
lives, goods, and all they have, but why they know not. Trincavellius, consil. 
13. lib. 1. had a patient that would needs make away himself, for fear of being 
hanged, and could not be persuaded for three years together, but that he had 
killed a man. Plater, ohservat. lib. 1. hath two other examples of such as feared 
to be executed without a cause. If they come in a place where a robbery, 
theft, or any such offence hath been done, they presently fear they are sus- 
pected, and many times betray themselves without a cause. Lewis XL, the 
Prench king, suspected every man a traitor that came about him, durst trust no 
ofiicer. Alii formidolosi omnium, alii quorundam (Fracastorius, lib. 2. de 
Intellect.) "^some fear all alike, some certain men, and cannot endure their 
companies, are sick in them, or if they be from home." Some suspect * treason 
still, others "are afraid of their ^dearest and nearest friends." [Melanelius e 
Gale/10, Ruffo, uEtio^ and dare not be alone in the dark for fear of hobgoblins 
and devils : he suspects every thing he hears or sees to be a devil, or enchanted, 
and ima<jineth a thousand chimeras and visions, which to his thinkins: he cer- 
tainly sees, bugbears, talks with black men, ghosts, goblins, &c., ° Omries se 
terrent aurce, sonus excitat omnis. Another through bashfulness, suspicion, 
and timorousness, will not be seen abroad, "'^ loves darkness as life, and can- 
not endure the light," or to sit in lightsome places, his hat still in his eyes, he 
will neither see nor be seen by his goodwill, Hippocrates, lib. de Insania et 
Mdanc/wlia. He dare not come in company for fear he should be misused, dis- 
graced, overshoot himself in gesture or speeches, or be sick; he thinks every 
man observes him, aims at him, derides him, owes him malice. Most part 
" 'they are afraid they are bewitched, possessed, or poisoned by their enemie:^, 
and sometimes they suspect their nearest friends : he thinks something speaks 



• Multi daemones timent, latrones, insidias, Avicenna. * Alii comburi, alii de Rege, Rhasis. ™ Ne 

terra absorbeantur. Forestas. » Ise terra dehiscat. Gordon. y Alii tiinore mortis teneatur et mala 

gratia principum patant se aliquid commisisse, et ad supplicium reqiiiri. ^ Alius domesticos timet, alius 
omnes. ^tius. ^ Alii timent insidias. Aurel. lib. I. de morb. Chron. cap. 6. ^ lUe charissimos, hie 

omnes homines citra discrimen timet. « Vii-gil. <^ Hie in lucera prodire timet, tenebrasque quierit, 

contra, ille caliginosa fugit. • Quidam larras et malos spiritus ab iniraicis, veneficiis et incantationibus 
sibi putant objectari. Hippocrates, potionem se veneflcam sumpsisse putat, et de hac ructare sibi crebrb 
videtur. Idem Montaltus, cap. 21. .£tius, lib. 2. et alii. Tralliaaus, L 1. cap. 16. 



254 Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1 . Sec. 3. 

or talks within him^ or to him, and he belcheth of the poison." Christopherus 
^ Vega, lib. 2. cap. 1. had a patient so troubled, that by no persuasion or 
physic lie could be reclaimed. Some are afraid that they shall have every 
fearful disease they see others have, hear ofj or read, and dare not therefore 
hear or read of any such subject, no not of melancholy itself, lest by applying 
to themselves that which they hear or read, they should aggravate and increase 
it. If they see one possessed, bewitched, an epileptic paroxysm, a mau shaking 
with the palsy, or giddy-headed, reeling or standing in a dangerous place, &c., 
for many days after it runs in their minds, they are afraid they shall be so too, 
they are in like danger, as Perh. c. 12. so. 2. well observes in his Cases of 
Consc, and many times by violence of imagination they produce it. They 
cannot endure to see any terrible object, as a monster, a man executed, a car- 
case, hear the devil named, or any tragical relation seen, but they quake for 
fear, Hecatas somniare sibi vide^itur (Lucian), they dream of hobgoblins, and 
may not get it out of their minds a long time after : they apply (as I have 
said) all they hear, see, read, to themselves; as ^Felix Plater notes of some 
young physicians, that study to cure diseases, catch them themselves, will be 
sick, and appropriate all symptoms they find related of others, to their own 
persons. And therefore [quod iterum moneo, licet nauseam paret lectori, malo 
decern potius verba, decies repetita licet, abundare, quam unum desiderari) I 
would advise him that is actually melancholy not to read this tract of Symptoms, 
lest he disquiet or make himself for a time worse, and more melancholy than 
he was before. G-enerally of them all take this, de inanibus semper conque- 
runtur et ^'i??ie?2^,saith Areteus : they complain of toys, and fear ^ without a cause, 
and still think their melancholy to be most grievous, none so bad as they are, 
though it be nothing in respect, yet never any man sure v/as so troubled, or in 
this sort. As really tormented and perplexed, in as great an agony for toys 
and trifles (such things as they will after laugh at themselves) as if they were 
most material and essential matters indeed, worthy to be feared, and will not 
be satisfied. Pacify them for one, they are instantly troubled with some other 
fear; always afraid of something which they foolishly imagine or conceive to 
themselves, which never peradventure was, never can be, never likely will be; 
troubled in mind upon every small occasion, unquiet, still complaining, griev- 
ing, vexing, suspecting, grudging, discontent, and cannot be freed so long as 
melancholy continues. Or if their minds be more quiet for the present, and 
they free from foreign fears, outward accidents, yet their bodies are out of tune, 
they suspect some part or other to be amiss, now their head aches, heart, 
stomach, spleen, &c. is misafiected, they shall surely have this or that disease; 
still troubled in body, mind, or both, and through wind, corrupt fantasy, some 
accidental distemper, continually molested. Yet for all this, as ^ Jacchinus 
notes, "in all other things they are wise, staid, discreet, and do nothing un- 
beseeming their dignity, person, or place, this foolish, ridiculous, and childish 
fear excepted ; which so much, so continually tortures and crucifies their souls, 
like a barking dog that always bawls, but seldom bites, this fear ever molesteth, 
and so long as melancholy lasteth, cannot be avoided." 

Sorrow is that other character, and inseparable companion, as individual as 
Saint Cosmus and Damian,^(iMs Achates, as all writers witness, a common 
symptom, a continual, and still without any evident cause, '^inoerent omnes, et 
si roges eos reddere causam., non possunt : grieving still, but why they cannot 
tell: Agelasti, moesti, coyitabundi, they look as if they had newly come forth of 
Trophonius' den. And though they laugh many times, and seem to be extra- 

f Observat. 1. 1. Quando iis nil nocet, nisi quod mulieribus melancholicis. s — timeo tamen metuoque 
causse nescius, causa est metus. Heinsius Austriaco. ^ Cap. 15. in 9. Ehasis, in multis vidi, prtL-ter 

rationem semper aliquid timent, in cisteris tamen optimfe se gerunt, neque aliquid praiter dignitatem com- 
miLtunt. » Altomavus, cap. 7. Areteus, tristes sunt. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Symiytoras of the Mind. 255 

ordinary merry (as they will by fits), yet extreme lumpisb again in an instant, 
dull and heavy, semelet simul, merry and sad, but most part sad: ^ Si qua, 
placent, ctbeunt; inimica tenacius licerent: sorrow sticks by them still con- 
tinually, gnawing as the viilture did ^Titius' bowels, and they cannot avoid it, 
No sooner are their eyes open, but after terrible and troublesome dreams their 
heavy hearts begin to sigh : they are still fretting, chafing, sighing, grieving, 
complaining, finding faults, repining, grudging, weeping, Heautontinioruvienoi, 
vexing themselves, "" disquieted in mind, with restless, unquiet thoughts, dis- 
content, either for their own, other men's or public affairs, such as concern 
them not ; things past, present, or to come, the remembrance of some disgrace, 
loss, injuiy, abuses, ifec. troubles them now being idle afresh, as if it were new 
done ; they are afflicted otherwise for some danger, loss, want, shame, misery, 
that will certainly come, as they suspect and mistrust. Lugubris Ate frowns 
upon them, insomuch that Areteus well calls it angorem aninii, a vexation of 
the mind, a perpetual agony. They can hardly be pleased or eased, though 

in other men's opinion most happy, go, tarry, run, ride, " |90S^ equitem 

sedet atra cura: they cannot avoid this feral plague, let them come in what 
company they will, ° hceret lateri lethcdis arundo, as to a deer that is struck, 
whether he run, go, rest with the herd, or alone, this grief remains : irresolu- 
tion, inconstancy, vanity of mind, their fear, torture, care, jealousy, suspicion, 
&c., continues, and they cannot be relieved. So ^he complained in the poet, 

"Domum revortor moestus, atque animo fer^ I Video alios festinare, lectos sternere, 

Perturbato, atque incerto praa segritudine, Ccenam apparare, pro se quisqiie sedi;lo 

Assido, accuiTunt servi : soccos detralmnt, \ Faciebant, quo illarn milii lenireut miseriam." 

" He came home sorrowful, and troubled in his mind, his servants did all they 
possibly could to please him ; one pulled off his socks, another made ready his 
bed, a third his supper, all did their utmost endeavours to ease his grief, and 
exhilarate his person, he was profoundly melancholy, he had lost his son, illud 
angebat,th£it washisCordolium,his pain, his agony which could not be removed." 
Tc&dAum vitce.'\ Hence it proceeds many times, that they are weary of 
their lives, and feral thoughts to offer violence to their own persons come into 
their minds, tcedium vitce is a common symptom, tarda Jiuunt, ingrataque 
tempora, tliey are soon tired with all things; they will now tarry, now be 
gone; now in bed they will rise, now up, then go to bed, now pleased, then 
again displeased; now they like, by and by dislike all, weary of all, seqidtur 
nunc Vivendi, nunc morisndi cupido, saith Aurelianus, lib. 1. caj). 6, but most 
part '^vitam damnant, discontent, disquieted, perplexed upon every light, or 
no occasion, object : often tempted, I say, to make away themselves : ' Vivere 
nolunt, mori nesciunt : they cannot die, they will not live : they complain, 
weep, lament, and think they lead a most miserable life, never was any man 
so bad, or so before, every poor man they see is most fortunate in respect of 
them, every beggar that comes to the door is happier than they are, they 
could be contented to change lives with them, especially if they be alone, idle, 
and parted from their ordinary company, molested, displeased, or provoked: 
grief, fear, agony, discontent, v/earisomeness, laziness, suspicion, or some such 
passion forcibly seizeth on them. Yet by and by when they come in company 
again, which they like, or be pleased, suam sententiam rursus damnant, et vitce 
solatia delectantur, as Octavius Horatianus observes, lib. 2. cap. 5, they con- 
demn their former dislike, and are well pleased to live. And so they continue, 
till with some fresh discontent they be molested again, and then they are 
weary of their lives, weary of all, they will die, and show rather a necessity to 
live, than a desire. Claudius the emperor, as ^ Sueton describes liim, had a 

1^ Mant. Egl. 1. ' Ovid. Met. 4. «" Inquics animus. n Hor. 1. 3. Od. 1. "Dark care rides 

behind him." o Virg. p Mened. Eeautontim. Act. 1. so. I. i Altomarus. »■ geneca. 

»Cap. 31. Quo stomacM dolore correptum se etiaua de consciscenda morte cogitasse dixit. 



256 Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

spice of this disease, for when he was tormented with the pain of his stomach, 
he had a conceit to make av/ay himself Julius Caesar Claudinus, consil. 84, 
had a.Polonian to his patient, so affected, that through *fear and sorrow, with 
which he was still disquieted, hated his own life, wished for death every mo- 
ment, and to be freed of his misery. Mercurialis another, and another that was 
often minded to dispatch himself, and so continued for many years. 

Suspicion, jealousy. '\ Suspicion, and jealousy, are general symptoms: they 
are commonly distrustful, apt to mistake, and amplify,yac2!^e irascibiles, " testy, 
pettish, peevish, and ready to snarl upon every "^ small occasion, cum amicis- 
simis, and without a cause, datum vel non datuvfi, it will be scandalum acceptum. 
If they speak in jest, he takes it in good earnest. If they be not saluted, 
invited, consulted with, called to counsel, &c,, or that any respect, small com- 
pliment, or ceremony be omitted, they think themselves neglected, and con- 
temned; for a time that tortures them. If two talk together, discourse, 
whisper, jest, or tell a tale in general, he thinks presently they mean him, 
applies all to himself, de se putat omnia did. Or if they talk with him, he is 
ready to misconstrue every word they speak, and interpret it to the worst; he 
cannot endure any man to look steadily on him, speak to him almost, laugh, 
jest, or be familiar, or hem, or point, cough, or spit, or make a noise some- 
times, &c. ^ He thinks they laugh or point at him, or do it in disgrace of 
him, circumvent him, contemn him ; every man looks at him, he is pale, red, 
sweats for fear and anger, lest somebody should observe him. He works 
upon it, and long after this false conceit of an abuse troubles him. Montanus, 
consil. 22. gives instance in a melancholy Jew, that was Iracundior Adrid, 
so waspish and suspicious, tarn facile iratus, that no man could tell how to 
carry himself in his company. 

Inconstancy. '\ Inconstant they are in all their actions, vertiginous, rest- 
less, unapt to resolve of any business, they will and will not, persuaded to and 
fro upon every small occasion, or word spoken : and yet if once they be resolved, 
obstinate, hard to be reconciled. If they abhor, dislike, or distaste, once set- 
tled, though to the better by odds, by no counsel, or persuasion to be removed. 
Yet in most things wavering, irresolute, unable to deliberate, through fear, 
faciunt, et moxfacti poenitet (^Areteus), avari, et p>aulo post prodigi. Now pro- 
digal, and then covetous, they do, and by-and-by repent them of that which 
they have done, so that both ways they are troubled, whether they do or do 
not, want or have, hit or miss, disquieted of all hands, soon weary, and still 
seeking change, restless, I say, fickle, fugitive, they may not abide to tarry 
in one place long. 

2" Romse rus optans, absentem rusticus urbem 
Tollit ad astra " 

no company long, or to persevere in any action or business. 

« " Et similis regum pueris, pappare minutum 
Poscit, et iratus mamraaa lallare recusat." 

eftsoons pleased, and anon displeased, as a man that's bitten with fleas, or that 
cannot sleep turns to and fro in his bed, their restless minds are tossed and 
vary, they have no patience to read out a book, to play out a game or two, 
walk a mile, sit an hour, &c., erected and dejected in an instant; animated to 
undertake, and upon a word spoken again discouraged. 

Passionate.'] Extreme passionate, Quicquid volunt valde volunt; and 
what they desire, they do most furiously seek : anxious ever and very solicitous, 
distrustful, and timorous, envious, malicious, profuse one while, sparing ano- 

t Luget et semper tristatur, solitudinem amat, mortem sibi precatur, vitam propriam odio habet. " Facile 
in iram incidunt. Aret. * Ira sine causa, velocitas iriE. Savanarola, pract. major, velocitas irae signum. 

Avicenna, 1. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4. cap. 18. Angor sine causa. y Suspicio, diffldentia, symptomata, Crato 

Ep. Julio Alexandrio cons. 185 Scoltzii. ^ Hor. " At Rome, wishing tor the fields ; in the country, 

extolling the city to the skies." » Fers. Sat. 3. 18. " And like the children of nobility, require to eat pap, 
and, angry at the nurse, refuse her to sing lullaby." 



Mem. 1. Sabs. 2.] Symptoms of the Mind. 257 

ther, but most part covetous, muttering, repining, discontent, and still com- 
plaining, grudging, peevish, injuricu'ioni tenaces, ])vone to revenge, soon troubled, 
and most violent in all their imaginations, not affable in speech, or apt to vul- 
gar compliment, but surly, dull, sad, austere; cogitahundi still, very intent, 
and as ^Albertus Durer paints melancholy, like a sad woman leaning on her 
arm with fixed looks, neglected habit, &c., held therefore by some proud, soft, 
sottish, or half-mad, as the Abderites esteemed of Democritus : and yet of a 
deep reach, excellent apprehension, judicious, wise, and witty: for I am 
of that ''nobleman's mind, " Melancholy ad vanceth men's conceits, more than 
any humour whatsoever," improves their meditations more than any strong 
drink or sack. They are of profound judgment in some things, although in 
others non recte judicant inquieti, saith Fracastorius, lib. 2. delntell. And as 
Arculanus, c. 16. m 9. llhasis terms it. Judicium jjlerumque perversum. cor- 
rupti, cum judicant honesta inhonesia, et arnicitiam habent pro inimicitia : they 
count honesty dishonesty, friends as enemies, they will abuse their best friends, 
and dare nor offend their enemies. Cowards most part et ad inferendam in- 
juriam timidissimi, saith Cardan, lib. 8. cap. 4. de rerum varietate: loth to 
offend, and if they chance to overshoot themselves in word or deed : or any 
small business or circumstance be omitted, forgotten, they are miserably tor- 
mented, and frame a thousand dangers and inconveniences to themselves, ess 
7)iusca elephantem,!^ oxiGQ they conceit it: overjoyed with every good rumour, 
tale, or prosperous event, transported beyond themselves : with every small 
cross again, bad news, misconceived injury, loss, danger, afflicted beyond mea- 
sure, in great agony, perplexed, dejected, astonished, impatient, utterly un- 
done : fearful, suspicious of all. Yet again, many of them desperate hare- 
brains, rash, careless, fit to be assassins, as being void of all fear and sorrow, 
according to ^ Hercules de Saxonid, " Most audacious, and such as dare walk 
alone in the night, through deserts and dangerous places, fearing none." 

Amorous^ " They are prone to love," and '""easy to be taken; Proioensi ad 
aTn^'Vem et excandescentiam [Montaltics, cap. 21). quickly enamoured, and dote 
npon all, love one dearly, till they see another, and then dote on her, Ut hanc, 
et hanc, et illam, et omnes, the present moves most, and the last commonly they 
love best. Yet some again Anterotes, cannot endure the sight of a woman, 
ablior the sex, as that same melancholy ^duke of Muscovy, that was instantly 
sick if he came but in sight of them ; and that ^ Anchorite, that fell into a 
cold palsy when a woman was brought before him. 

Humorous.] Humorous they are beyond all measure, sometimes profusely 
laughing, extraordinarily merry, and then again weeping without a causa 
(which is familiar with many gentlewomen), groaning, sighing, pensive, sad, 
almost distracted, multa absurda fingunt, et a ratione aliena (saith ^Frambe- 
sarius), they feign many absurdities, vain, void of reason: one supposeth him- 
self to be a dog, cock, bear, horse, glass, butter, &c. He is a giant, a dwarf, 
as strong as an hundred men, a lord, duke, prince, &c. And if he be told he 
hath a stinking breath, a great nose, that he is sick, or inclined to such or such 
a disease, he believes it eftsoons, and perad venture by force of imagination 
will work it out. Many of them are immovable, and fixed in their conceits, 
others vary upon every object, heard or seen. If they see a stage-play, they 
run upon that a week after; if they hear music, or see dancing, they have nought 
but bagpipes in their brain; if they see a combat, they are all for arms. ^If 
abused, an abuse troubles them long after; if crossed, that cross, &c. E,estless 



bin his Dutch -vrork picture. " T-io^varcI, cap. 7. differ. d Tract, de mel. cap. 2. Noctu ambulant 

per sylvas, et loca periculosa, neminem timent. * Facile atnant. Altom. cBodine. *'Io. Major vitis 
patruin, fol. 202. Paulus Alabas Ercmita tanta solitudjie perseverat, ut nee vestem nee vultum mulierls 
liM-re possit, &c. s Consult, lib. 1. 17. Cons. ^ Generally as they are pleased or displeased, so are 

their continual cogitations pleasing or displeasing, • 

.s 



258 Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

in tlieir thoughts and actions, continually meditating, Velet cegfi somnia, vance 
finguntur species; more like dreams, than men awake, they fain a company of 
antic, fantastical conceits, they have most frivolous thoughts^ impossible to be 
effected; and sometimes think verily they hear and see present before their 
eyes such phantasms or goblins, they fear, suspect, or conceive, they still talk 
with, and follow them. In fine, cogitationes somniantibus similes, id vigilant, 
quod alii somniant cogitahundi : still, saith Avicenna, they wake, as others 
dream, and such for the most part are their imaginations and conceits, ' ab- 
surd, vain, foolish toys, yet they are ^ most curious and solicitous, continual, 
et supra modam, Rhasis, coni. lib. 1. cap. 9. prcemeditantur de aliqua re. As 
serious in a toy, as if it were a most necessary business, of great moment, im- 
portance, and still, still, still thinking of it : sceviunt in se, macerating them- 
selves. Though they do talk with you, and seem to be otherwise employed, 
and to your thinking very intent and busy, still that toy runs in their mind, 
that fear, that suspicion, that abuse, that jealousy, that agony, that vexation, 
that cross, that castle in the air, that crotchet, that whimsy, that fiction, that 
pleasant waking dream, whatsoever it is. JVec interrogant (saith ^ Fracas- 
torius) nee interrogatis rede respondent. They do not much heed what you 
say, their mind is on another matter; ask what you will, they do not attend, 
or much intend that business they are about, but forget themselves what 
they are saying, doing, or should otherwise say or do, whither they are going, 
distracted with their own melancholy thoughts. One laughs upon a sudden, 
another smiles to himself, a third frowns, calls, his lips go still, he acts with 
his hand as he walks, &c. 'Tis proper to all melancholy men, saith ""Mer- 
curialis, con. 11. "What conceit they have once entertained, to be most 
intent, violent, and continually about it." Invitus occurrit, do what they may 
they cannot be rid of it, against their wills they must think of it a thousand 
times over, Perpetuo 7iiolestantur nee oblivisci possunt, they are continually 
troubled with it, in company, out of company; at meat, at exercise, at all 
times and places, "^non desinunt ea, quce minime volunt, cogitare, if it be offen- 
sive especially, they cannot forget it, they may not rest or sleep for it, but 
still tormenting themselves, SysipJd saxum volvunt sibi ipsis, as °Bruner 
observes, Perp)etaa calamitas et iniserabile Jiagellum. 

JBashfidness.] ^Crato, "^Laurentius, and Fernelius, put bashfulness for an 
ordinary symptom, subrusticus pudor, or vitiosus pudor, is a thing which much 
haunts and torments them. If they have been misused, derided, disgraced, 
chidden, &c,, or by any perturbation of mind misaffected, it so far troubles 
them, that they become quite moped many times, and so disheartened, dejected, 
they dare not come abroad, into strange companies especially, or manage their 
ordinary affiirs, so childish, timorous, and bashful, they can look no man in 
the face; some are more disquieted in this kind, some less, longer some, others 
shorter, by fits, (fee, though some on the other side (according to '"Fracastorius) 
be inverecundi et psrtinaces, impudent and peevish. But most part they are 
very shamefaced, aad that makes them with Pet. Blesensis, Christopher Urs- 
wick, and many such, to refuse honours, offices and preferments, which some- 
times fall into their mouths, they cannot speak, or put forth themselves as 
others can, timor has, pudor impedit illos, timorousness and bashfulness hinder 
their proceedings, they are contented with their present estate, unwilling to 
undertake any office, and therefore never likely to rise. For that cause they 
seldom visit their friends, except some familiars : pauciloqui, of few words, 



J Omnes exercent vanse intensspque animi cogitationes, (N. Piso Bruel) et assidu^. k Curiosi de rebus 
minimis. Areteus. ' Lib. 2. de Intell. '" iloc melaMcholicis omnibus proprium, ut quas semel 

jmaginationes valde receperint, non facile rejiciant, sed liae etiam vel invitis semper occm-rant. " Tullius 
de Senect. <> Consil. med. pro Hypochondriaco. p Consil. 43. i Cap. 5. "^ Lib. 2. 

de InteU. 



Mem. 1. Sabs. 2.] Symptoms of the Mind. 259 

and oftentimes wholly silent. * Frambeserius, a Frencbman, had two such 
jDatients, omnino taciturnos, their friends could not get them to speak : Roderi- 
cus a Fonseca, consult, tom. 2. S5. consil. gives instance in a young man, of 
twenty-seven years of age, that was frequently silent, bashful, moped, solitary, 
that would not eat his meat, or sleep, and yet again by fits apt to be angry, &c. 
Solitariness.'] Most part they are, as Plater notes, deddes, taciturni, cegre 
impulsi nee nisi coacti 2^rocedunt, (he , they v/ill scarce be compelled to do that 
which concerns them, though it be for their good, so diffilent, so dull, of small 
or no compliment, unsociable, hard to be acquainted with, especially of stran- 
gers; they had rather write their minds than speak, and above all things love 
solitariness. Oh voluptcUem, an oh timorem soli sunt ? Are they so solitary for 
pleasure (one asks) or pain? for both ; yet I rather think for fear and sorrow, &c. 

*"Hinc raetuunt ctipiuntque, dolent fiigiuntque, nee " Hence 'th they grieve and fear, avoiding light, 

auras And shut themselves in prison dark from sight." 

Respiciunt, clausi tenebris, et carcere creco." 

As Bellerophon in "Homer, 

"Qui raiser in sylvis moerens errabat opacis, I " That ^randered in the woods, sad, all alone. 

Ipse suum cor edens, hominum vestigia vitans." j Forsaking men's society, malung great moan." 

They delight in floods and waters, desert places, to walk alone in orchards, 
gardens, private walks, back lanes, averse from company, as Diogenes in his 
tub, or Timon Misanthropus, ^they abhor all companions at last, even their 
nearest acquaintances and most familiar friends, for they have a conceit (I say) 
every man observes them, will deride, laugh to scorn, or misuse them, confining 
themselves therefore wholly to their private houses ovG\\^m\)&o^,fagiunthomines 
sine causa (saith E,hasis) et odio haoent, cOiit. /. 1. c. 9. they will diet themselves, 
feed and live alone. It was one of the cliiefest reasons why the citizens of 
Abdera suspected Democritus to be melancholy and mad, because that, as 
Hippocrates related in his epistle to Philopoemenes, "^he forsook the city, 
liv^ed in groves and hollow trees, upon a green bank by a brook side, or con- 
fluence of waters all day long, and all night." Quce quidem (saith he) plurimum 
atra hile vexatis et melancliolicis eveniunt, deserta frequentant, hominumque con- 
gressum aversantur; '^wliich is an ordinary thing v/ith melancholy men. The 
Egyptians therefore in their hieroglyphics expressed a melancholy man by a 
hare sitting in her form, as being a most timorous and solitary creature, Pierius, 
Hieroglyph. I. 12. But this, and all precedent symj^toms, are more or less 
apparent, as the humour is intended or remitted, hardly perceived in some, or 
not at all, most manifest in others. Childish in some, terrible in others; to be 
derided in one, pitied or admired in another ; to him by fits, to a second conti- 
nuate : and howsoever these symptoms be common and incident to all persons, 
yet they are the more remarkable, frequent, furious and violent in melancholy 
men. To speak in a word, there is nothing so vain, absurd, ridiculous, extra- 
vagant, impossible, incredible, so monstrous a chimsera, so prodigious and 
strange, ^such as painters and poets durst not attempt, which they will not 
really fear, feign, suspect and imagine unto themselves : and that which ""Lod. 
Viv. said in a jest of a silly country fellow, that killed his ass for drinking up 
the moon, ut lunam mundo redder et, you may truly say of them in earnest ; 
they will act, conceive all extremes, contrarieties, and contradictions, and that 
in infinite varieties. Melancholici plane incredihilia sibi persuadent, ut vix 
omnibus soicidis duo reperti sint, qui idem imaginati sint [Erastus de Lamiis)., 
scarce two of two thousand that concur in the same symptoms. The tower of 

"Consult. 15. et 16. lib. 1, 'Virg. Mn. 6 ° Iliad. 3. ^ Si malum exasperetur, homines odio habent 
et solitaria petunt. y Democritus solet noctes et dies apud se degere, plerumque autem in speluncis, sub 
amoenis arborum umbi'is vel in tenebris, et mollibus lierbis, vel ad aquarura crebra et qiiieta flueuta, &e. 
z Gaudet tenebris, aliturque dolor. Ps. Ixii. Vigilavi et factus sum velut nycticorax in domicilio, passer 
solitarius in teraplo. » Et quae vix audet fabula, monstra parit. i>Iq cap. 18. 1. 10. de civ. dei, Lunam 
ab Asino epotam videns. 



260 Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

Babel never yielded such confusion of tongues, as the chaos of melancholy 
doth variety of symptoms. There is in all melancholy similitudo dissimilis, 
like men's faces, a disagreeing likeness still ; and as in a river we swim in the 
same place, though not in the same numerical water; as the same instrument 
affords several lessons, so the same disease yields diversity of symptoms. 
Which howsoever they be diverse, intricate, and hard to be confined, I will 
adventure yet in such a vast confusion and generality to bring them into 
some order; and so descend to particulars. 

SuBSECT. III. — Particular Symptoms from the influence of Stars, parts of the 

Body, and Humours. 

Some men have peculiar symptoms, according to their temperament and 
crisis, which they had fuom the stars and those celestial influences, variety of 
wits and dispositions, as Anthony Zara contends, Anat. ingen. sect. 1. memh. 
11, 12, 13, 14, plurimum irritant infuentice ccelestes, unde cientur animi cegri- 
tudines et morhi corporu7)%. ''One saith, diverse diseases of the body and mind 
proceed from their influences, "^as I have already proved out of Ptolemy, Pon- 
tanus, Lemnius, Cardan, and others, as they are principal significators of man- 
ners, diseases, mutually irradiated, or lords of the geniture, &c. Ptolomeus 
in his centiloquy, Hermes, or whosoever else the author of that tract, attributes 
all these symptoms, which are in melancholy men, to celestial influences : which 
opinion, Mercurialis de affect, lib. cap. 10. rejects; but, as I say, °Jovianus 
Pontanus and others stiffly defend. That some are solitary, dull, heavy, churl- 
ish ; some again blithe, buxom, light, and merry, they ascribe wholly to the 
stars. As if Saturn be predominant in his nativity, and cause melancholy in 
his temperature, then ^he shall be very austere, sullen, churlish, black of colour, 
profound in his cogitations, full of cares, miseries, and discontents, sad and 
fearful, always silent, solitary, still delighting in husbandry, in woods, orchards, 
gardens, rivers, ponds, pools, dark walks and close: Cogitationes sunt velle 
cedificare, velle arbores plantare, agros colere, d'c. To catch birds, fishes, &c., 
still contriving and musing of such matters. If Jupiter domineers, they are more 
ambitious, still meditating of kingdoms, magistracies, offices, honours, or that 
they are princes, potentates, and how they would carry themselves, &c. If 
Mars, they are all for wars, brave combats, monomachies, testy, choleric, hare- 
brain, rash, furious, and violent in their actions. They will feign themselves 
victors, commanders, are passionate and satirical in their speeches, great brag- 
gers, ruddy of colour. And though they be poor in show, vile and base, yet 
like Telephus and Peleus in the ^ poet, Amp>ullas jactant et sesquipedalia verba, 
"forget their swelling and gigantic words," their mouths are full of myriads, 
and tetrarchs at their tongues' end. If the sun, they will be lords, emperors, in 
conceit at least, and monarchs, give offices, honours, &c. If Yenus, they are 
still courting of their mistresses, and most apt to love, amorously given, they 
seem to hear music, plays, see fine pictures, dancers, merriments, and the like. 
Ever in love, and dote on all they see. Mercurialists are solitary, much in 
contemplation, subtile, poets, philosophers, and musing most part about such 
matters. If the moon have a hand, they are all for peregrinations, sea voyages, 
much affected with travels, to discourse, read, meditate of such things; wan- 
dering in their thoughts, diverse, much delighting in waters, to fish, fowl, &c. 

Bufc the most immediate symptoms proceed from the temperature itself, and 
the organical parts, as head, liver, spleen, meseraic veins, heart, womb, sto- 
mach, &c., and most especially from distemperature of spirits (which, as'' Her- 
cules de Saxonia contends, are wholly immaterial), or from the four humours in 

Velc. 1. 4 c. 5. d Sect. 2. Memb. 1 . Subs. 4. ^De reb. coelest. lib. 10. c. 13. f I. de Indagine 

'Goclenius. s Hor. de art. poet. *' Tract. 7. de Melan. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] Symptoms of the Stars, Humours, ^c, 261 

those seats, whether they be hot or cold, natiu'al, unnatural, innate or adventi- 
tious, intended or remitted, simple or mixed, their diverse mixtures, and several 
adustions, combinations, which may be as diversely varied, as those 'four first 
qualities in ''Clavius, and produce as many several symptoms and monstrous 
fictions as wine doth effect, which as Andreas Bachius observes, lib. 3. de vino, 
cap. 20. are infinite. Of greater note be these. 

If it be natural melancholy, as Lod, Mercatus, lib. 1. cap. 17. de melan. 
T, Bright, c. 16. hath largely described, either of the" spleen, or of the veins, 
faulty by excess of quantity, or thickness of substance, it is a cold and dry 
humour, as Montanus affirms, consil. 2Q. the parties are sad, timorous and 
fearful. Prosper Calenus, in his book de atra bile, will have them to be more 
stupid than ordinar}^, cold, heavy, dull, solitary, sluggish ; Si Tnidtam atrani 
bilem etfrigidam, hcibent. Hercules de Saxonia, c. 19. I. 7. "^holds these that 
are naturally melancholy, to be of a leaden colour or black," and so doth 
Guianerius, c. 3. tract. 15. and such as think themselves dead many times, or 
that they see, talk with black men, dead men, spirits and goblins frequently, 
if it be in excess. These symptoms vary according to the mixture of those 
four humours adust, which is unnatural melancholy. For as Trallianus hath 
written, cap. 16, I. 7. '"''There is not one cause of this melancholy, nor one 
humour which begets, but diverse diversely intermixed, from whence proceeds 
this variety of symptoms:" and those varying again as they are hot or cold. 
"°Cold melancholy (saith Benedic. Vittorius Faventinus pract. mag.) is a 
cause of dotage, and more mild symptoms; if hot or more adust, of more violent 
passions, and furies," Fracastorius, I. 2. de intellect, will have us to consider 
well of it, " "with what kind of melancholy every one is troubled, for it much 
avails to know it; one is enraged by fervent heat, another is possessed by sad 
and cold; one is fearful, shamefaced; the other impudent and bold; asAjax, 
A)-ma rapit superosque farens in proilia poscit: quite mad or tending to mad- 
ness: Nunc hos, nunc impetit illos. Bellerophon on the other side, solis errat 
inale sanus in agns, wanders alone in the woo'ls; one despairs, weeps, and is 
weary of his life, another laughs, &c. All which variety is j^roduced from the 
several degrees of heat and cold, which ^ Hercules de Saxonia will have wholly 
proceed from the distemperature of spirits alone, animal especially, and those 
immaterial, the next and immediate causes of melancholy, as they are hot, 
cold, dry, moist, and from their agitation proceeds that diversity of symptoms, 
which he reckons up in the '^thirteenth chap, of his Tract of Melancholy, and 
that largely through every part. Others will have them come from the diverse 
adustion of the four humours, which in this unnatural melancholy, by corrup- 
tion of blood, adust choler, or melancholy natural, "''by excessive distemper 
of heat turned, in comparison of the natural, into a sharp lye by force of adus- 
tion, cause, according to the diversity of their matter, diverse and strange 
symptoms," which T. Bright reckons up in his following chapter. So doth 
* Arculanus, according to the four principal humours adust, and many others. 

For example, if it proceed from phlegm (which is seldom and not so fre- 
quently as the rest), Ht stirs up dull symptoms, and a kind of stupidity, or 
impassionate hurt : they are sleepy, saith "Savanarola, dull, slow, cold, blockish, 
ass-like, Asininam melajicholiam, ""Melancthon calls it, "they are much given 
to weeping, and delight in v/aters, ponds, pools, rivers, fishing, fowling," &c. 

'IltiTTiiduTn, calidum, frigidum, siccum. >« Com. in 1. c. Johannis de Sacrobosco. ^ Si residefc 

melancholia naturalis, tales plumbei culoris aut nigri, stupidi, solitarii. m Xon una melancholias causa 

est, nee unus humor vitii parens, sed plures, et alius aliter niutatus, unde non omnes eadem sentiunt symp- 
tomata. n Humor frigidus delirii causa, humor calidus faroris. o Multum refert qua quisque melan- 

chulia teneatur, hunc fervens et accensa agitat, ilium tristis et fVigens occupat : hi timidi, illi inverecundi, 
intrepidi, &c. pCap. 7. et 8. Tract, de Mel. qSigna melancholi:^ ex intemperie et agitatione spirituum 
sine materia. 'T. Bright, cap. 16. Treat. Mel. sCap. 16. ii. 9. Rhasis. 'Bright, c. 16. "Pract. 

major. Somnians, piger, frigidus. iDe anima, cap. de humor. Si a Phlegmate semper in aquis fere sunt, 
et circa fluvios plorant multum. 



2G2 Syniptains of Melanclioly. [Part. 1, Sec. 3. 

{Arnoldus, hreviar. 1. cap. 18.) The j are ^pale of colour, slothful, apt to sleep, 
heavy; ''much troubled with head-ache, continual meditation, and muttering 
to themselves ; they dream of waters, ''that they are in danger of drowning, and 
fear such things, Rhasis. They are fatter than others that are melancholy, of 
a muddy complexion, apter to spit, ^ sleep, more troubled with rheum than the 
rest, and have their eyes still fixed on the ground. Such a patient had Her- 
cules de Saxonia, a widow in Venice, that was fat and very sleepy still; Chris- 
tophorus a Yega another affected in the same sort. If it be inveterate or 
violent, the symptoms are more evident, they plainly denote and are ridiculous 
to others, in all their gestures, actions, speeches ; imagining impossibilities, as 
he in Christophorus h. Yega, that thought he was a tun of wii)e, *^and that Sien- 
nois, that resolved within himselfnot to piss, for fear he should drown all the town. 

If it proceed from blood adust, or that there be a mixture of blood in it, 
" ^ such are commonly ruddy of complexion, and high-coloured," according 
to Salust Salvianus, and Hercules de Saxonia. And as Savanarola, Yittorius 
Faventinus Emper. farther adds, "®the veins of their eyes be red, as well as 
their faces." They are much inclined to laughter, witty and merry, conceited 
in discourse, pleasant, if they be not far gone, much given to music, dancing, 
and to be in women's company. They meditate wholly on such things, and 
think ^they see or hear plays, dancing, and such-like sports (free from all 
fear and sorrow, as ^Hercules de Saxonia supposeth). If they be more strongly 
possessed with this kind of melancholy, Arnoldus adds, Breviar., lib. 1. cap. 
18., like him of Argos in the Poet, that sate laughing ^all day long, as if 
he had been at a theatre. Such another is mentioned by ' Aristotle, living 
at Abydos, a town of Asia Minor, that would sit after the same fashion, as if 
he had been upon a stage, and sometimes act himself ; now clap his hands, and 
laugh, as if he had been well pleased with the sight. AVolfius relates of a 
country fellow called Brunsellius, subject to this hamour, "^Hhat being by 
chance at a sermon, saw a woman fall off from a form half asleep, at which 
object most of the company laughed, but he for his part v/as so much moved, 
that for three whole days after he did nothing but laugh, by which means he was 
much weakened, and worse a long time following." Such a one was old 
Sophocles, and Democritus himself had hilare delirium, much in this vein. 
Laurentius, cap. 3. de melan. thinks this kind of melancholy, which is a little 
adust with some mixture of blood, to be that which Aristotle meant, when he 
said melancholy men of all others are most witty, which causeth many times 
a di\T.ne ravishment, and a kind of enthusiasmus, which stirreth them up to be 
excellent philosophers, poets, prophets, &c. Mercurialis consil. 110. gives 
instance in a young man his patient, sanguine melancholy, "k)f a great wit, 
and excellently learned." 

If it arise from choler adast, they are bold and impudent, and of a more 
harebrain disposition, apt to quarrel, and think of such things, battles, com- 
bats, and their manhood, furious; impatient in discourse, stiff, irrefragable and 
prodigious in their tenets ; and if they be moved, most violent, outrageous, 
"" ready to disgrace, provoke any, to kill themselves and others; Arnoldus adds, 
stark mad by fits, " " they sleep little, their urine is subtile and fiery. (Guia- 
nerius.) In their fits you shall hear them speak all manner of languages, 

y Pigra nascitur ex colore pallido et albo, Here, de Saxon. « Savanarola. aMuros cadere in se, ant 
sabniergi timent, cum torpore et segnitie et fluvlos amant tales, Alexand. c. 16. lib. 7. •> Semper 

fere dormit somnolenta c. 16. 1.7. <= Laurentius. ^ Cap. 6. de mel. Si a sanguine, venit rubedo 

oculorura et faciei, plurimus risus. « VeniB oculorum sunt rubrcB, vide an praecesserit vini et aromatum 

usus, et frequens balneum, Trallian. lib. 1. 16. an priecesserit mora sub sole, f Kidet patiens si a sanguine, 
putat se videre choreas, musicam audire, ludos, &c. e Cap. 2. Tract, de Melan, ^ Hor. ep. lib, 2. 

quidam baud ignobilis Argis, &c. - Lib. de reb. mir. ^ Cum inter concionandum mulier dormiens e 

subsellio caderet, et omnes reliqui qui id viderent, riderent, tribiis p;)st diebus, &c. ' Juvenis et non 

vulgaris eruditionis. >" Si Ix ebolera, furibundi interliciunt se et alios, putant se videre pugnas. " Uriiia 
Bubtilis et iguea, parum dormiuiit. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] Symptoms of the Stars, Humours, d'c. 263 

Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, that never were taught or knew them before." 
Apponensis in com. in Pro. sec. 30. speaks of a mad woman that spake excel- 
lent good Latin : and E,hasis knew another, that could prophesy in her fit, and 
foretel things truly to come. ° Guianerius had a patient could make Latin 
verses when the moon was combust, otherwise illiterate. Avicenna and some 
of his adherents will have these symptoms, when they happen, to proceed from 
the devil, and that they are rather dcemoniaci, possessed, than mad or melan- 
choly, or both together, as Jason Pratensis thinks, Immiscent se mali genii, 
&c., but most ascribe it to the humour, which opinion Mental tus, cap. 2 L stiffly 
maintains, confuting Avicenna and the rest, referring it wholly to the quality 
and disposition of the humour and subject. Cardan de rerum var. lib., 8. cap. 
10. holds these men of all others fit to be assassins, bold, hardy, fierce, and 
adventurous, to undertake any thing by reason of their choler adust. ^This 
humour, says he, prepares them to endure death itself, and all manner of tor- 
ments with invincible courage, and 'tis a wonder to see with what alacrity 
they will undergo such tortures," ut supra naturam res videatur : he ascribes 
this generosity, fury, or rather stupidity, to this adustion of choler and melan- 
choly : but I take these rather to be mad or desperate, than properly melan- 
choly : for commonly this humour so adust and hot, degenerates into madness. 

If it come from melancholy itself adust, those men, saith Avicenna, " "^are 
usually sad and solitary, and that continually, and in excess, more than ordi- 
narily suspicious, more fearful, and have long, sore, and most corrupt imagi- 
nations ;" cold and black, bashful, and so solitary, that as "^ Arnoldus writes, 
" they will endure no company, they dream of graves still, and dead men, 
and think themselves bewitched or dead:" if it be extreme, they think they 
hear hideous noises, see and talk " ^ with black men, and converse familiarly 
with devils, and such strange chimeras and visions" (Gordonius), or that they 
are possessed by them, that somebody talks to them, or within them. Tales 
Tnelancholici plerumque dcemoniaci, Montaltus, consil. 26. ex Avicenna. "Vales- 
cus de Taranta had such a woman in cure, "*that thought she had to do with 
the devil : " and Gentilis Fulgosus qucest. 55. writes that he had a melancholy 
friend, that ""had a black man in the likeness of a soldier" still following 
him wheresoever he was. Laurentius, cap. 7., hath many stories of such as 
have thought themselves bewitched by their enemies; and some that would 
eat no meat as being dead. ^ Anno 1550 an advocate of Paris fell into such 
a melancholy fit, that he believed verily he was dead, he could not be per- 
suaded otherwise, or to eat or drink, till a kinsman of his, a scholar of 
Bourges, did eat before him dressed like a corse. The story, saith Serres, was 
acted in a comedy before Charles the Ninth. Some think they are beasts, 
wolves, hogs, and cry like dogs, foxes, bray like asses, and low like kine, as 
King Prsetus' daughters. ^ Hildesheim, spice/. 2. de mania, hath an example 
of a Dutch baron so aflected, and Trincavellius, lib. 1. consil. 11., another of 
a nobleman in his country, "''that thought he v/as certainly a beast, and 
would imitate most of their voices," with many such symptoms, which may 
properly be reduced to this kind. 

If it proceed from the several combinations of these four humours, or spirits, 
Here, de Saxon, adds hot, cold, dry, moist, dark, confused, settled, con- 
stringed, as it participates of matter, or is without matter, the symptoms are 
likewise mixed. One thinks himself a giant, another a dwarf; one is heavy 

o Tract. 15. c. 4. P Ad hjec perpstranda furore rapti ducuntur, crnciatus quosvis tolerant, et mortem, 

et furore exacerbato audent et ad suppliciaplusirritautur, rairum est quantam hal)eant in tonnentis patien- 
tiam. q Tales plus c.'eterls timent, et continue tristantur, valde suspiciosi, solitudinem diligunt, corrnptis- 
siraas habent imaginationes, &c. f Si a melancholia adusta, tristes, de sepulchris somniant, timent ne 

fascinentur, putant se mortuos, aspici nolunt. ^ videntur sibi videre monachos nigros et dajmones, et 

suspenses et mortuos. * Quavis nocte se cum dremone coire piitavit. " Semper fere vidisse militem 

nigrum pr£esentem. ^ Anthony ile Verdeur. >' Quidam mugitus bourn ajniulantur, et pecora se putant, 
ut PrjBti filiie. ^ Bare quidam mugitus bourn, et rugitus asiuorron, et aliorum aninialium voces effingit. 



2G4 Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

as lead, another is as llglit as a feather. Marcellus Donatus, I. 2. cap. 41. 
makes mention out of Seneca, of one Senecchio, a rich man, " ^ that thought 
himself and every thing else he had, great : great wife, great horses, could not 
abide little things, bat would have great pots to drink in, great hose, and 
great shoes bigger than his feet." Like her in '' Trallianus, that supposed 
she " could shake all the world with her finger," and was afraid to clinch her 
hand together, lest she should crush the world like an apple in pieces : or him 
in Galen, that thought he was ° Atlas, and sustained heaven with his shoul- 
ders. Another thinks himself so little, that he can creep into a mouse-hole: 
one fears heaven will fall on his head: a second is a cock; and such a one, 
^ Guianerius saith he saw at Padua, that would clap his hand3 together and 
crow. ® Another thinks he is a nightingale, and therefore sings all the night 
long; another he is all glass, a pitcher, and will therefore let nobody come 
near him, and such a one ^Laurentius gives out upon his credit, that he knew 
in France. Christophorus a Yega, cap. 3., I. 14, Skenckius and Marcellus 
Donatus, I. 2. cap. 1. have many such examples, and one amongst the rest of 
a baker in Ferrara, that thought he was composed of butter, and durst not 
sit in the sun, or come near the fire for fear of being melted : of another that 
thought he was a case of leather, stuffed with wind. Some laugh, weep; some 
are mad, some dejected, moped, in much agony, some by fits, others conti- 
nuate, &c. Some have a corrupt ear, they think they hear music, or some 
hideous noise as their phantasy conceives, corrupt eyes, some smelling : some 
one sense, some another. ^ Lewis the Eleventh had a conceit every thing did 
stink about him, all the odoriferous perfumes they could get, would not ease 
him, but still he smelled a filthy stink. A melancholy French poet in ^ Lau- 
rentius being sick of a fever, and troubled with waking, by his physicians was 
appointed to use unguentum populeum to anoint his temples; but he so dis- 
tasted the smell of it, that for many years after, all that came near him he 
imagined to scent of it, and would let no man talk with him but aloof off, or 
wear any new clothes, because he thought still they smelled of it; in all other 
things wise and discreet, he would talk sensibly, save only in this. A gentle- 
man in Limousin, saith Anthony Verdeur, was persuaded he had but one 
leg, affrighted by a wild boar, that by chance struck him on the leg; he could 
not be satisfied his leg was sound (in all other things well) until two Fran- 
ciscans by chance coming that way, fully removed him from the conceit. SeU 
abunde fdhularum cmdivimus, — enough of story-telling. 



SuBSECT. lY. — Symptoms from Education, Custom, Continuance of Time, our 
Condition, 'mixed loith other Diseases, by Fits, Inclination, (he. 

Another great occasion of the variety of these symptoms proceeds from 
custom, discipline, education, and several inclinations, " ' this humour will 
imprint in melancholy men the objects most answerable to their condition of 
life, and ordinary actions, and dispose men according to their several studies 
and callings." If an ambitious man become melancholy, he forthwith thinks 
lie is a king, an emperor, a monarch, and walks alone, pleasing himself with 
a vain hope of some future preferment, or present as he supposeth, and withal 
acts a lord's part, takes upon him to be some statesman or magnifico, makes 
conges, gives entertainment, looks big, &c. Francisco Sansovino records of 
a melancholy man in Cremona, that would not be induced to believe but that 



a Omnia magna putabat, uxorem magnam, grandes eqiios, abhorrult omnia parva, magna pocula, et 
calceamenta pedibus majora. ^ Lib. 1. cap. 16. putavit se uno digito posse totum mundum contei'ere. 

eSustinet liumeris eoelum cum Atlante. Alii coeli ruinam liment. ** Cap. 1. Tract. 15. alius se gallum 

putat, alius lusciniam. e Tiullianus. ^ Cap. 7, de rnel. s Anthony de Yerdeui-. '^ Cap. 7 de mel. 
»X.aui-entius, cap. 6. 



Mem. 1. Subs, -i.] Symptoms from Custom. 2G5 

he was pope, gave pardons, made cardinals, &c. ^' Cliristopliorus a Vega 
makes mention of another of his acquaintance, that thought he was a king, 
driven from his kingdom, and was very anxious to recover his estate. A 
covetoiis person is still conversant about j^urchasing of lands and tenements, 
plotting in his mind how to compass such and such manors, as if he were 
already lord of, and able to go through with it; all he sees is his, re or s/;e, 
he hath devoured it in hope, or else in conceit esteems it his own: like him 
in ^Athenseus, that thought all the ships in the haven to be his own. A las- 
civious inamorato plots all the day long to please his mistress, acts and struts, 
and carries himself as if she were in presence, still dreaming of her, as Pam- 
])hilus of his Glycerin m, or as some do in their morning sleep. "'Marcellus 
Donatus knew such a gentlewoman in Mantua, called Elionora Meliorina, that 
constantly believed she was married to a king, and " " would kneel down and 
talk with him, as if he had been there present with his associates ; and if she 
had found by chance a piece of glass in a muck-hill or in the street, she would 
say that ifc was a jewel sent from her lord and husband." If devout and reli- 
gious, he is all for fasting, prayer, ceremonies, alms, interpretations, visions, 
prophecies, revelations, °lie is inspired by the Holy Ghost, full of the Spirit: 
one while he is saved, another while damned, or still troubled in mind for his 
sins, the devil v/ill surely have him, &c. more of these in the third partition of 
love-melancholy. ^ A scholar's mind is busied about his studies, he applauds 
himself for what he hath done, or hopes to do, one while fearing to be out in. 
his next exercise, another while contemning all censures; envies one, emulates 
another; or else with indefatigable pains and meditation, consumes himself. 
So of the rest, all which vary according to the more remiss and violent im- 
pression of the object, or as the humour itself is intended or remitted. For 
some are so gently melancholy, that in all their carriage, and to the outward 
apprehension of others it can hardly be discerned, yet to them an intolerable 
burden, and not to be endured. '^Qucedam occulta qucedam manifesta, some 
signs are manifest and obvious to all at all times, some to few or seldom, or 
hardly perceived ; let them keep their own counsel, none will take notice or 
suspect them. They do not express in outward show their depraved imagi- 
nations," as ''Hercules de Saxonia observes, " but conceal them wholly to 
themselves, and are very wise men, as I have often seen; some fear, some do 
not fear at all, as such as think tliemselves kings or dead, some have more 
signs, some fewer, some great, some less, some vex, fret, still fear, grieve, 
lament, suspect, laugh, sing, weep, chafe, &c. by fits (as I have said) or more 
during and permanent." Some dote in one thing, are most childish, and ridi- 
culous, and to be wondered at in that, and yet for all other matters most dis- 
creet and wise. To some it is in disposition, to another inhabit; and as they 
write of heat and cold, we may say of this humour, one is inelancholicus ad 
octo, a second two degrees less, a third half-way. 'Tis superparticular, sesqui- 
altera, sesquitertia, and superbipartiens tertias, quintas Jllelancholice, d'c, all 
those geometrical proportions are too little to express it. " ® It comes to 
many by fits, and goes; to others it is continuate: many (saith *Faventinus) 
in spring and fall only are molested, some once a year, as that Roman "Galen 
speaks of: ^one, at the conjunction of the moon alone, or some unfortunate 
aspects, at such and such set hours and times, like the sea-tides, to some 

^Lib. 3. cap. 14. qui se regem putavit regno expulsum. ' Dipnosophist. lib. Thrasilaus putavit omnes 
naves in Pireuui portum appellentes snas esse. ™ De hist. Med. mirab. lib. 2. cap. 1. n Geiiibus 

flexis loqui cum illo voluit, et adstare jam turn putavit, etc. oGordonius, quod sit propheta, et inflatus 

a spirit'! sancto. p Qui forensibus causis insadat, nil nisi arresta cogitat, et supplices libellos, alius non 

nisi versiis facit. P. Forestus. i Gordonius. ' Verbo non exprimunt, nee opere, sed alta mente 

recondunt, et sunt viri prudentissimi, quos ego sajpe novi, cum multi sint sine timore, ut qui se reges et 
mortuos putant, pliira sigua quidam habent, pauciora, majora, minora. « Trallianus, lib. 1. 16. alii 

.intervalla qusedam habent, ut etiam eonsueta administrent, alii in continuo delirio sunt, &c. t Prac. mag. 
Vere tautum et autumno. " Lib. de humoribas. ^ Guiauerius. 



266 Symptoms of M eland lohj. [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

women when they be with child, as ^Plater notes, never otherwise: to othere 
'tis settled and fixed : to one led about and variable still by that ignis fatuus 
of phantasy, like an arthritis or running gout, 'tis here and there, and in every 
joint, always molesting some part or other; or if the body be free, in a myriad 
of forms exercising the mind, A second once peradventure in his life hath a 
most grievous fit, once in seven years, once in five years, even to the extremity 
of madness, death, or dotage, and that upon some feral accident or perturba- 
tion, terrible object, and that for a time, never jDcrhaps so before, never after. 
A third is moved upon all such troublesome objects, cross fortune, disaster, and 
violent passions, otherwise free, once troubled in three or four years, A 
fourth, if things be to his mind, or he in action, well pleased, in good com- 
pany, is most jocund, and of a good complexion: if idle, or alone, a la mort, 
or carried away wholly with pleasant dreams and phantasies, but if once 
crossed and displeased, 

" Pectore concipiet nil nisi triste suo ; " | " He will imagine naught save sadness in his heart ; " 

his countenance is altered on a sudden, his heart heavy, irksome thoughts 
crucify his soul, and in an instant he is moped or weary of his life, he will 
kill himself A fifth complains in his youth, a sixth in his middle age, the 
last in his old age. 

Generally thus much we may conclude of melancholy; that it is ''most plea- 
sant at first, I say, mentis gratissimus error^^ a most delightsome humour, to 
be alone, dwell alone, walk alone, meditate, lie in bed whole days, dreaming 
awake as it were, and frame a thousand fantastical imaginations unto them- 
selves. They are never better pleased than when they are so doing, they are 
in paradise for the time, and cannot well endure to be interrupt; with him in 
the poet, ^^;o^ me occidistis, amid, non servdstis, ait ? you have undone him, he 
complains if you trouble him : tell him what inconvenience will follow, what 
will be the event, all is one, caQiis ad vomitum, '''tis so pleasant he cannot 
refrain. He may thus continue peradventure many years by reason of a strong 
temperature, or some mixture of business, which may divert his cogitations : 
bub at the last Icesa imaginatio, his phantasy is crazed, and now habituated to 
such toys, cannot but work still like a fate, the scene alters upon a sudden, 
fear and sorrow supplant those pleasing thoughts, suspicion, discontent, and 
perpetual anxiety succeed in their places ; so by little and little, by that shoeing- 
horn of idleness, and voluntary solitariness, melancholy this feral fiend is 
drawn on, ''et quantum vertice ad auras jEthereas, tantum radice in Tartar a 
tendit, " extending up, by its branches, so far towards Heaven, as, by its roots, 
it does down towards Tartarus;" it was not so delicious at first, as now it is 
bitter and harsh; a cankered soul macerated with cares and discontents, 
toidium vita}, impatience, agony, inconstancy, irresolution, precipitate them unto 
unspeakable miseries. They cannot endure company, light, or life itself, some 
imfit for action, and the like. "^ Their bodies are lean and dried up, withered, 
ugly, their looks harsh, very dull, and their souls tormented, as they are more 
or less entangled, as the humour hath been intended, or according to the con- 
tinuance of time they have been troubled. 

To discern all which symptoms the better, ^Phasis the Arabian makes three 
degrees of them. The first is,/alsa cogitatio, false conceits and idle thoughts: 
to misconstrue and amplify, aggravating every thing they conceive or fear; the 
second is,/also cogitata loqui, to talk to themselves, or to use inarticulate incon- 
dite voices, speeches, obsolete gestures, and plainly to utter their minds and 
conceits of their hearts, by their words and actions, as to laugh, v»'eep, to be 
silent, not to sleep, eat their meat, &c. : the third is to put in practice that 

y De mentis alienat. cap. 3. * Levinus Lemnins, Jason Pratensis, blanda ab initio. * " A most 

agreeable mental delusion." "Hor. i> FaciJis descensus Averni. ^Virg. *! Corpus cadaverosum. 
I'si. livii. cariosa est f'acies mea pras segritudine animai. « Lib. U. ad Almansorem. 



4.] Symptjms from Oustom. 2G7 

whicli they ^thiuk or speak. Savanarola, Rub. 11. Tract. 8. cap, 1. decegrUu- 
dine, confirms as iiiucli, "^vvheii lie begins to express tliat in words, which he 
conceives in his heart, or talks idly, or goes from one thing to another," which 
^Gordonius calls nee caput hahentia nee caudam (''having neither head nor 
tail"), he is in the middle way: "'but when he begins to act it likewise, and 
to put his fopperies in execution, he is then in the extent of melancholy, or 
madness itself." This progress of melancholy you shall easily observe in them 
that have been so affected, they go smiling to themselves at first, at length 
they laugh out; at first solitary, at last they can endure no company: or if 
they do, they are now dizzard^3, past sense and shame, quite moped, they care 
not what they say or do, all their actions, words, gestures, are farious or ridi- 
culous. At first his mind is troubled, he doth not attend what is said, if you 
tell him a tale, he cries at last, what said you? but in the end he mutters to 
himself, as old women do many times, or old men when they sit alone, upon a 
sudden they laugh, whoop, halloo, or run away, and swear they see or hear 
players, ^devils, hobgoblins, ghosts, strike, or strut, &c., grow humorous in 
the end : like him in the poet, soipe ducentos, scepe decern servos (" at one 
time followed by two hundred servants, at another only by ten"), he will 
dress himself, and undress, careless at last, grows insensible, stupid, or mad. 
^ He howls like a wolf, barks like a dog, and raves like Ajax and Orestes, 
hears music and outcries, vrhich no man else hears. As '"^ he did whom 
Amatus Lusitanus mention eth cent. 3, cura. 55, or that woman in "^ Springer, 
that spake many languages, and said she vvas possessed : that farmer in ° Pros- 
per Calenus, that disputed and discoursed learnedly in philosophy and astro- 
nomy with Alexander Achilles his master, at Bologna, in Italy. But of 
these I have already spoken. 

Who can sufficiently speak of these symptoms, or prescribe rules to com- 
prehend them? as Echo to the painter in Aasonius, vane, quid affectas, <bc., 
foolish fellow ; what wilt ? if you must needs paint me, paint a voice, et swiileiii 
si vis 2^ingere, pinge sonur.i; if you will describe melancholy, describe a phan- 
tastical conceit, a corrupt imagination, vain thoughts and different, which 
who can do? The four and twenty letters make no more variety of words in 
diverse languages, than melancholy conceits produce diversity of symptoms 
in several pei;sons. They are irregular, obscure, various, so infinite, Proteus 
himself is not so diverse, you may as well make the moon a new coat, as a 
true character of a melancholy man; as soon find the motion of a bird in the 
air, as the heart of man, a melancholy man. They are so confused. I say, 
diverse, intermixed with other diseases. As the species be confounded (which 
P I have shewed) so are the symptoms : sometimes with headache, cachexia, 
dropsy, stone; as you may perceive by those several examples and illustra- 
tions, collected by "^Hildesheim, spicel. 2, Mercuria,lis, consil. 118. cap. 6 and 
11, with headache, epilepsy, priapismus. Trincaveilius, consil. 12. lib. 1. 
consil. 49. with gout: caninus appetitus. Montanus, consil. 26, &c. 23, 234, 
249, with falling-sickness, headache, vertigo, lycanthropia, &c. I. Caesar 
Claudinus, consult. 4, consult. 89 and 116, with gout, agues, haemorrhoids, 
stone, &c., who can distinguish these melancholy symptoms so intermixed with 
others, or apply them to their several kinds, confine them into method? 'Tis 
hard I confess, yet I have disposed of them as I could, and will descend to 
particularise them according to their species. For hitherto I have expatiated 

f Practica majore. s Qunm ore loquitur quce corde concepit, quum subito de una re ad aliud transit, 

nequerationem de aliquo reddit, tunc est in medio, at quum incipit operari quce loquitur, in summo gradu 
est. ^ Cap. 19. Partic. 2. Loquitur secum et ad alios, ac si vere praasentes. Aug. cap. 11. li. de cura 

pro mortuis gerenda. Eliasis. 'Quum res ad hoc deveiiit, ut ea quas cogitare coeperit, ore promat, 

atque acta permisceat, turn perfecta melancholia est. k Melancholicus se videre et audire putat da;moncs. 
Lavater de spectris, part. 3. cap. 2. i Wierus, lib. 3. cap. 31. ■" Michael a musian. « Malleo malef. 
o Lib. de atra bile. p Part. 1. Subs. 2. Memb. 2. q De delirio, melancholia, et mania. 



2^S Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

in more general lists or terms, speaking promiscuously of such ordinary signs, 
which occur amongst writers. Not that they are all to be found in one man, 
for that were to paint a monster or chimera, not a man : but some in one, 
some in another, and that successively, or at several times. 

Which I have been the more curious to express and report ; not to upbraid 
any miserable man, or by way of derision (I rather pity them), but the better 
to discern, to apply remedies unto them; and to show that the best and 
soundest of us all is in great danger; how much we ought to fear our own 
fickle estates, remember our miseries and vanities, examine and humiliate 
ourselves, seek to G-od, and call to Him for mercy, that needs not look for 
any rods to scourge ourselves, since we carry them in our bowels, and that 
our souls are in a miserable captivity, if the light of grace and heavenly truth 
doth not shine continually upon us: and by our discretion to moderate our- 
selveS; to be more circumspect and wary in the midst of these dangers. 



MEMB. II. 



SuBSECT. I. — Symjytoms of Head-Melancholy. 

" If 'no symptoms appear about the stomach, nor the blood be misaffected, 
and fear and sorrow continue, it is to be thought the brain itself is troubled, 
by reason of a melancholy juice bred in it, or otherwise conveyed into it, and 
that evil juice is from the distemperature of the part, or left after some inflam- 
mation," thus far Piso. But this is not always true, for blood and hypochondries 
both are often afiected even in head-melancholy. ^ Hercules de Saxonia differs 
here from the common current of writers, putting peculiar signs of head-melan- 
choly, from the sole distemperature of spirits in the brain, as they are hot, 
cold, dry, moist, " all without matter from the motion alone, and tenebrosity 
of spirits;" of melancholy w^hich proceeds from humours by adustion, he treats 
apart, with their several symptoms and cures. The common signs, if it be by 
essence in the head, "are ruddiness of face, high sanguine complexion, most 
part ruhore saturato, *one calls it a blueish, and sometimes full of pimples," 
with red eyes. Avicenna, I. 3, Fen. 2, Tract. 4, c. 18. Duretus and others 
out of Galen, de affect. I. 3, c. 6. " Hercules de Saxonia to this of redness of 
face, adds " heaviness of the head, fixed and hollow eyes. * If it j)roceed 
from dryness of the brain, then their heads will be light, vertiginous, and they 
most apt to wake, and to continue whole months together without sleep. Few- 
excrements in their eyes and nostrils, and often bald by reason of excess of 
dryness," Montaltus adds, c. 17. If it proceed from moisture: dulness, drow- 
siness, headache follows; and as Salnst. Salvianus, c. 1, I. 2, out of his own 
experience found, epileptical, with a multitude of humours in the head. They 
are very bashful, if ruddy, apt to blush, and to be red upon all occasions, 
prmsertim si metus accesserit. But the chiefest symptom to discern this species, 
as I have said, is this, that there be no notable signs in the stomach, hypochon- 
dries, or elsewhere, digna, as ^Montaltus terms them, or of greater note, 
because oftentimes the passions of the stomach concur with them. Wind is 
common to all three sjDCcies, and is not excluded, only that of the hypochondries 
is ^ more windy than the rest, saith Hollerius. ^tius, tetrah. I. 2, sc. 2, c. 9, 

"■Nicholas Piso. Si signa circa ventriculum non apparent, iiec sanguis male alfectus, et adsunt timor ct 
moestitia, cerebrum ipsum existimandum est, &c. » Tract, de mel. cap. 13. &c. Ex intemperie spirituum, 
et cerebri motu, tenebrositate. « Facie sunt rubente et livescente, quibus etiam aliquando adsunt 

pustulaj. "Jo. Pantlieon. cap. de mel. Si cerebrum primario afficiatur adsunt capitis gravitas, flxi 

oculi, &c. X I .aurent. cap. 5. si a cerebro ex siccitate, turn capitis erit levitas, sitis, vigilia, paucitas 

superfluitatum in oculis et naribus. y Si nulla digna lasio ventriculo, quoniara in iiac melancholia 

capitis, exigua nonnunquam ventriculi pathemata coeunt, duo enim heec membra sibi invicem afiectionem 
transaii.tunt. ^ Postrema magis flatuosa. 



Mem. 2. Sabs. 2.] S^/nij^toms of Eead-Melaiichdy. 



269 



and 10, maintains the same, *if there be more signs, and more evident in tlie 
liead than elsewhere, the brain is primarily affected and prescri bes head-me- 
lancholy to be cured by meats amongst the rest, void of wind, and good juice, 
not excluding wind, or corrupt blood, even in head-melancholy itself: but 
these species are often confounded, and so are their symptoms, as I have 
already proved. The symptoms of the mind are superfluous and continual 
cogitations : " ^'for when the head is heated, it scorcheth the blood, and from 
thence proceed melancholy fumes, which trouble the mind," Avicenna. They 
are very choleric, and soon hot, solitary, sad, often silent, watchful, dis- 
content, Mental tus, cap. 24. If any thing trouble them, they cannot ^ sleep, 
but fret themselves still, till another object mitigate, or time wear it out. 
They have grievous passions, and immoderate perturbations of the mind, fear, 
sorrow, &c., yet not so continaate, but that they are sometimes merry, apt 
to profuse laughter, which is more to be wondered at, and that by the authority 
of *= Galen himself, by reason of mixture of blood, jjrceriLbrl jocosls delectctntur 
et irrisores plerumque sunt, if they be ruddy, they are delighted in jests, and 
sometimes scoffers themselves, conceited : and as Rodericus a Vega comments 
on that place of Galen, merry, witty, of a pleasant disposition, and yet griev- 
ously melancholy anon after : omnia discunt sine doctore, saith Areteus, they 
learn without a teacher : and as "^ Laurentius supposeth, those feral passions 
and symptoms of such as think themselves glass, pitchers, feathers, &c., 
speak strange languages, proceed a calore cerebri (if it be in excess), from the 
brain's distempered heat. 

SuBSECT. II. — Sympto'Dis ofiuindy HypochondriaGal Melancholy. 

"In this hypochondriacal or flatuous melancholy, the symptoms are so ambi- 
guous," saith ^ Crato in a counsel of his for a noblewoman, " that the most 
exquisite physicians cannot determine of the part affected." Matthew Flacclus, 
consulted about a noble matron, confessed as much, that in this malady he 
with Hollerius, Fracastorius, Falopius, and others, being to give their sentence 
of a party labouring of hypochondriacal melancholy, could not find out by the 
symptoms which part was most especially affected ; some said the womb, some 
heart, soDie stomach, &c., and therefore Crato, consil. 24. lib. 1. boldly avers, 
that in this diversity of symptoms, which commonly accompany this disease, 
" 'no physician can truly say what part is affected." Galen, lib, 3. de loc. 
affect, reckons up these ordinary symptoms, which all the Neoterics repeat of 
Diodes; only this fault he finds with him, that he puts not fear and sorrow 
amongst the other signs. Trincavellius excuseth Diodes, lib. 3. consil. 35. 
because that oftentimes in a strong head and constitution, a generous spirit, 
and a valiant, these symptoms ajDpear not, by reason of his valour and courage. 
^ Hercules de Saxonia (to whom I subscribe) is of the same mind (which I have 
before touched) that fear and sorrow are not general symptoms ; some fear and 
are not sad; some be sad and fear not; some neither fetir nor grieve. The 
rest are these, beside fear and sorrow, '""sharp belchings, fulsome crudities, 
heat in the bowels, wind and rumbling in the gats, vehement gripings, pain in 
the belly and stomach sometimes, after meat that is hard of concoction, much 
watering of the stomach, and moist spittle, cold sv/eat, importunus sudor, 

a Si minus molestiis circa A'cntriculum aiit ventrem, in iis cere'bmra primario afncitur, et curare oportet 
hiinc atfectum, per cibos flatus exortes, et bouas concoctionis, &c., raro cerebrum atticltur sine ventriciilo. 
*> Sanguinem adurit caput calidius, et inde fumi melancholici adusti, animum exagitant. <= Lib. de loc. 

atfect. cap. 6. ^Cap. 6. « Hildesheim, spicel. 1. derael. In Uypochondriaca melancholia adeo 

ambigua sunt sjTuptomata, ut etiam exercitatissimi medici de loco affecto statuere non possint. '"Medici 
de loco affecto nequeunt statuere. g Tract, posthumo de mel. Pata\ii edit. 1620. per Bozettum Bibliop. 

cap. 2. h Acidi ructus, cruditates, sestus in prscordiis, flatus, iuterdam ventriculi dolores vehementes, 

sumptoque cibo concoctu difflcili, sputum humidara idque maltum sequetur, &c. Hip. lib. demel. Galenus, 
Melaneliuse Ruffo et ^Etio, Altomarus, Piso, Montaltus, Bruel, Wecker, &q. 



270 Symptoms of Melancholy., [Part 1. See. 3. 

unseasoiia,ble sweat all over the body,"as'OctavIus Horatianus^ lih. 2. cap. 5. calls 
it; cold joints, indigestion, Hhey cannot endure their own fulsome belchings, 
continual wind about their hypochondries, heat and griping in their bowels, 
prcecordia sursum convelluntur, midriif and bowels are pulled up. the veins 
about their eyes look red, and swell from, vapours and wind," Their ears sing 
now and then, vertigo and giddiness come by fits, turbulent dreams, dryness, 
leanness, apt they are to sweat upon all occasions, of all colours and com- 
plexioas. Many of them are high-coloured, especially after meals, which symp- 
tom Cardinal Csecius was much troubled with, and of which he complained to 
Prosper Calenus his physician, he could not eat, or drink a cup of wine, bat he 
was as red in the face as if he had been at a mayor s feast. That symptom 
alone vexeth many. ^Some again are black, pale, ruddy, sometimes their 
shoulders, and shoulder blades ache, there is a leaping all over their bodies, 
sudden trembling, a palpitation of the heart, and that cardiaca passio, grief in 
the mouth of the stomach, which maketh the patient think his heart itself 
acheth, and sometimes suffocation, difflcuUas anhelitus, short breath, hard wind, 
strong pulse, swooning. Montanus, consil. 55, Trincavellius, ^■iS. 3. consil. 36, et 
37. Feriielius, cons. 43. Frambesarius, consult, lib. 1. consil. 17. Hildesheim, 
Claudinus, &c., give instance of every particular. The peculiar symptoms, 
which properly belong to each part be these. If it proceed from the stomach 
saith ^Savanarola, 'tis full of pain and wind, Guianerius adds vertigo, nausea, 
much spitting, &c. If from the myrach, a swelling and wind in the hypochon- 
dries, a loathing, and appetite to vomit, pulling upward. If from the heart, 
aching and trembling of it, much heaviness. If from the liver, there is usually 
a pain in the right hypochondrie. If from the spleen, hardness and grief in the 
left hypochondrie, a rumbling, much appetite and small digestion, Avicenna. If 
from the meseraic veins and liver on the other side, little or no appetite. Here, 
de Saxonia. If from the hypochondries, a rumbling inflation, concoction is 
hindered, often belching, &c. And from these crudities, windy vapours ascend 
up to the brain which trouble the imagination, and cause fear, sorrow, dulness, 
heaviness, many terrible conceits and chimeras, as Lemnius well observes, I. 1, 
c. 16. " as ™a black and thick cloud covers the sun, and intercepts his beams 
and light, so doth this melancholy vapour obnubilate the mind, enforce it to 
many absurd thoughts and imaginations," and compel, good, wise, honest, 
discreet men (arising to the brain from the "lower parts, "as smoke out of 
a chimney") to dote, speak, and do that which becomes them not, their persons, 
callings, wisdoms. One by reason of those ascending vapours and gripings, 
rumbling beneath, will not be persuaded but that he hath a serpent in his guts, 
a viper, another frogs. Trallianus rebates a story of a woman, that imagined 
she had swallowed an eel, or a serpent, and Felix Platerus, ohservat. lib. 1. hath 
a most memorable example of a countryman of his, that by chance falling into 
a pit where frogs and frogs' spawn was, and a little of that water swallowed, 
began to suspect that he had likewise swallowed frogs' spawn, and with that 
conceit and fear, his phantasy wrought so far, that he verily thought he had 
young live frogs in his belly, qui vivebant ex alimento suo, that lived by his 
nourishment, and was so certainly persuaded of it, that for many years follow- 
ing he could not be rectified in his conceit : He studied physic seven years 
together to cure himself, travelled into Italy, France and Germany to confer 
with the best physicians about it, and A° 1609, asked his counsel amongst the 
rest j he told him it was wind, his conceit, &c., but mordicus contradicere, et 
ore et scriptis probare nitebatw: no saying v/ould serve, it was no wind, but 

'Circa prfecordia de assidua inflatione quertintur, et cum sudore totius corporis importuno, frig-idos 
articulos ssepe patiuntur, indigestione laboraut, r actus sues insuaves perhorrescunt, viscerum dolores habent. 
k Montaltus, c. 13. Wecker, Fuchsius c. 13. Altomarus, c. 7. Laurentius, c. 73. Bruel, Gordon. 'Pract. 

major : dolor in eo et veutositas, nausea. '" Ut atra densaqua nubes soli effusa, radios et lumeu ejus 

intercipit et offoscat; sic, &c. " Ut fumus fe camino. 



Mem. 2. SuLs. 4.] Symr)toms of Women s MelaivJijly. 271 

real frogs: "and do you nob hear them croak?" Platerlis would have de- 
ceived him, by putting live frogs into his excrements; but he, being a physician 
himself, would not be deceived, vir prudens alias, et doctus, a wise and learned 
man otherwise, a doctor of physic, and after seven years' dotage in this kind, 
a phantasia liberatus est, he was cured. Laurentius and Goulart have many 
such examples, if you be desirous to read them. One commodity above the 
rest which are melancholy, these windy flatuous have, lucida inter valla, their 
symptoms and pains are not usually so continiiate as the rest, but come by 
fits, fear and sorrov,'-, and the rest : yet in another they exceed all others; and 
that is, ° they are luxurious, incontinent, and prone to venery, by reason of 
wind, et facile amant, et quamlihet fere amant. (Jason Pratensis.) p Khasis is 
of opinion, that Yenus doth many of them mnch good; the other symptoms 
of the mind be common with the rest. 

SuBSECT. III. — Symptoms of Melanclioly ahoxindirig in the lohole body. 

Their bodies that are affected with this universal melancholy are most part 
black, ""^the melancholy juice is redundant all over," hirsute they are, and 
lean, they have broad veins, their blood is gross and tliick. " "^ Their spleen, 
is weak," and a liver apt to engender the humour; they have kept bad diet, 
or have had some evacuation stopped, as haemorrhoids, or months in women, 
which ^ Trallianus, in the cure, would have carefully to be inquired, and withal 
to observe of what complexion the party is of, black or red. For as Forrestus 
and HoUerius contend, if Hhey be black, it proceeds from abundance of 
natural melancholy; if it proceed from cares, agony, discontents, diet, exer- 
cise, &c., they may be as well of any other colour : red, yellow, pale, as black, 
and yet their whole blood covvwjgi vp)rceruhri colore scepe sunt tales, scepefavl, 
(saith ""Montaltus, cap. 22.) The best way to discern this species, is to let 
them bleed, if the blood be corrupt, tliick and black, and they withal free 
from those hypochondriacal symptoms, and not so grievously troubled with 
them, or those of the head, it argues they are melancholy, a toto corpore. The 
fumes which arise from this corrupt blood, disturb the mind, and make them 
fearful and sorrowful, heavy hearted as the rest, dejected, discontented, solitary, 
silent, weary of their lives, dull and heavy, or merry, &c., and if far gone, that 
which Apuleius wished to his enemy, by way of imprecation, is true in them; 
" ^ Dead men's bones, hobgoblins, ghosts, are ever in their minds, and meet 
them still in every turn: all the bugbears of the night, and terrors, fairy- 
babes of tombs, and graves are before their eyes, and in their thoughts, as to 
women and children, if they be in the dark alone." If they hear, or read, 
or see any tragical object, it sticks by them, they are afraid of death, and yet 
weary of their lives, in their discontented humours they quarrel v/ith all the 
world, bitterly inveigh, tax satirically, and because they cannot otherwise 
vent their passions or redress what is amiss, as they mean, they will by violent 
death at last be revenged on themselves. 

SuBSECT. lY. — Symptoms of Maids, Nuns, and Widows' Melancholy. 

Because Lodovicus Mercatus in his second book de mulier. affect, cap. 4. 
and Rodericus a Castro de morh. mulier. cap. 3. lib. 2. two famous physicians 

» Hypochondriaci maxime affectant coire, et rtmltiplicatur coitus in ipsis, eo quod ventositates multipli- 
cantur in hypochondriis, et coitus stepe allevat has ventositates. p Cont. lib. 1. tract. 9. <i Weclier, 

Melancliolicus succus toto corpore redundans. rSplen natura irabecilior. Montaltus, cap. 22. ^Lib. 1. 
cup. 16. Interrogare convenit, an aliqua evacuationis retentio obvenerit, viri in htemorrboid. mulierum 
nienstruis, et vide faciem similiter an sit rubicunda. ' Naturales nigri acquisiti a toto corpore, sajpe 

vubijundi. ^ Montaltus, cap. 22. Piso. Ex colore sanguinis siminuas venam, si liiiatniger, &c. ^Apul. 
lib. 1. semper obvise species mortuorum quicquid umbrarum est uspiam, quicquid lemurum et larvarum 
oculis suis aggerunt, sibi fingunt omnia noctium occursacula, omnia bustorum i'oi'midamina, omnia sepul- 
chrorum tevriculamenta. 



272 Symptoms of Mdanchohj. [Part ]. Sec. 3. 

in Spain, Daniel Sennertns of Yv^ittenberg, lih. 1. part. 2. cap. 13. witli others, 
have vouchsafed in their works, not long since published, to write two just 
treatises de Melancholia Virginuiii, Monialium et Viduaruni, as a particular 
species of melancholy (which I have already specified) distinct from the rest; 
(J for it much differs from that which commonly befalls men and other women, 
as having one only cause proper to women alone) I may not omit in this 
general survey of melancholy symptoms, to set down the particular signs of 
such parties so misaffected. 

The causes are assigned out of Hippocrates, Cleopatra, Moschion, and those 
old Gynceciorion Scrijjtores, of this feral malad}^, in more ancient maids, widows, 
and barren women, ob septum transversum violatum, saith Mercatus, by reason 
of the midriff or Diaphragma, heart and brain offended with those vicious 
vapours which come from menstruous blood, infiammationem arterice circa dor- 
sum, Rodericus adds, an inflammation of the back, which with the rest is 
offended by ^ that fuliginous exhalation of corrupt seed, troubling the brain, 
heart and mind; the brain, I say, not in essence, but by consent, Universa 
enim Imjus affectus causa ah utero pendet, et a sanguinis menstrui malitia, for 
in a word, the whole malady proceeds from that inflammation, putridity, black 
smoky vapours, &c., from thence comes care, sorrow, and anxiety, obfuscation 
of spirits, agony, desperation, and the like, which are intended or remitted; si 
amatorius accesserit ardor, or any other violent object or pei'turbation of mind. 
This melancholy may happen to widows, Avith much care and sorrow, as fre- 
quently it doth, by reason of a sudden alteration of their accustomed course 
of life, &c. To such as lie in childbed ob suppressam purgationem ; but to 
nuns and more ancient maids, and some barren women for the causes aforesaid, 
'tis more familiar, crebrius his qiiam reliquis accidit, inquit Rodericus, the 
rest are not altogether excluded. 

Out of these causes Rodericus defines it with Areteus, to be angorem animiy 
a vexation of the mind, a sudden sorrow from a small, light, or no occasion, 
^ with a kind of still dotage and grief of some part or other, head, heart, 
breasts, sides, back, belly, &c., with much solitariness, weeping, distraction, 
&c., from which they are sometimes suddenly delivered, because it comes and 
goes by fits, and is not so permanent as other melancholy. 

But to leave this brief description, the most ordinary symptoms be these, 
pulsatio juxta dorsum, a beating about the back, which is almost perpetual, the 
skin is many times rough, squalid, especially, as Areteus observes, about the 
arms, knees, and knuckles. The midriff and heart-strings do burn and beat 
very fearfully, and when this vapour or fume is stirred, flieth upward, the heart 
itself beats, is sore grieved, and faints, y«?^ce5 siccitate prcccluduntur, ut dijffi- 
culter possit ab uteri strangulatione decerni, like fits of the mother, Alcus 
plerisque nil reddit, aliis exiguum, acre^ biliosu?v, lotiwn jiavum. They 
complain many times, saith Mercatus, of a great pain in their heads, about their 
hearts, and hypochondries, and so likewise in their breasts, which are often 
sore, sometimes ready to swoon, their faces are inflamed, and red, they are 
dry, thirsty, suddenly hot, much troubled with wind, cannot sleep, &c. And 
from hence proceedyfc7•^?2<:/. deliramerUa, a brutish kind of dotage, troublesome 
sleep, terrible dreams in the night, subrusticus pudor et verecundia ignava, a 
foolish kind of bashfulness to some, perverse conceits and opinions, ^ dejection 

yDiffert enim ab ea qufe viris et reliquis fetninis cominimiter contingit, propriam habens causam, ^Ex 
menstrui sanguinis tetra ad cor et cerebrum exhalutione, vitiatum semen mentem po-turbat, &c. non per 
essentiam, sed per consensum. Animus moerens et anxius inde malum traliit, et spiritus cerebrum obfus- 
cantur, quse cuncta augentur, &c. ^Cum taoito delirio ac dolore alicujus partis intenicB, dorsi, hypoclion- 
drii, cordis regionem et universam mamraam interdum occupantis, &c. Cutis aliquando squalida, aspera, 
rugosa, prsecipue cubitis, genibus, et digitorum articulis, prajcordia ingenti su-pe torrore a2stuant et pulsant, 
cumque vapor excitatus sursum evolat, cor palpitat aut premitur, animus deficit, &c. ^ Animi dejectio, 

perversa rerum existimatio, pra;posterum judicium. Fastidiosse, languentes, tajdiosre, consilii inopcs, 
lachrymosse, timentes, moestae, cum summa rerum meliorum desperatione, nulla re delectantur, solitudiuciu 
amant, &e. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4.] Symi^toms of Women's Melancholy/. 273 

of mind, mucli discontent, preposterous judgment. The-y are apt to loathe, 
dislike, disdain, to be weary of every object, &c., each thing almost is tedious 
to them, they pine away, void of counsel, apt to weep, and tremble, timorous, 
fearful, sad, and out of all hope of better fortunes. They take delight in 
nothing for the time, but love to be alone and solitary, though that do them 
more harm: and thus they are affected so long as this vapour lasteth; but 
by-and-by as pleasant and merry as ever they were in their lives, they sing, 
discourse, and laugh in any good company, upon all occasions, and so by fits it 
takes them now and then, except the malady be inveterate, and then 'tis more 
frequent, vehement, and continuate. Many of them cannot tell how to express 
themselves in words, or how it holds them, what ails them, you cannot under- 
stand them, or well tell what to make of their sayings; so far gone sometimes, 
so stupified and distracted, they think themselves bewitched, they are in 
despair, aptce adjietum, desperationem, dvlores mammis et hypocliondriis. Mer- 
catus therefore adds, now their breasts, now their hypochondries, belly and 
sides, then their heart and head aches, now heat, then wind, now fiis, now 
that offends, they are weary of all ; " and yet will not, cannot again tell how, 
where or what offends them, though they be in great pain, agony, r.nd fre- 
quently complain, grieving, sighing, weeping, and discontented still, si-e causa 
manifesta, most part, yet I say they will complain, grudge, lament, and not be 
persuaded, but that they are troubled with an evil spirit, which is frequent in 
Germany, saith Eodericus, amongst the common sort : and to such as are 
most grievously affected (for he makes three degrees of this disease in women), 
they are in despair, surely forespoken or bewitched, and in extremity of their 
dotage (weary of their lives), some of themw^ill attempt to make away them- 
selves. Some think they see visions, confer with spirits and devils, they shall 
surely be damned, are afraid of some treachery, imminent danger, and the 
like, they will not speak, make answer to any question, but are almost dis- 
tracted, mad, or stupid for the time, and by fits : and thus it holds them, as 
they are more or less affected, and as the inner humour is intended or remitted, 
or by outward objects and perturbations aggravated, solitariness, idleness, &c. 

Many other maladies there are incident to young women, out of that one and 
only causes above specified, many feral diseases. I will not so much as mention 
their names, melancholy alone is the subject of my present discourse, from 
which I will not swerve. The several cures of this infirmity, concerning diet, 
which must be very sparing, phlebotomy, physic, internal, external remedies, 
are at large in great variety in '^E.odericus a Castro, Sennertus, and Mercatus, 
which whoso will, as occasion serves, may make use of. But the best and 
surest remedy of all, is to see them well placed, and married to good husbands 
in due time, hinc illce lachrymoi, that is the primary cause, and this the ready 
cure, to give them content to their desires. I write not this to patronise any 
wanton, idle flirt, lascivious or light housewives, which are too forward many 
times, unruly, and apt to cast avv^ay themselves on him that comes next, with- 
out all care, counsel, circumspection, and judgment. If religion, good disci- 
pline, honest education, wholesome exhortation, fair promises, fame and loss of 
good name, cannot inhibit and deter such (which to chaste and sober maids 
cannot choose but avail much), labour and exercise, strict diet, rigour and 
threats, may more opportunely be used, and are able of themselves to qualify 
and divert an ill-disposed temperament. For seldom should you see an hired 
servant, a poor handmaid, though ancient, that is kept hard to her work, and 
bodily labour, a coarse country wench troubled in this kind, but noble virgins, 

«Nolunt aperire molestiam quam patiuntur, sed conqueruntur tamen de capite, corde. mammis, &c. In 
puteos fere maniaci prosilire, ac stnxngulari cupiunt, nulla orationis suavitate ad spem' salutis recuperan- 
dam erigi, &c. Familiares non curant, non loqnuntur, non respondent, &c., et hsec gi-aviora, si, &c. 
^ Clisteres et Helleborismura Mutliioli summe laudat 



274 ~ Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

nice gentlewomen, sucL as are solitary and idle, live at ease, lead a life out of 
action and employment, that fare well, in great houses and jovial companies, 
ill disposed perad venture of themselves, and not willing to make any resistance, 
discontented otherwise, of weak judgment, able bodies, and subject to passions, 
(grandiores virgines, saith Mercatus, steriles et viduce plerumque melancholicce), 
such for the most part are misaffected, and prone to this disease. I do not so 
much pity them that may otherwise be eased, but those alone that out of a 
strong temperament, innate constitution, are violently carried away with 
this torrent of inward humours, and though very modest of themselves, sober, 
religious, virtuous, and well given (as many so distressed maids are), yet can- 
not make resistance, these grievances will appear, this malady will take place, 
and now manifestly show itself, and may not otherwise be helped. But where 
am II Into what subject have I rushed? What have I to do with nuns, 
maids, virgins, widows ? I am a bachelor myself, and lead a monastic life in 
a college, ncE ego sane ineptus qui haic dixerim, I confess 'tis an indecorum, 
and as Pallas a virgin blushed, when Jupiter by chance spake of love matters 
in her presence, and turned away her face; me reprimam, though my subject 
necessarily require it, I will say no more. 

And yet I must and will say something more, add a word or two in gratiam 
Virginum et Viduarum, in favour of all such distressed parties, in commisera- 
tion of their present estate. And as I cannot choose but condole their mishap 
that labour of this infirmity, and are destitute of help in this case, so must T 
needs inveigh against them that are in fault, more than manifest causes, and 
as bitterly tax those tyrannising pseudo-politicians' superstitious orders, rash 
vows, hard-hearted parents, guardians, unnatural friends, allies (call them how 
you will), those careless and stupid overseers, that out of worldly respects, 
CO vetousD ess, supine negligence, their own private eiids{cu7n sibi sit interim bene) 
can so severely reject, stubbornly neglect, and impiously contemn, without all 
remorse and pity, the tears, sighs, groans, and grievous miseries of such poor 
souls committed to their charge. How odious and abominable are those super- 
stitious and rash vows of Popish monasteries ! so to bind and enforce men and 
women to vow virginity, to lead a single life, against the laws of nature, oppo- 
site to religion, polic}^, and humanity, so to starve, to offer violence, to suppress 
the vigour of youth by rigorous statutes, severe laws, vain persuasions, to 
debar them of that to which by their innate temperature they are so furiously 
inclined, urgently carried, and sometimes precipitated, even irresistibly led, to 
the prejudice of their soul's health, and good estate of body and mind: and all 
for base and private respects, to maintain their gross superstition, to enrich 
themselves and their territories, as they falsely suppose, by hindering some mar- 
riages, that the world be not full of beggars, and their parishes pestered with 
orphans; stupid politicians, hceccine fieri jiagitia? ought these things so to be 
carried? better marry than burn, saith the Apostle, but they are otherwise per- 
suaded. They will by all means quench their neighbour's house if it be on fire, 
but that fire of lust which breaks out into such lamentable flames, they will not 
take notice of, their own bowels oftentimes, flesh and blood shall so rage and burn, 
and they will not see it : miserum est, saith Austin, seipsum non miserescere, 
and they are miserable in the mean time that cannot pity themselves, the 
common good of all, and per consequens their own estates. For let them but 
consider what fearful maladies, feral diseases, gross inconveniences, come to 
both sexes by this enforced temperance, it troubles me to think of, much more 
to relate those frequent abortions and murdering of infants in their nunneries 
(read " Kemnitius and others), their notorious fornications, those Spintrias, 
Tribadas, Ambubeias, &c., those rapes, incests, adulteries, mastuprations, 

« Examen cone. Trident, de cselibatu sacerd. 



Mem. 3.] Causes of these Symptoms. 275 

sodomies, buggeries of monks and friars. See Bale's visitation of abbeys, 
^Mercurialis, Rodericus a Castro, Peter Forestiis, and divers physicians ; I 
know their ordinary apologies and excuses for these things, sed viderint Poli- 
tici, Medici, Theologi, I shall more opportunely meet with them ^elsewhere. 

"h Illius vidu£e, aut patronixm Virginis hujus, 
Ne me foi'te putes, veibum non amplius addam." 



MEMB. III. 

Immediate cause of tliese precedent Symptoms. 

To give some satisfaction to melancholy men that are troubled with these 
symptoms, a better means in my judgment cannot be taken, than to show 
them the causes whence they proceed; not from devils as they suppose, or 
that they are bewitched or forsaken of God, hear or see, &c., as many of them 
think, but from natural and inward causes, that so knowing them, they may 
better avoid the effects, or at least endure them with more patience. The 
most grievous and common sym23toms are fear and sorrow, and that without 
a cause to the wisest and discreetest men, in this malady not to be avoided. 
The reason why they are so ^tius discusseth at large, Tetrabih. 2. 2. in his 
first problem out of Galen, lib. 2. de causis syinpt. 1. For Galen imputeth all 
to the cold that is black, and thinks that the spirits being darkened, and the 
substance of the brain cloudy and dark, all the objects thereof appear terrible, 
and the * mind itself, by those dark, obscure, gross fumes, ascending from black 
humours, is in continual darkness, fear, and sorrow ; divers terrible monstrous 
fictions in a thousand shapes and apparitions occur, with violent passions, by 
which the brain and phantasy are troubled and eclipsed. ^ Fracastorius, lib. 2, 
de intellect. " will have cold to be the cause of fear and sorrow ; for such as 
are cold are ill-disposed to mirth, dull, and heavy, by nature solitary, silent ; 
and not for any inward darkness (as physicians think) for many melancholv 
men dare boldly be, continue, and walk in the dark, and delight in it:" soliim 
frigidi timidi : if they" be hot, they are merry ; and the more hot, the more 
furious, and void of fear, as we see in madmen; but this reason holds not, for 
then no melancholy, proceeding from choler adust, should fear. ' Averroes 
scoffs at Galen for his reasons, and brings five arguments to repel them : so 
doth Here, de Saxonia, Tract, de Melanch. cap. 3. assigning other causes, which 
are copiously censured and confuted by^iianus Montaltus, cap, 5 and 6, Lod. 
Mercatus de Inter, morb. cur. lib. 1. cap. 17, Altomarus, cap. 7. de mel., 
Guianerius, tract. 15. cap. 1, Bright, cap. 37, Laurentius, cap. 5, Yalesius, 
med. cont. lib. 5, con. 1 . " "° Distemperature," they conclude, " makes black 
juice, blackness obscures the spirits, the spirits obscured, cause fear and sor- 
row." Laurentius, cap. 13. supposeth these black fumes offend specially the 
diaphragma or midriff, and so per consequens the mind, which is obscured as 
° the sun by a cloud. To this opinion of Galen, almost all the Greeks and 
Arabians subscribe, the Latins new and old, internee tenebroi offuscant animum, 
ut externce nocent pueris, as children are affrighted in the dark, so are melan- 
choly men at all times, ° as having the inward cause with them, and still car- 
rying it about. Which black vapours, whether they proceed from the black 
blood about the heart, as T. W". Jes. thinks in his Treatise of the passions of 

I'Cap. de Satyr, et Priapis. e Part. 3. sect. 2. Memb. 5. Sub. 5. ^ " Lest you may imagine that I 

patronise that widow or this virgin, I shall not add another word." 'Vapores crassi et nigri, a ventri- 

culo in cerebrum exhalant. Fel. Platerus. ^ Calidi hilares, frigidi indispositi ad leetitiam, et ideo solitarii, 
taciturni, non ob tenebras internas, ut medici volunt, sed ob frigus : multi melancholici nocte ambulant 
intrepidi. 'Vapores melancholici, spiritibus misti, tenebrarum causse sunt, cap. 1. ™Intemperiesfacit 
succum nigrum, nigrities obscurat spiritum, obscuratio sph-itus facit metum et tristitiam. ^Ut nubecula 
Solem offuscat. Constantinus, lib. de melanch. "Altomarus, c. 7. Cau am tiraoris circumfert ater 

humor passionls materia, et atri spiritus perpetuam animte domicilio offunduiit noctem. 



276 Symptoms of Melancholy, [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

the mind, or stomacli, spleen, miclrifF, or all the misaffected parts together, it 
boots not, they keep the mind in a perpetual dungeon, and oppress it with 
continual fears, anxieties, sorrows, &c. It is an ordinary thing for such as are 
sound to laugh at this dejected pusillanimity, and those other symptoms of 
melancholy, to make themselves merry with them, and to wonder at such, as 
toys and trifles, which may be resisted and withstood, if they will themselves : 
but let him that so wonders, consider with himself, that if a man should tell 
him on a sudden, some of his especial friends were dead, could he choose but 
grieve? Or set him upon a steep rock, where he should be in danger to be 
precipitated, could he be secure % His heart would tremble for fear, and his 
head be giddy. P. Byarus, Tract, devest, gives instance (as I have said) " p and 
put case (saith he) in one that walks upon a plank, if it lie on the ground, he 
can safely do it : but if the same plank be laid over some deep water, instead 
of a bridge, he is vehemently moved, and 'tis nothing but his imagination, 
forma cadendi impressa, to which his other members and faculties obey." 
Yea, but you infer, that such men have a just cause to fear, a true object of 
fear; so have melancholy men an inward cause, a perpetual fume and dark- 
ness, causing fear, grief, suspicion, which they carry with them, an object 
which cannot be removed; but sticks as close, and is as inseparable as a 
shadow to a body, and who can expel or overrun his shadow ? Remove heat 
of the liver, a cold stomach, weak spleen : remove those adust humours and 
vapours arising from them, black blood from the heart, all outward perturba- 
tions, take away the cause, and then bid them not grieve nor fear, or be heavy, 
dull, lumpish, otherwise counsel can do little good; you may as well bid him 
that is sick of an ague not to be a-dry ; or him that is wounded not to feel pain. 
Suspicion follows fear and sorrow at heels, arising out of the same fountain, 
so thinks "^ Pracastorius, "that fear is the cause of suspicion, and still they 
suspect some treachery, or some secret machination to be framed against them, 
still they distrust." Restlessness proceeds from the same spring, variety of 
fumes make them like and dislike. Solitariness, avoiding of light, that they 
are weary of their lives, hate the world, arise from the same causes, for their 
spirits and humours are opposite to light, fear makes them avoid company, and 
absent themselves, lest they should be misused, hissed at, or overshoot them- 
selves, which still they suspect. They are prone to venery by reason of wind. 
Angry, waspish, and fretting still, out of abundance of choler, which causeth 
fearful dreams and violent perturbations to them, both sleeping and waking : 
That they suppose they have no heads, fly, sink, they are pots, glasses, &c., is 
wind in their heads. '"Here, de Saxonia doth ascribe this to the several 
motions in the animal spirits, "their dilation, contraction, confusion, alteration, 
tenebrosity, hot or cold distemperature," excluding all material humours. 
^Pracastorius " accounts it a thing worthy of inquisition, why they should 
entertain such false conceits, as that they have horns, great noses, that they 
are birds, beasts," &c., why they should think themselves kings, lords, cardi- 
nals. Por the first, *Pracastorius gives two reasons : " One is the disposition 
of the body; the other, the occasion of the phantasy," as if their eyes be pur- 
blind, their ears sing, by reason of some cold and rheum, &c. To the second, 
Laurentius answers, the imagination inwardly or outwardly moved, represents 
to the understanding, not enticements only, to favour the passion or dislike, 
but a very intensive pleasure follows the passion or displeasure, and the will 
and reason are captivated by delighting in it. 

p Pone exemplum, quod quis potest arabulare super trabem quse est in via : sed si sJt super aqaam pro- 
fundam, loco pontis, non ambulabit super earn, eo quod imaginetur in animo et timet vehementer, forma 
cadendi impressa, cui obediunt membra omnia, et facultates reliquffi. i Lib. 2. de intellectione. Suspiciosi 
ob timorem et obliquum discursum, et semper inde putant sibi fieri insidias. Lauren. 5. •• Tract, de 

mel. cap. 7. Ex dilatione, contractione, confusione, tenebrositate spirituum, calida, frigida intemperie, &c. 
" s Illud inquisitione dignum, cur tarn falsa recipiant, habere se cornua. esse mortuos, nasutos, esse aves, &c. 
1 1 . Dispositio corporis. 2. Occasio Ixnaginationis. 



Mem. 3.] Causes of these Sym'ptojns. 277 

Why students and lovers are so often melancholy and mad, the philosopher 
of "Conimbra assigns this reason^ " because by a vehement and continual medi- 
tation of that wherewith they are affected, they fetch up the spirits into the 
brain, and with the heat brought with them, they incend it beyond measure : 
and the cells of the inner senses dissolve their temperature, which being dis- 
solved, they cannot perform their offices as they ought." 

Why melancholy men are witty, which Aristotle hath long since maintained 
in his problems; and that ""all learned men, famous philosophers, and law- 
givers, ad unum fere omnes melancholici, have still been melancholy, is a 
problem much controverted. Jason Pratensis will have it understood of natural 
melancholy, which opinion Melancthon inclines to, in his book de Anima, and 
Marcilius Ficinus, de san. tuend. lib. 1. cap. 5. but not simple, for that makes 
men stupid, heavy, dull, being cold and dry, fearful, fools, and solitary, but 
mixed with the other humours, phlegm only excepted; and they not adust, 
''but so mixed as that blood be ha,lf, with little or no adustion, that they be 
neither too hot nor too cold. Apponensis, cited by Melancthon, thinks it pro- 
ceeds from melancholy adust, excluding all natural melancholy as too cold. 
Laurentius condemns his tenet, because adustion of humours makes men mad, 
as lime burns when water is cast on it. It must be mixed with blood, and 
somewhat adust, and so that old aphorism of Aristotle may be verified, Nulluin 
magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementias, no excellent wit without a mixture 
of madness, Eracastorius shall decide the controversy, "^phlegmatic are dull: 
sanguine lively, pleasant, acceptable, and merry, but not witty : choleric are 
too swift in motion, and furious, impatient of contemplation, deceitful wits : 
melancholy men have the most excellent v/its, but not all ; this humour may 
be hot or cold, thick or thin ; if too hot, they are furious and mad : if too cold, 
dull, stupid, timorous, and sad : if temperate, excellent, rather inclining to that 
extreme of heat, than cold." This sentence of his will agree with that of 
Heraclitus, a dry light makes a wise mind, temperate heat and dryness are the 
chief causes of a good wit ; therefore, saith ^lian, an elephant is the wisest of 
all brute beasts, because his brain is driest, et oh atrce hilis copiam : this reason 
Cardan approves, subtil. I. 1 2. Jo. Baptista Silvaticus, a physician of Milan, 
in his first controversy, hath copiously handled this question : Rulandus in his 
problems, Cselius E,hodiginus, lib. 17, Yalleriola 6'° narrat. med., Here, de 
Saxonia, Tract, posth. de mel. cap, 3, Lodovicus Mercatus, de Inter, morh. cur, 
lib. 1. cap. 17, Baptista Porta, Physiog. lib. 1. c. 13, and many others. 

Weeping, sighing, laughing, itching, trembling, sweating, blushing, hearing 
and seeing strange noises, visions, wind, crudity, are motions of the body, 
depending upon these precedent motions of the mind : neither are tears, affec- 
tions, but actions (as Scaliger holds) " ^the voice of such as are afraid, trembles, 
because the heart is shaken," {Gonimb. prob. 6. sec. 3. de sora.) why they 
stutter or falter in their speech, Mercurialis and Montaltus, cajx 17. give like 
reasons out of Hippocrates, " ^ dryness, which makes the nerves of the tongue 
torpid." Fast speaking (which is a symptom of some few) ^tius will have 
caused "''from abundance of wind, and swiftness of imagination: "^baldness 
comes from excess of dryness," hirsuteness from a dry temperature. The cause 
of much waking in a dry brain, continual meditation, discontent, fears and 
cares, that suffer not the mind to be at rest, incontinency is from wind, and a 
hot liver, Montanus, cons. 26. Bumbling in the guts is caused from wind, and 

n In pro. li. de coelo. Vehemens et assidua cogitatio rei erga quam afficitur, spiritus in cerebi'um erocat. 
>t Melancholici ingeniosi omnes, summi viri in artibus et disciplinis, sive circum imperatoriam aut reip. dis- 
ciplinam omnes fere melancholici. Aristoteles. yAdeo miscentur, ut sit duplum sanguinis ad reliqua duo, 
''Lib. 2. de intellectione. Pingui sunt Minerva phlegmatici : sanguinei amabiles, grati, hilares, at nou 
ingeniosi ; cholerici celeres motu, et ob id contempLitiouis impatientes : Melancholici solum excelleiites, &c. 
" Ti'epidantium vox tremula, quia cor qaatitur. ^ Ob ariditatem qute reddit nervos linguae torpidos. 

" Licoutineutia linguse ex copia flatuum, et velocitate imaginatiouis. d Calvities ob siccitatis excessum. 



278 Symptoms of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

wind from ill concoction, weakness of natural heat, or a distempered heat 
and cold; ® Palpitation of the heart from, vapours, heaviness and aching from 
the same cause. That the belly is hard, wind is a cause, and of that leaping 
in many parts. Kedness of the face, and itching, as if they were flea-bitten, 
or stung with pismires, from a sharp subtile wind. ^Cold sweat from vapours 
arising from the hypochondries, which pitch upon the skin ; leanness for want 
of good nourishment. Why their appetite is so great, ^^tius answers: Os 
ventris frigescit, cold in those inner parts, cold belly, and hot liver, causeth 
crudity, and intention proceeds from perturbations, *" our souls for want of 
spirits cannot attend exactly to so many intentive operations, being exhaust, 
and overswayed by passion, she cannot consider the reasons which may dis- 
suade her from such affections. 

' Bashfulness and blushing is a passion proper to men alone, and is not only 
caused for ""some shame and ignominy, or that they are guilty unto themselves 
of some foul fact committed, but as ^ Fracastorius well determines, ob defectum 
2)roprium, et timorem, "from fear, and a conceit of our defects; the face 
labours and is troubled at his presence that sees our defects, and nature, willing 
to help, sends thither heat, heat draws the subtilest blood, and so we blush. 
They that are bold, arrogant, and careless, seldom or never blush, but such as 
are fearful." Anthonius Lodovicus, in his book de pudore, will have this sub- 
tile blood to arise in the face, not so much for the reverence of our betters in 
presence, """ but for joy and pleasure, or if any thing at unawares shall pass 
from us, a sudden accident, occurse, or meeting;" (which Disariusin "Macrobius 
confirms) any object heard or seen, for blind men never blush, as Dandinus 
observes, the night and darkness make men impudent. Or that we be staid before 
our betters, or in company we like not, or if any thing molest and offend us, eru~ 
hescentia turns to rubor, blushing to a continuate redness. "Sometimes the 
extremity of the ears tingle, and are red, sometimes the whole face, Etsi nihil 
vitiosum commiseris, as Lodovicus holds: though Aristotle is of opinion, 
omnis pudor ex viiio commisso, all shame for some offence. But we find other- 
wise, it may as well proceed ^from fear, from force and inexperience (so 
•^Dandinus holds), as vice; a hot liver, saith Duretus [notis in Hollerium:) 
" from a hot brain, from wind, the lungs heated, or after drinking of wine, 
strong drink, perturbations," &c. 

"Laughter, what it is," saith ''Tully, "how caused, where, and so suddenly 
breaks out, that desirous to stay it, we cannot, how it comes to possess and stir 
our face, veins, eyes, countenance, mouth, sides, let Democritus determine." 
The cause that it often affects melancholy men so much, is given by Gomesius, 
lib. 3. de sale genial, cap. 18. abundance of pleasaiit vapours, which, in san- 
guine melancholy especially, break from the heart, "*aiid tickle the midriff, 
because it is transverse and full of nerves : by which titillation, the sense 
being moved, and arteries distended or pulled, the spirits from thence move 
and possess the sides, veins, countenance, eyes." See more in Jossius de risu 
etfletu, Vives 3 de Animd. Tears, as Scaliger defines, proceed from grief and 
pity, " 'or from the- heating of a moist brain, for a dry cannot weep." 

That they see and hear so many phantasms, chimeras, noises, visions, &c., 

c^tius. f Lauren, c. 13. KTetrab. 2. ser. 2. cap. 10. 'i Ant. Lodovicus, prob. lib 1. sect. 5. 

de atrabilariis. ' Subrusticus pudor vitiosus puclor. i^ Ob ignominiam aut turpitudinera iacti, Ac. 

1 De symp. et Antip. cap. 12. laborat facies ob prsesentiatn ejus qui defectum nostrum videt, et natura Ljuasi 
opem latura calorem illuc mittit, calor sanguinem trahit, unde rubor, audaces non rubeut, &c. °» Ob 

gaudium et voluptatem foras exit sanguis, aut ob melioris revereutiam, aut ob subitum occursum, aut si 
quid incautius exciderit. " Com. in Arist. de anima. Coeci ut plurimum impudentes, nox facit impudentes. 
"Alexander Aphrodisiensis makes all bashfulness a virtue, eamque se refert in seipso experiri solitum, etsi 
esset admodum senex. p Sffipe post cibum apti ad ruborem, ex potu vini, ex timore stepe et ab hepate 

calido, cerebro calido, &c. i Com. in Arist. de anima, tam a vi et inexpeiientia qua. a a vitio. ''2. De 
oratore. quid ipse risus, quo pacto concitatur, ubi sit, &c. »Diapliragma titillant, quia transversum et 

nervosum, quatitillatione nioto sensu atque arteriis distentis, spiritus inde latera, venas, os, oculos occupaut. 
^Ex calefacdone humidi cerebri : nam ex sicco lachrymas non fluunt. 



Mem. 3.] Causes of these Symptoms. 279 

as Fienus hatli discoursed at large in his book of iaiagination, and '^Lavater 
de spectris, part. 1. cap. 2. 3. 4. their corrupt phantasy makes them see and 
hear that which indeed is neither heard nor seen, Qui multum jejunant, aut 
nodes ducunt insomnes, they that much fast, or want sleep, as melancholy or 
sick men commonly do, see visions, or such as are weak-sighted, very timorous 
by nature, mad, distracted, or earnestly seek. Sahini quod volunt somniant, 
as the saying is, they dream of that they desire. Like Sarmiento the Spa- 
niard, who when he was sent to discover the straits of Magellan, and confine 
places, by the Prorex of Peru, standing on the top of a hill, Ainxmssimain 
planitiem despicere sibi visus fait, cedificia Tnagnifica, quamplurimos Pages, 
altas Turves, splendida Templa, and brave cities, built like ours in Europe, 
not, saith mine ^author, that there was any such thing, but that he was vanis- 
simus et nimis credulus, and would fain have had it so. Or as^Lod. Mercatus 
proves, by reason of inward vapours, and humours from blood, choler, &c., 
diversely mixed, they apprehend and see outwardly, as they suppose, divers 
images, which indeed are not. As they that drink wine think all runs round, 
when it is in their own brain ; so is it with these men, the fault and cause is 
inward, as Galen affirms, ""mad men and such as are near death, quas extra se 
videre putant Imagines, intra oculos habent, 'tis in their brain, which seems to 
be before them; the brain as a concave glass reflects solid bodies. Senes 
etiam decrepiti cerebrum habent concavum et aridum, ut imaginentur se videre 
(saith '''Boissardus)5'i6ce nan sunt, old men are too frequently mistaken and dote 
in like case : or as he that looketh through a piece of red glass, judgeth every- 
thing he sees to be red; corrupt vapours mounting from the body to the head, 
and distilling again from thence to the eyes, when they have mingled themselves 
with the watery crystal which receiveth the shadows of things to be seen, make 
all things appear of the same colour, which remains in the humour that over- 
spreads our sight, as to melancholy men all is black, to phlegmatic all white, 
&c. Or else as before the organs, corrupt by a corrupt phantasy, as Lemnius, 
lib. 1. cap. 16. well quotes, " ''cause a great agitation of spirits, and humours, 
which wander to and fro in all the creeks of the brain, and cause such appa- 
ritions before their eyes." One thinks he reads something written in the 
moon, as Pythagoras is said to have done of old, another smells brimstone, 
hears Cerberus bark : Orestes now mad supposed he saw the furies tormenting 
him, and his mother still ready to run upon him — 

" mater obsecro noli me persequi 
His furiis, aspectu anguineis, horribilibr.s, 
Ecce ecce me invadunt, in me jam ruunt;" " 

but Electra told him thus raving in his mad fit, he saw no such sights at all, 
it was but his crazed imagination. 

"Quiesce, quiesce miser in linteis tuis, 
Non cernis etenim quse videre te putas." d 

So Penthens(in Bacchis Euripidis) saw two suns, two Thebes, his brain alone 
was troubled. Sickness is an ordinary cause of such sights. Cardan, subtil. 8. 
Mens cegra laboribus et jejuniis fracta, facit eos videre, audire, dbc. And. Osi- 
ander beheld strange visions, and Alexander ab Alexandre both, in their sick- 
ness, which he relates de rerum varietat. lib. 8. cap. 44. Albategnius that 
noble Arabian, on his death-bed, saw a ship ascending and descending, which 
Eracastorius records of his friend Baptista Tirrianus. Weak sight and a vain 
persuasion withal, may effect as much, and second causes concurring, as an oar 

iRes mirandas imaginantur : et putant se videre quae nee vident, nee audiunt. * Laet. lib. 13, cap. 2. 
descript. Indise Occident. y Lib. 1. ca. 17. cap. de mel. ^ Insani, et qui morti vicini sunt, res quas 

extra se videre putant, intra oculos habent. » Cap. 10. de Spirit, apparitione. b De occult. Nat. 

inirac. <=" O mother ! I beseech you not to persecute me with those horrible-looking furies. See I see ! 
they attack, they assault me I" ^ " Peace ! peace ! unhappy being, for you do not see what you thinlt 

you see." 



280 Symploms of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 3. 

in water makes a refraction, and seems bigger, bended, double, &c. The thick- 
ness of the air may cause such effects, or any object not well discerned in the 
dark, fear and phantasy will suspect to be a ghost, a devil, &c. ^Quod nimis 
miseri timent, hoc facile creclunt,we are apt to believe, and mistake in such cases. 
Marcellus Donatus, lib. 2. cap. 1. brings in a story out of Aristotle, of one 
Antepharon which likely saw, wheresoever he was, his own image in the air, 
as in a glass. Vitellio, lib. 10. perspect. hath such another instance of a 
familiar acquaintance of his, that after the want of three or four nights' sleep, 
as he was riding by a river side, saw another riding with him, and using all 
such gestures as he did, but when more light appeared, it vanished. Eremites 
and anchorites have frequently such absurd visions, revelations by reason of 
much fasting, and bad diet, many are deceived by legerdemain, as Scot hath 
well showed in his book of the discovery of witchcraft, and Cardan, subtil 18. 
sufEtes, perfumes, suffumigations, mixed candles, perspective glasses, and such 
natural causes, make men look as if they were dead, or with horse-heads, 
bulls'-horns, and such like brutish shapes, the room full of snakes, adders, dark, 
light, green, red, of all colours, as you may perceive in Baptista Porta, Alexis, 
Albertus, and others, glow-worms, fire-drakes, meteors, Ignis fatuus, which 
Plinius, lib. 2. cap. 37. calls Castor and Pollux, with many such that appear 
in moorish grounds, about churchyards, moist valleys, or where battles have 
been fought, the causes of which read in Goclenius, Yelourius, Finkius, (fee, 
such fears are often done, to frighten children with squibs, rotten wood, &c., 
to make folks look as if they were dead, ^solito majores, bigger, lesser, fairer, 
fouler, Z6i astantessine capitibus videantur ; aut toti igniti, aut forma dcemonum, 
accipe pilos canis nigri, &c., saith Albertus; and so 'tis ordinary to see strange 
uncouth sights by catoptrics; who knows not that if in a dark room, the light 
be admitted at one only little hole, and a paper or glass put upon it, the sun 
shining, will represent on the opposite wall all such objects as are illuminated 
by his rays? with concave and cylinder glasses, we may reflect any shape of 
men, devils, antics (as magicians most part do, to gull a silly spectator in a 
dark room), we will ourselves, and that hanging in the air, when 'tis nothing 
but sucli an horrible image as ^ Agrippa demonstrates, placed in another room. 
Eoger E icon of old is said to have represented his own image walking in the 
air by t'l^s art, though no such thing appear in his perspectives. But most 
part it is in the brain that deceives them, although I may not deny, but that 
oftentimes the devil deludes them, takes his opportunity to suggest, and repre- 
sent vain objects to melancholy men, and such as are ill-affected. To these 
you may add the knavish impostures of jugglers, exorcists, mass-priests, and 
mountebanks, of whom Roger Bacon speaks, &c,, de miracidis naturae et artis, 
cap. 1. ^they can counterfeit the voices of all birds and brute beasts almost, 
all tones and tunes of men, and speak within their throats, as if they spoke 
afar off, that they make their auditors believe they hear spirits, and are thence 
much astonished and affrighted with it. Besides, those artificial devices to 
over-hear their confessions, like that whispering place of Gloucester* with us, 
or like the duke's place at Mantua in Italy, where the sound is rcA^erberated 
by a concave wall ; a reason of which Blancanus in his Echometria gives, and 
mathematically demonstrates. 

So that the hearing is as frequently deluded as the sight, from the same 
causes almost, as he that hears bells, will make them sound what he list. " As 
the fool thinketh, so the bell clinketh." Theophilus in Galen thought he heard 
music from vapours, which made his ears sound, &c. Some are deceived by 

e Seneca. Quod metuunt nimis, nunquam amoveri posse, nee tolli putant. ^Sanguis upupse cum melle 
compositus er centaurea, &c. Albertus. s Lib. 1. occult, philos. Imperiti liomines dtemonum et 

umbravura imagines videre se putant, quum nihil sint aliud, quara simulachra animse expertia. ^ Pytho- 
'nissEe vocum varietatem in ventre et gutture fingentes, tbrmant voces humanas a longe vel prope, prout 
voiunt, ac si spii-itus cum tiomine loqueretur, et sonos brutorum lingunt, &c. ' Gloucester cathedral. . 



Mem. 1.] Prognostics of Melancholy. 281 

echoes, some by roaring of waters, or concaves ami reverberation of air in the 
ground, hollow places and walls. ^ At Cadurcum, in Aquitaine, words and 
sentences are repeated by a strange echo to the full, or whatsoever you shall 
play upon a musical instrument, more distinctly and louder, than they are 
spoken at first. Some echoes repeat a thing spoken seven times, as at Olym- 
pus, in Macedonia, as Pliny relates, lib. 36, cap. 15. Some twelve times, as 
at Charenton, a village near Paris, in France. At Delphos, in Greece, here- 
tofore was a miraculous echo, and so in many other places. Cardan, subtil. 
I. 18, hath wonderful stories of such as have been deluded by these echoes. 
Blancanus the Jesuit, in his Echometria, hath variety of examples, and gives 
his reader full satisfaction of all such sounds by way of demonstration. ^ At 
Barrey, an isle in the Severn mouth, they seem to hear a smith's forge : so 
at Lipari, and those sulphureous isles, and many such like which Olaus speaks 
of in the continent of Scandia, and those northern countries. Cardan, de rerum 
var. I. 15, c. 84, mentioneth a woman, that still supposed she heard the devil 
call her, and speaking to her, she was a painter's wife in Milan : and many such 
illusions and voices, which proceed most part from a corrupt imagination. 

Whence it comes to pass, that they prophesy, speak several langaiages, talk 
of astronomy, and other unknown sciences to them (of which they have been 
ever ignorant) : ^ I have in brief touched, only this I will here add, that Arcu- 
lanus, Bodin. lib. 3. cap. 6, dcemon. and some others, ° hold as a manifest token 
that such persons are possessed with the devil ; so doth ° Hercules de Saxonia, 
and Apponensis, and fit only to be cured by a priest. But ^Guianerius, "^Mon- 
taltus, Pomponatius of Padua, and Lemnius, lib. 2, cap. 2, refer it wholly to 
the ill-disposition of the ' humour, and that out of the authority of Aristotle, 
prob. 30. 1, because such symptoms are cured by purging; and as by the 
striking of a flint fire is enforced, so by the vehement motion of spirits, they 
do elicere voces inauditas, compel strange speeches to be spoken : another ar- 
gument he hath from Plato's reminiscentia, which all out as likely as that 
which ^Marsilius Ficinus speaks of his friend Pierleonus; by a divine kind 
of infusion he understood the secrets of nature, and tenets of Grecian and 
barbarian philosophers, before ever he heard of, saw, or read their works : 
but in this I should rather hold with Avicenna and his associates^ that such 
symptoms proceed from evil spirits, which take all opportunities of humours 
decayed, or otherwise to pervert the soul of man : and besides, the humour 
itself is Balneum Diaboli, the devil's bath ; and as Agrippa proves, doth entice 
him to seize upon them. 



SECT. TV. MEMB. I. 

Prognostics of Melancholy. 

Prognostics, or signs of things to come, are either good or bad. If this 
malady be not hereditary, and taken at the beginning, there is good hope of 
cure, recens curationem non habet difficilem, saith Avicenna, I. 3, Fen. 1, Tract. 
4, c. 18. That which is with laughter, of all others is most secure, gentle, 
and remiss, Hercules de Saxonia. " * If that evacuation of haamorrhoids, or 
varices, which they call the water between the skin, shall happen to a melan- 

''Tam Clare et articulate audies repetittim, ut perfectior sit Echo quam ipse dixeris. ^ Blowing of 

bellows, and knocking of hammers, if they apply their ear to the cliff. m Memb. 1. Sub. 3. of this 

partition, cap. 16. in 9. Khasis. n Sigua damonis nulla sunt nisi quod loquantur ea quae ante nescie- 

bant, ut Teutonicum aut aliud Idioma, &c. "Cap. 12. tract, de mul. p Tract. 15. c. 4. <iCap. 9. 

'Mira vis concitat humores, ardorque vehemens menteni exagitat, quum, &c. "Prsefat. lamblici 

iiiysteriis. ' Si melancholicis hcemorrhoides superveneriut varices, vel ut quibusdam placet aqua 

iuter cutem, solvitur malum. 



282 Prognostics of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 4. 

clioly man, his misery is ended," Hippocrates, ApJior. 6. 11. Galen, L 6, de 
morbis vulgar, com. 8, confirms the same; and to this aphorism of Hippocrates, 
all the Arabians, new and old Latins subscribe; Montaltus, c. 25, Hercules de 
Saxonia, Mercurialis, Yittorius Faventinus, &c. Skenckius, I. 1, ohservat. med. 
c. de Mania, illustrates this aphorism, with an example of one Daniel Federer 
a coppersmith that was long melancholy, and in the end mad, about the 27th 
year of his age, these varices or water began to arise in his thighs, and he was 
freed from his madness. Marius the Roman was so cured, some say, though 
with great pain. Skenckius hath some other instances of women that have 
been helped by flowing of their months, which before were stopped. That 
the opening of the haemorrhoids will do as much for men, all physicians jointly 
signify, so they be voluntary, some say, and not by compulsion. All melan- 
choly are better after a quartan ; " Jobertus saith, scarce any man hath that 
ague twice; but whether it free him from this malady, 'tis a question; for 
many physicians ascribe all long agues for especial causes, and a quartan ague 
amongst the rest. ^ Rhasis, cant. lib. 1, tract. 9. " When melancholy gets 
out at the superficies of the skin, or settles breaking out in scabs, leprosy, 
morphew, or is purged by stools, or by the urine, or that the spleen is enlarged, 
and those -yar/c-es appear, the disease is dissolved." Gruianerius, cap. 5, tract. 15, 
adds dropsy, jaundice, dysentery, leprosy, as good signs to these scabs, mor- 
phews, and breaking out, and proves it out of the 6th of Hippocrates' 
Aphorisms. 

Evil prognostics on the other jDart . Inveterata melancholia incur abilis, if it 
be inveterate, it is ^ incurable, a common axiom, aut difficulter curabilis as 
they say that make the best, hardly cured. This Galen witnesseth, I. 3, de 
loc. affect, cap. 6, " ^ be it in whom it will, or from what cause soever, it is 
ever long, wayward, tedious, and hard to be cured, if once it be habituated." 
As Lucian said of the gout, she was " ^ the queen of diseases, and inexorable," 
may we say of melancholy. Yet Paracelsus will have all diseases whatsoever 
curable, and laughs at them which think otherwise, as T. Erastus, par. 3, 
objects to him; although in another place, hereditary diseases he accounts 
incurable, and by no art to be removed. '^ Hildesheim, sjncel. 2, de mel. holds 
it less dangerous if only " ° imagination be hurt, and not reason, ^ the gentlest 
is from blood. Y/orsefrom choler adust, but the worst of all from melancholy 
putrefied." ^ Bruel esteems hypochondriacal least dangerous, and the other 
two species (opposite to Galen) hardest to be cured. ^The cure is hard in man, 
but much more difl&cult in women. And both men and women must take notice 
of that saying of Montanus, consil 230, pro Abate Italo, " ^ This malady doth 
commonly accompany them to their grave ; physicians may ease, and it may 
lie hid for a time, but they cannot quite cure it, but it will return again more 
violent and sharp than at first, and that upon every small occasion or error : " 
as in Mercury's weather-beaten statue, that was once all over gilt, the open 
parts were clean, yet there was infimbriis aurum, in the chinks a remnant of 
guld : there will be some relics of melancholy left in the purest bodies (if once 
tainted) not so easily to be rooted out. ^ Oftentimes it degenerates into epilepsy, 
apoplexy, convulsions, and blindness : by the authority of Hippocrates and 
Galen, *all aver, if once it possess the ventricles of the brain, Frambesarius, 
and Salust. Salvianus adds, if it get into the optic nerves, blindness. Mercu- 

"Cap. 10. de quartana. ^ Cum sanguis exit per superficiem et residet melancholia per scabiem, 

morpheam nigram, vel expurgatur per inferiores partes, vel urinam, &c., non erit, &c., splen magnificatur 
et varices apparent. y Quia jam conversa in naturam. ^ In quocunque sit, a quacunque causa, Hypo- 
con, prsesertim, semper est longa, morosa, nee facile curari potest. ^Kegina morborum et inexorabilis. 
i^Omne delirium quod oritur a paucitate cerebri incurabile. Hildesheim, spicel. 2. de mania. « Si sola 
imaginatio ladatur, et non rafio. ^ Mala a sanguine fervente, deterior a bile assata, pessima ab atra bile 
putrefacta. « Difflcilior cura ejus quas fit vitio corporis totius et cerebri. I'JJifficilis curatu in viris, 
null to difflcilior in fa;minis. s Ad interitum plerumque homines comitatur, licet medici levent plerumque, 
tauien non toUuiit unquam, sed recidet acerbior quam antea minima occasione, aut errore. ^ Periculum est 
ne degeneret in Epilepsiam, Apoplexiam, Convulsionem, Csecitatem. * Montal. c. 25. Laurentius. Uic. Piso. 



Mem. 1.] Prognostics of Melancholy. 283 

rialis, cons'd. 20, had a woman to liis patient, that from melancholy became 
epileptic and blind. ^If it come from a cold canse, or so continue cold, or 
increase, epilepsy ; convulsions follow, and blindness, or else in the end they 
are moped, sottish, and in all their actions, speeches, and gestures, ridiculous. 
^If it come from a hot cause, they are more furious, and boisterous, and in 
conclusion mad. Calescentem Tnelancholiam see pius sequitur mania. "'If it 
heat and increase, that is the common event, °/jer circuitus, aut semj^er -m- 
sanit, he is mad by fits, or altogether. For as "Sennertus contends out of 
Crato, there is seminarius ignis in this humour, the very seeds of fire. If 
it come from melancholy natural adust, and in excess, they are often demo- 
niacal, Montanus. 

^Seldom this malady procures death, except (which is the greatest, most 
grievous calamity, and the misery of all miseries,) they make away them- 
selves, which is a frequent thing, and familiar amongst them. 'Tis ^ Hippo- 
crates' observation, Galen's sentence : Etsi mortem timent, tamen plerumque 
sihi ipsis mortem consciscunt, I. 3. de locis qfect. cap. 7. The doom of all 
physicians. 'Tis ""Habbi Moses' Aphorism, the prognosticon of Avicenna, 
Khasis, ^tius, Gordonius, Yalescus, Altomarus, Salust. Salvianus, Capivac- 
cius, Mercatus, Hercules de Saxonia, Piso, Bruel, Fuchsius, all, &c. 



'Et sagp^ usque adeo mortis formidine vit« 
Percipit infelix odium lucisque videndis, 
Ut sibi consciscat maerenti pectore letlium." 



" And so far forth death's terror doth affriglit, 
He malces away himself, and hates the light : 
To make an end of fear and grief of heart, 
He voluntary dies to ease his smart." 



In such sort doth the torture and extremity of his misery torment him, that 
he can take no pleasure in his life, but is in a manner enforced to offer vio- 
lence unto himself, to be freed from his present insufferable i^ains. So some 
(saith *Fracastorius) " in fury, but most in despair, sorrow, fear, and out of 
the anguish and vexation of their souls, offer violence to themselves : for their 
life is unhappy and miserable. They can take no rest in the night, nor sleep, 
or if they do slumber, fearful dreams astonish them." In the day-time they 
are affrighted still by some terrible object, and torn in pieces with suspicion, 
fear, sorrow, discontents, cares, shame, anguish, &,g., as so many wild horses, 
that they cannot be quiet an hour, a minute of time, but even against their 
wills they are intent, and still thinking of it, they cannot forget it, it grinds 
th^r souls day and night, they are perpetually tormented, a burden to them- 
selves, as Job was, they can neither eat, drink, or sleep. Psal. cvii. 18. 
" Their soul abhorreth all meat, and they are brought to death's door, ''being 
bound in misery and iron :" they "" curse their stars with Job, "^and day of 
their birth, and wish for death :" for as Pineda and most interpreters hold, 
Job was even melancholy to despair, and almost ^madness itself; they mur- 
mur many times against the world, friends, allies, all mankind, even against 
God himself in the bitterness of their passion, ^vivere nolunt, mori nesciunt, 
live they will not, die they cannot. And in the midst of these squalid, ugly, 
and such irksome days, they seek at last, finding no comfort, ^no remedy in 
this wretched life, to be eased of all by death. Omnia ccppetujzt honum, all 
creatures seek the best, and for their good as they hope, sub specie, in show at 
least, vel quia mori jndchrum putant [^diith. "Hippocrates) vel quia putant inde 
se majoribus malis liberari, to be freed as they wish. Though many times, as 
u3l]sop's fishes, they leap from the frying-pan into the fire itself, yet they hope 

k Here, de Saxonia, Aristotle, Capivaccius. i Farent. Humor frigidus sola delirii causa, furoris vero humor 
calidus. n'Heurnius cails madness sobolem melancholiJB. " Alexander 1. 1. c. 18. oLibl. part2. 

c. 11. PMontalt c. 15. rare mors aut nunquam, nisi sibi ipsis inferant. <JLib. de Insan. Fabio Calico 

Interprete. '■jsronnuUi violentas manus sibi inferunt. ^ Lucret. 1. 3. tLib. 2. de intell. ssepe mortem 
sibi consciscunt ob timorem et tristitiam tjedio vit£e affecti ob furorem et desperationem. Est enim infera, 
&c. Ergo sic perpetuo afflictati vitara oderunt, se precipitant, his malis carituri aut interficiunt se, aut 
tale quid committunt. "Psal. cvii. 10. « job xxxiii. y Job vi. 8. z Vi doloris et tristitite ad 

insaniam pene redactus. » Seneca. •'Jnsalutis suse desperatioue proponunt sibi mortis desiderium, 

Oct. Horat. I. 2. c. 5. <= Lib. de insania. Sic sic juvat ire per umbras. 



284 



Prognostics of MelancJioly. 



[Part. 1. Sec. 4. 



to be eased by bis means : and tberefore (saith Felix "^Platerus) "after many 
tedious days at last, either by drowning, hanging, or some such fearful end," 
they precipitate or make away themselves: "many lamentable examples are 
daily seen amongst us : " alius ante fores se laqueo suspendit (as Seneca notes), 
alius se prcecipitavit a tecto, ne dominum stomachantem audiret, alius ne redu- 
ceretur a fu^ga ferrmn redegit in /viscera, " one hangs himself before his own 
door, — another throws himself from the house-top, to avoid his master's anger, 
— a third, to escape expulsion, plunges a dagger into his heart," — so many 
causes there are His amor exitio est, furor his love, grief, anger, mad- 
ness, and shame, &c. 'Tis a common calamity, ^a fatal end to this disease, 
they are condemned to a violent death, by a jury of physicians, furiously dis- 
posed, carried headlong by their tyrannising wills, enforced by miseries, and 
there remains no more to such persons, if that heavenly Physician, by his 
assisting grace and mercy alone do not prevent (for no human persuasion or 
art can help), but to be their own butchers, and execute themselves. Socrates 
his cicuta, Lucretia's dags^er, Timon's halter, are yet to be had ; Cato's knife, 
and Nero's sword are left behind them, as so many fatal engines, bequeathed 
to posterity, and will be used to the world's end, by such distressed souls : so 
intolerable, insufferable, grievous, and violent is their pain, ^so unspeakable 
and continuate. One day of grief is an hundred years, as Cardan observes : 
'Tis carnificina liominum, angor animi, as well saith Areteus, a plague of the 
soul, the cramp and convulsion of the soul, an epitome of hell ; and if there 
be a hell upon earth, it is to be found in a melancholy mans heart. 

"For that deep torture may be call'd an hell, 
When more is felt than one hath power to tell." 

Yea, that which scoffing Lucian said of the gout in jest, I may truly affirm 
of melancholy in earnest. 



" triste nomen ! o diis odihile 
E Melancholia lacrymosa, Cocyti filia, 
Tu Tartar! specubus opacis edita 
Erinnys, utero quam Megara suo tulit, 
Et ab uberibus aluit, cuique parvuhe 
Amarulentum in os lac Alecto dedit, 
Omnes abominabilem te dsemones 
Prodiixere in lucem, exitio mortalium. 
Non Jupiter ferit tale telum fulminis, 
Non uUa sic procella scevit «quoris, 
Non impetuosi tanta vis est tiirbinis. 
An asperos sustineo morsus Cerberi ? 
Num virus Echidnas membra inea depascitur ? 
Aut tunica sanie tincta Nessi sanguinis 'i 
lllacrymabile et immedicabile malum hoc." 



" sad and odious name I a name so fell, 
Is this of melancholy, brat of hell, 
There born in hellish darkness doth it dwell. 
The Furies brought it up, Megara's teat, 
Alecto gave it bitter milk to eat. 
And all conspired a bane to mortal men. 
To bring this devil out of that black den. 
jE^j^aMZo Jupiter's thunderbolt, not storm at sea, 
post. Nor whirl-wind doth our hearts so much 
dismay. « 

What ? am I bit by that fierce Cerberus ? 
Or stung by '> serpent so pestiferous ? 
Or put on shirt tliat's dipt in Nessus' blood? 
My pain's past cure; physic can do no good." 



No torture of body like unto it, Siculi non invenere tyranni majus tormen^ 
turn, no strappadoes, hot irons, Phalaris' bulls. 



» Nee ira deum tantum, nee tela, nee hostis, 
Quantum sola noces animis illapsa." 



"Jove's wrath, nor devils can 
Do so much harm to th' soul of man. 



All fears, griefs, suspicions, discontents, imbonities, insuavities are swallowed 
up, and drowned in this Euripus, this Irish sea, this ocean of misery, as so 
many small brooks ; 'tis coagulum omnium 03rumnarum : which ^ Ammianus 
applied to his distressed Palladius. I say of our melancholy man, he is the 
cream of human adversity, the 'quintessence, and upshot ; all other diseases 
whatsoever, are but fiea-bitings to melancholy in extent : 'Tis the pith of 
them all, '^Hospitium est calamitatis ; quid verbis opus est 1 

*' Quamcunquemalam rem quseris, illic reperics : " I "What need more words 1 'tis calamities inn, 

I Where seek for any mischief, 'tis within ; " 



d Cap. 3. de mentis alienat. moesti degunt, dum tandem mortem quam timent, suspendio aut submersione, 
aut aliqua alia vi, prsecipitant ut multa tristia exemjila vidimus. » Arculanus in 9. Rhasis, c. 16. cavendum 
ne ex alto se prsecipitent aut alias Isedant. f omnium opinionibus incogitabile malum. Lucian. Mortesque 
mille, mille dum vivit neces gerit, peritque. Heinsius Austriaco. k Regina morborum cui famulantur 

omnes et obediunt. Cardan. •> Eheu quis intus Scorpio, &c. Seneca Act. 4. Here. Et. ' Silius 

Italicus. ^Lib. 29. lilic omnis imbouitas et insuavitas consistit, ut Tertulliani verbis utar. orat. ad. 
martyr. >" Pluutus. 



Mem. 1.] Prognostics of Melanchohj. 285 

and a melanclioly man is that true Prometliens, which is bound to Caucasus ; 
the true Titius, whose bowels are still by a vulture devoured (as poets feign) 
for so doth °Lilius Geraldus interpret it, of anxieties, and those griping cares, 
and so ought it to be understood. In all other maladies, we seek for help, if 
a leg or an arm ache, through any distemperature or wound, or that we have 
an ordinary disease, above all things whatsoever, we desire help and health, 
a present recovery, if by any means possible it may be procured ; we will freely 
part with all our other fortunes, substance, endure any misery, drink bitter 
potions, swallow those distasteful pills, suffer our joints to be seared, to be cut 
off, any thing for future health : so sweet, so dear, so precious above all other 
things in this world is life: 'tis that we chiefly desire, long life and happy 
days, ° multos da, Jupiter, annos, increase of years all men wish ; but to a 
melancholy man, nothing so tedious, nothing so odious; that which they so 
carefully seek to preserve ^he abhors, he alone; so intolerable are his pains ; 
some make a question, graviores morbi corporis an animi, whether the diseases 
of the body or mind be more grievous, but there is no comparison, no doubt to 
be made of it, multo enim soivior longeque est atrocior animi, quam corporis 
cruciatus [Lem. I. 1. c. 12.) the diseases of the mind are far more grievous. — 
Totum hie pro vubiere corpus, body and soul is misaffected here, but the soul 
especially. So Cardan testifies, de rerum var. lib. 8. 40. "^ Maximus Tyrius 
a Platonist, and Plutarch, have made just volumes to prove it. "" Lies adimit 
(Egritudinem hominihus, in other diseases there is some hope likely, but these 
unhappy men are born to misery, past all hope of recovery, incurably sick, the 
longer they live the worse they are, and death alone must ease them. 

Another doubt is made by some philosophers, whether it be lawful for a man, 
in such extremity of pain and grief, to make away himself: and how these 
men that so do are to be censured. The Platonists approve of it, that it is 
lawful in such cases, and upon a necessity ; Plotinus, I. de heatitud. c. 7. and 
Socrates himself defends it, in Plato's Phjedon, " if any man labour of an 
incurable disease, he may despatch himself, if it be to his good." Epicurus 
and his followers, the cynics and stoics in general, affirm it, Epictetus and 
^Seneca amongst the rest, quamcunque veram esse viam ad lihertatem, any 
way is allowable that leads to liberty, " *let us give God thanks, that no man 
is compelled to live against his will;" ""quid ad hominem claustra, career, cus- 
todia ? liherum ostium habet, death is always ready and at hand. Vides ilium 
prcecipitem locum, illud flumen, dost thou see that steep j^lace, that river, 
that pit, that tree, there's liberty at hand, effugia servitutis et doloris sunt, as 
that Laconian lad cast himself headlong {non serviam, aiebatpuer) to be freed 
of his misery : every pain in thy body, if these be nimis operosi exitus, will set 
thee free, quid tua refertfinem facias an accipias ? there's no necessity for a man 
to live in misery. Malum est necessitati vivere; sed in necessitate vivere, neces- 
sitas nidla est. Ignavus qui sine causa moritur, et stultus qui cum dolore vivit, 
Idem epi. 58. Wherefore hath our mother the earth brought out poisons, 
saith '^ Pliny, in so great a quantity, but that men in distress might make 
away themselves? which kings of old had ever in a readiness, ad incertafortunce 
venenum sub custode promj^tum, Livy writes, and executioners always at hand. 
Speusippes being sick was met by Diogenes, and, carried on his slaves' shoul- 
ders, he made his moan to the philosopher; but I pity thee not, quoth Dioge- 
nes, qui cum talis vivere sustines,th.on mayest be freed when thou wilt, meaning 
by death. ^ Seneca therefore commends Cato, Dido, and Lucretia, for their 
generous courage in so doing, and others that voluntarily die, to avoid a greater 

n Vit. Herculis. o Persius. p Quid est miserius in vita, quam vellemori? Seneca. iTom. 2. 

Libello, an graviores passiones, &c. ^xer. » Patet exitus ; si pugnare non vultis, licet fugere ; quis 

vos tenet invitos ? De provid. cap. 8. ' Agamus Deo gratias, quod nemo invitus in vita teneri potest. 

»Epist.26. Seneca etde sacra. 2. cap. 15. et Epist. 70. et 12. »Lib. 2. cap. 83. Terra mater nostri miserta. 
yEpist. 24. 71. 22. 



286^ Prognostics of Melanchohj. [Part. 1. Sec. 4. 

mischief, to free themselves from misery, to save their honour, or vindicate 
their good name, as Cleopatra did, as Sophonisba, Syphax's wife did, Hanni- 
bal did, as Junius Brutus, as Yibius Yirius, and those Campanian senators in 
Livy {Dec. 3. lib. 6.) to escape the Roman tyranny, that poisoned themselves. 
Themistocles drank bull's blood rather than he would fight against his coun- 
try, and Demosthenes chose rather to drink poison, Publius Crassi^^ms, Cen- 
sorius and Plancus, those heroical Romans to make away themselves, than to 
fall into their enemies' hands. How many myriads besides in all ages might 
I remember, qui sibi lethum Insontes peperere manu ? d'c. "^ Rhasis in the Mac- 
cabees is magnified for it, Samson's death approved. So did Saul and Jonas 
sin, and many worthy men and women, quorum memoria celebratur in Eccle- 
sia, saith ^Leminchus, for killing themselves to save their chastity and honour, 
when Pome was taken, as Austin instances, I. 1. de Givit. Dei, cap. 16. Jerom 
vindicateth the same in lonam; et Ambrose, I. 3. de virginitate commendeth 
Pelagiafor so doing. Eusebius, lib. 8. cap. 15. admires a Roman matron for 
the same fact to save herself from the lust of Maxentius the Tyrant. Adel- 
helmus, abbot of Malmesbury, calls them Beatas virgines quce sic, &c. Titus 
Pomponius Atticus, that wise, discreet, renowned Roman senator, Tully's dear 
friend, when he had been long sick, as he supposed of an incurable disease, 
vitamque produceret ad augendos dolores, sine spe salutis, was resolved volun- 
tarily by famine to despatch himself to be rid of his pain ; and when as 
Agrippa, and the rest of his weeping friends earnestly besought him, oscidan- 
tes obsecrarent ne id quod natura cogeret, ipse acceleraret, not to ofier violence 
to himself, "with a settled resolution he desired agaiu they would approve of 
his good intent, and not seek to dehort him from it : " and so constantly died, 
precesque eorum taciturnd sua obstinatione depressit. Even so did Corellius 
Rufas, another grave senator, by the relation of Plinius Secundus, ejyist. lib. 1. 
epist. 12. famish himself to death; pedibus correptus cum incredibiles cruciatus 
et indignissima tornienta pateretur , a cibis omnino abstinuit; ''neither he nor 
Hispilla his wife could divert him, but destinatus mori obstinate magis, (fee, die 
he would, and die he did. So did Lycurgus, Aristotle, Zeno, Chrysippus, 
Empedocles, with myriads, &c. In wars, for a man to run rashly upon immi- 
nent danger, and present death, is accounted valour and magnanimity, ''to be 
the cause of his own, and many a thousand's ruin besides, to commit wilful 
murder in a manner, of himself and others, is a glorious thing, and he shall 
be crowned for it. The '^Massagetse in former times, ® Barbiccians, and I 
know not what nations besides, did stifle their old men after seventy years, to 
free them from those grievances incident to that age. So did the inhabitants 
of the island of Choa, because their air was pure and good, and the people 
generally long lived, antevei'tebant fatum suum, 2:)riusquam manci forent aut 
imbecillitas accederet, papavere vel cicutd, with poppy or hemlock they pre- 
vented death. Sir Thomas More in his Utopia commends voluntary death, if 
he be sibi aut aliis molestus, troublesome to himself or others (" ^especially if 
to live be a torment to him), let him free himself with his own hands from this 
tedious life, as from a prison, or sufier himself to be freed by others." ^ And 
'tis the same tenet which Laertius relates of Zeno of old. Juste sapiens sibi 
mortem corisciscit, si in acerbis doloribus versetur, membrorum mutilatione aut 
morbis cegre curandis, and which Plato 9. de legibus approves, if old age, 
poverty, ignominy, &c., oppress, and which Fabius expresseth in effect. [Free- 
fat. 7. Institut.) Nemo nisi sua culpa diu dolet. It is an ordinary thing in 

« Mac. 1 4. 42. « Vindicatio Apoc. lib. ^ ".Finding that he would be destined to endure 

excruciating pain of the feet, and additional tortures, he abstained from food altogether." « As amongst 
Turks and others. ''Bohemus, de moribus gent. e^Elian. lib. 4. cap. 1. omnes 70. annum egressos 

interficiunt. ^Lib. 2. Prassertim quum tormentum ei vita sit, bona spe fretus, accrba vita velut h. carcere 
si eximat, vel ab aliis eximi sua voluntatepatintar. sNam quis amphoram exsiccans foecem exorberet, 

(Seneca, epist. 58.) quia in poenas et risum viveret ? stulti est manere in vita cum sit miser. 



Mem. 1. Prognostics of Melancholy. 287 

China, (saith Mat. Riccius the Jesuit,) "''if they be in despair of better for- 
tunes, or tired and tortured with misery, to bereave themselves of life, and 
many times, to spite their enemies the more, to hang at their door," Tacitus 
the historian, Plutarch the philosopher, much approve a voluntary departure, 
and Aust. de civ. Dei, I. 1. c. 29. defends a violent death, so that it be under- 
taken in a good cause, nemo sic mortuus, qui nonfuerat aliquando moriturus; 
quid autem interest quo mortis genere vita ista finiatur, quando ille cui Jinitur, 
iterum niori non cogitur ? d'c, 'no man so voluntarily dies, but volens nolens, he 
must die at last, and our life is subject to innumerable casualties, who knows 
when they may happen, utrum satius est unam perpeti moriendo, an omnes 
timere vivendo, ^rather suffer one, than fear all. " Death is better than a 
bitter life," Ecclus. xxx. 17. 'and a harder choice to live in fear, than, by once 
dying, to be freed from all. Theombrotus Ambraciotes persuaded I know not 
how many hundreds of his auditors, by a luculent oration he made of the 
miseries of this, and happiness of that other life, to precipitate themselves. 
And having read Plato's divine tract de anima, for example's sake led the 
way first. That neat epigram of Callimachus will tell you as much, 

" Jamque vale Soli cum diceret Ambrociotes, 
In Stygios fcrtur desiluisse lacus, 
Morte nihil rtignum passus : sed forte Platonis 
Divini eximium de nece legit opus." » 

" Calenus and his Indians hated of old to die a natural death : the Circum- 
cellians and Donatists, loathing life, compelled others to make them away, witli 
many such: "but these are false and pagan positions, profane stoical para- 
doxes, wicked examples, it boots not what heathen philosophers determine in 
this kind, they are impious, abominable, and upon a wrong ground. " JSTo evil 
is to be done that good may CO me of it;" reclamat Christus, reclamat Scriptura^ 
God, and all good men are ^ against it: He that stabs another can kill his 
body; but he that stabs himself, kills his own soul. ^Male meretur qui dat 
tnendico quod edat; nam et illud quod dat perit; et illi producit vitajn ad 
tniseriam : he that gives a beggar an alms (as that comical poet saith) doth ill, 
because he doth but prolong his miseries. But Lactantius, I. 6. c. 7. de vero 
cultu, calls it a detestable opinion, and fully confutes it, lib. 3. de sap. cap. 18. 
and S. Austin, ep. 52. ad Macedonium, cap. 61. ad Dulciiium Trihunum: 
so doth Hierom to Marcella of Blesilla's death, iV^ori recipio tales animas,(kc., he 
calls such men martyres stultm PhilosophicE : so doth Cyprian de duplici mar- 
tyrio ; Si qui sic r)ioriantur, aut infirmitas, aut ambitio, aut dementia cogit eos ; 
'tis mere madness so to do, "^ furor est ne nioriare mori. To this effect writes 
Arist. 3. Etliic. Lipsius Manuduc. ad Stoicam FhilosopJiiam lib. 3. dissertat. 
23. but it needs no confutation. This only let me add, that in some cases, 
those ^ hard censures of such as offer violence to their own persons, or in some 
desperate fit to others, which sometimes they do, by stabbing, slashing, &c., 
are to be mitigated, as in such as are mad, beside themselves for the time, 
or found to have been long melancholy, and that in extremity, they know not 
what they do, deprived of reason, judgment, all, *as a ship that is void of a 
pilot, must needs impinge upon the next rock or sands, and suffer shipwreck. 

^ Epedit. ad Sinas. 1. 1. c. 9. Vel bonorum desperatione, vel malorum perpessione fracti etfatigati, vel manus 
violentas sibi inferunt vel ut inimicis suis segre faciant, &e. i " No one ever died in this way, who would not 
have died sometime or other; but what does it signify how life irself may be ended, since he who comes to 
the end is not obliged to die a second time ?" ^ So did Anthony, Galba, Vitellius, Otho, Aristotle him- 

self, &c. Ajax in despair; Cleopatra to save her honour. ^Inertius deligitur diu vivere, quam in timore 
tot morborum semel moriendo, nullum deinceps formidare. "^ " And now when Ambrociotes was bidding- 
farewell to the light of day, and about to cast himself into the Stygian pool, although he had not been guilty 
of any crime that merited death : but, perhaps, he had read that divine work of Plato upon Death." » Curtius 
1. 1 6. oLaqueus prceeisus, cont. 1.1.5. quidam naufragio facto amissis tribus liberis, et uxore, suspendit se ; 
priBcidit illi quidam ex prfEtereuntibus laqueum ; A lioerato reus fit maleficii. Seneca. p See Lipsius 

Manuduc. ad Stoicam philosophiain lib, 3. dissert. 22. D. Kings 14 Lect. on Jonas. D. Abbot's 6 Lect. on 
the same prophet. qPlautus. "• Martial. « As to be buried out of Christian bm-ial with a stake. 

Idem. Plato y. de legibus, vult separatim sepeliri, qui sibi ipsis mortem cousciscunt, &c., lose their goods, «)Sc. 
t J^avis destituta nauclero, in terribilem aliquem scopulum Impingit. 



288 Prognostics of Melancholy. [Part. 1. Sec. 4. 

"P. Forestus liath a stoiy of two melancholy brethren, that made away them- 
selves, and for so foul a fact, were accordingly censured to be infamously 
buried, as in such cases they use : to terrify others, as it did the Milesian 
virgins of old, but upon farther examination of their misery and "madness, the 
censure was ^revoked, and they were solemnly interred, as Saul was by David, 
2 Sam. ii. 4. and Seneca well adviseth, Irascere interfectori, sed miserere inter- 
fecti; be justly offended with him as he was a murderer, but pity him now 
as a dead man. Thus of their goods and bodies we can dispose ; but what 
shall become of their souls, God alone can tell; his mercy may come inter 
poniem etfontem, inter gladium et jugulum, betwixt the bridge and the brook, 
the knife and the throat. Quod cuiquam contigit, cuivis potest : Who knows 
how he may be tempted? It is his case, it may be thine: ^Quce sua sors 
hodie est, eras fore vestra potest. We ought not to be so rash and rigorous in 
our censures, as some are; charity will judge and hope the best: God be 
merciful unto us all. 

"Observat, ^Seneca tract. 1. 1. 8. c. 4. Lex, Homicida in se insepultus abjiciatur, contradicitur; Eo 

quodafferre sibi manus coactus sit assiduisinalis; summam infajlicitatem suam iii hoc removit, quod existi- 
mabat licere misero mori. y Buchanan. Jileg. lib. 






THE 



SYNOPSIS OF THE SECOND PARTITION. 



f Sect. 1. 
General 
to all, 
which 
contains 



Cure of 
melancholy 
is either 



Unlawful 

means 

forbidden, 



Lawful 
means, , 
which are \ 



Mem. 

1. From the devil, magicians, witches, &;'c., by charms, 
spells, incantations, images, &c. 

Quest. 1. Whether they can cure this, or other 
such like diseases ? 

Quest. 2. Whether, if they can so cure, it be law- 
ful to seek to them for help ? 

2. Immediately from God, a Jove principium, by 
prayer, &c. 

3. Quest. 1. Whether saints and their relics can help 
this infirmity? 

Quest. 2. Whether it be lawful in this case to 
sue to them for aid? 
Subsect. 

1. Physician, in whom is required science, 
confidence, honesty,' &c. 

2. Patient, in whom is required obedi- 
ence, constancy, willingness, patience, 
confidence, bounty, &c., not to practise 
on himself. 

3. Physic, ( Dietetical T> 
which -< Pharmaceutical ^ 

consists of ( Chirurgical n 
Particular to the three distinct species, 05 gj ttr. 

Such meats as are easy of digestion, well-dressed, hot, 
sod, &c., young, moist, of good nourishment, &c. 
Bread of pure wheat, well-baked, 
AVater clear from the fountain. 
Wine and drink not too strong. 

r Mountain birds, partridge, pheasant. 



or 

4. Medi- 
ately by 
Nature, 
which 
concerns 
and 
works by 



Matter 
and qua- 
lity. 
1. '^Subs. 



Flesh 



<Y^ Sect. 2. 
Dietetical, 
which con- 
sists in re- 
forming 
those six 
non-natural 
things, as in 



'Diet rec- ) 
tified. 



Fish 



2. Quan- 
tity. 



-< quails, &c. 

( Hen, capon, mutton, veal, kid, rabbit, &c. 
{ That live in gravelly waters, as pike, 
I perch, trout, sea-fish, solid, white, &c. 
Herbs JBorage, bugloss, balm, succory, endive, 
1. Memb. or ( violets in broth, not raw, &c. 

Fruits ( Raisins of the sun, apples corrected for 
and roots \ wind, oranges, &c.,parsnips,potatoes,&c. 
At seasonable and usual times of repast, in good order, 
not before the first be concocted, sparing, not over- 
much of one dish. 
Eectification of retention and evacuation, as costiveness, venery, bleeding 
at nose, months stopped, baths, &c. 
{ 3. Air, recti- f Naturally in the choice and site of our country dwelling-place, 
fied, with a ) to be hot and moist, light, wholesome, pleasant, &c. 
digression of j Artificially, by often change of air, avoiding winds, fogs, tem- 
the ail'. (^ pests, opening windows, perfumes, &c. 

1 Of body and mind, but moderate, as hawking, hunting, riding, 
shooting, bowling, fishing, fowling, walking in fair fields, 
galleries, tennis, bar. 
Of mind, as chess, cards, tables, &c., to see plays, masks, &c., 
serious studies, business, all honest recreations. 

5. Rectification of waking and terrible dreams, &c. 

6. Rectification of passions and perturbations of the mind, -ct 

U 



290 



Synoijsis of the Second Partition. 



'From 
himself 



Memh. 6. 
Passions 
and pertur 
bations of 
the mind 
rectified. 



.< 



from his 
friends. 



Suhsect. 

1. By using all good means of help, confessing to a friend, &c. 
Avoiding all occasions of his infirmity. 

Not giving way to passions, but resisting to his utmost. 

2. By fair and foul means, counsel, comfort, good persuasion, 

witty devices, fictions, and, if it be possible, to satisfy his mincL 

3. Music of all sorts aptly applied. 

4. Mirth and merry company. 



Memh. 

1. General discontents and grievances satisfied. 

2. Particular discontents, as deformity of body, 

sickness, baseness of birth, &c. 

3. Poverty and want, such calamities and adver- 

sities. 

4. Against servitude, loss of liberty, imprison- 

ment, banishment, &c. 

5. Against vain fears, sorrows for death of friends, 

or otherwise. 

6. Against en^7•, livor, hatred, malice, emulation, 

ambition, and self-love, &c. 

7. Against repulses, abuses, injuries, contempts, 

disgraces, contumelies, slanders, and scotfs, &;c. 

8. Against all other grievances and ordinary 

symptoms of this disease of melancholy. 



Sect. 3. 
A consola- 
tory digres- 
sion, con- 
taining re- 
medies to all ^ 
discontents 
and passions 
of the mind. 



Sect. 4. 
Pharmaceu- 
tics, or phy- 
sic which 
cureth with 
medicines, 
with a di- 
gression of 
this kind of 
physic, is 
either 
Memh. 1. 
Suhsect. 1. 



O 



'Simples 
altering 
melan- 
choly, 
with a di- 
gression 
of exotic 
simples. 
2. Subs. 



{ To the heart; borage,bugloss,scorzonera,&c. 
To the head; balm, hops, nenuphar, &c. 
Liver; eupatory, artemisia, &c. 
,/ Stomach; wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal. 
Spleen; ceterache, ash, tamarisk. 
To purify the blood; endive, succory, &c. 
Against wind; origan, fennel, aniseed, &c. 
4. Precious stones, as smaragdes, chelidonies, &c. 
Minerals; as gold, &c. 



Herbs. 
3. Suhs. 



or < 



Com- 
pounds 
altering 
melan- 
choly, 
with a di- 
gression 
of com- 
pounds. 
Ji. Subs. 



Fluid 



con- 
sisting. 



r Wines; as of hellebore, bugloss, 
J tamarisk, &c. 

i Syrups of borage, bugloss, hops, 
(_ epithyme, endive, succory, &c. 

C Conserves of violets, maidenhair, 
J borage, bugloss, roses, &c. 
i Confections ; treacle, mithridate, 
(_ eclegmes or linctures. 



solid, ai 
those 
aroma- 
tical 
confec- 
tions. 



[Diambra, dianthos. 
Diamargaritum calidum. 
hot < Diamoscum dulce. 

Electuarium de gemmis. 
[ Lsetificans Galeni et Rhasis. 
or 

r Diamargaritum frigidum. 
,, jDiarrhodon abbatis. 
cold < Diacorolli, diacodium with their 
(_ tables. 



Condites of all sorts, &c. 



I Oils of camomile, violets, roses, &c. 
Ointments, alablastritum, populeum, &c. 
Liniments, plastei-s, cerates, cataplasms, 
frontals, fomentations, epithymes, sacks, 
bags, odoraments, posies, &c. 



V Purging ({ . ^ 

Particular to the three distmct species, 05 ^ nji. 



Synopsis oftlie Second Partition. 



291 



Medicines 
purging 
melan- 
choly, are 
either 
Memh. 2. 



Simples 
purging 
melan- 
choly. 



or 



3. Suhs. 
Com- 
pounds 
purging 
melan- 
, choly. 



1. bubs. ) Assarabacca, laurel, white hellebore, scilla, or sea- 
Upwar , > Qj^Qjj antimony, tobacco, 
as vomits. ) ' -^ 

[More gentle; as senna, epithyme, polipody, myr- 
obalanes, fumitory, &c. 

^ Stronger ; aloes, lapis Armenus, lapis lazuli, black 
hellebore. 

f ^ . Liquid ; as potions, juleps, syrups, 
M tb ' ^ "vvine of hellebore, bugloss, &c. 
'^^ \ S' i Solid ; as lapis Armenus, and lazuli, 
J I 1 pills of Indae, pills of fumitory, &c. 
s^ I Electuaries, diasena, confection of ha- 
o [ mech, hierologladium, &;c. 

Not swallowed: 
tories, &c. 



Down- 
ward. 
2. Subs. 



'Superior , 
parts. 



as gargansms, mastica- 



Nostrils, sneezing powders, odoraments, perfumes, &c. 
Interior parts ; as clysters strong and weak, and suppositories 



of 



•lor parts ; as clysters strong anc 
Castilian soap, honey boiled, &c. 



[ Phlebotomy, to all parts almost, and all tbe distinct species. 

^ r^-u' -IT,- With knife, horseleeches. 
n Chirurgical physic, J ^ . ^ ^ 

^ich consists of <; Cauteries,''and searing with hot irons, boring. 
^^ * * Dropax and sinapismus. 

' Issues to several parts, and upon several occasions. 



05 Sect. 5. 
Cure of 
head-me- 
lancholy. 
Memh. 1. 



1. Subsect. 
Moderate diet, meat of good juice, moistening, easy of digestion. 
Good air. 

Sleep more than ordinary. 

Excrements daily to be voided by art or nature. 
Exercise of body and mind not too ^■iolent, or too remiss, passions of the 

mind, and perturbations to be avoided. 

2. Blood-letting, if there be need, or that the blood be corrupt, in the ann, 
forehead, &c,, or with cupping-glasses. 

^Preparatives; as syrup of borage, bugloss, epithyme, hops, 
with their distilled waters, &c. 



Prepara 
tives and ( 
purgers, 



Purgers ; as Montanus, and Matthiolus helleborismus, Quer- 
cetanus, syrup of hellebore, extract of hellebore, pulvis 
Hali, antimony prepared, Rulandi aqua mirabills ; which 
are used, if gentler medicines -will not take place, with 
Arnoldus, vinum buglossatum, senna, cassia, myrobalanes, 
aurum potabile, or before Hamech, Pil. Inda;, Hiera, Pil. do 
lap. Armeno, lazuli. 



Cardan's nettles, frictions, clysters, suppositories, sneezings, 

masticatories, nasals, cupping-glasses. 
To open the hcemorrhoids with horseleeches, to apply horse- 
4. Averters. < leeches to the forehead without scarification, to the 

shoulders, thighs. 
Issues, boring, cauteries, hot irons in the suture of the 

croAvn. 

I A cup of wine or strong drink 
Bezars stone, amber, spice, 
resolvers <* ^o^serves of borage, bugloss, roses, fumitory, 
hinderers 1 Confection of alchermes. 

Electuarium Icetificans (jfaleni et Rhans, ^'C. 
, DiamargaritumfHg. diaboraginatmn, <^c. 



292 



Synoims of the Second Partition. 



6. Correctors 
of accidents, 
as. 



Com- 
\ pounds. 



Odoraments of roses, violets. 

Irrigations of the head, with the decoctions of nymphea, 

lettuce, mallows, &c. 
Epithymes, ointments, bags to the heart. 
Fomentations of oil for the belly. 

Baths of sweet water, in which were sod malloAvs, violets, 
roses, water-lilies, borage flowers, ramshcads, &c. 

C Poppy, nymphea, lettuce, roses, 
' Simples \ purslane, henbane, mandrake,. 
( nightshade, opium, &c. 
Inwardly J or ( Liquid ; as syrups of poppy, ver- 
taken, \ basco, violets, roses. 

( Solid ; as requies Nicholai, Phi- 
Ionium^ Romanmn^ Lauda- 
y num Paracelsi. 
Oil of nymphea, poppy, violets, I'oses, man- 
f or drake, nutmegs. 

Odoraments of vinegar, rose-water, opium. 

Frontals of I'ose-cake, rose-vinegar, nutmeg. 

Ointments, alablastritum, unguentum po- 

Outward-^ puleum, simple, or mixed with opium. 

ly used, Irrigations of the head, feet, sponges, 

as music, murmur and noise of waters. 

Frictions of the head and outward parts, 
sacculi of henbane, wormwood at his 
pillow, &c. 

Against terrible dreams ; not to sup late, or eat peas, cab- 
bage, venison, meats heavy of digestion, use balm, hart's 
tongue, &c. 
Against ruddiness and blushing, inward and outward 
remedies. 



^ 2. Memh. TDiet, preparatives, purges, averters, cordials, correctors, as before. 
Cure of me- j Phlebotomy in this kind moi*e necessary, and more frequent, 
lancholy over j To correct and cleanse the blood with fumitory, senna, succory, dandelion, 
the body. (^ endive, &c. 

'' Subsect. 1. 
Phlebotomy, if need require. 
Diet, preparatives, averters, cordials, purgers, as before, saving that they must 

not be so vehement. 
Use of pennyroyal, wormwood, centaury sod, which alone hath cured many. 
To provoke urine with aniseed, daucus, asarum, &c., and stools, if need be, 

by clysters and suppositories. 
To respect the spleen, stomach, liver, hypochondries. 
To use treacle now and then in winter. 
To vomit after meals sometimes, if it be inveterate. 

( Galanga, gentian, enula, angelica, cala- 
Roots, < mus aromaticus, zedoaiy, china, con- 
( dite ginger, &c. 

r Pennyroyal, rue, calamint, bay leaves, 
J and berries, scordium, bethany, laveu- 
i der, camomile, centaury, wormwood, 
(^ cummin, broom, orange pills. 
( Saffron, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, pep- 
( per, musk, zedoary with wine, &c. 
5 Aniseed, fennel-seed, ammi, cary, cum- 
min,nettle, bays, parsley,granaparadisi. 



-n^ Cure 
of liypo- 
chondria- 
cal or 
windy 
melan- 
choly. 
3. Meyn. 



Inwardly 
taken. 



-^ 



2. to ex- 
pel wind. 



Herbs, 



Spices, 
Seeds, 



g C Dianisum,diagalanga,diaciminum,diacalaminthes, 

g^ J electuarium debaccis lauri,benedictalaxativa,&;c., 

i» i pulvis carminativus, and pulvis descrip. Antidota- 

. i C rio Florentino, aromaticum, rosatum, Mithridate. 

Outwardly used, as cupping-glasses to the hypochondries without 

scarification, oil of camomile, rue, aniseed, their decoctions, &c. 



THE SECOND PARTITION. 

THE CUEE OF MELANCHOLY. 



THE FIRST SECTION, MEMBER, SUBSECTION. 



Unlawful Cures rejected. 

Inveterate Melancholj, howsoever it may seem to be a continuate, inexor- 
able disease, bard to be cured, accompanying tbem to their graves, most part, 
as " Montanus observes, yet many times it may be helped, even that which is 
most violent, or at least, according to the same ''author, " it may be mitigated 
and much eased." Nil desperandurn. It may be hard to cure, but not impos- 
sible for him that is most grievously affected, if he be but willing to be helped. 

Upon this good hope I will proceed, using the same method in the cure, 
which I have formerly used in the rehearsing of the causes; first general, then 
particular; and those according to their several species. Of these cures some 
be lawful, some again unlawful, which though frequent, familiar, and often 
used, yet justly censured, and to be controverted. As first, whether by 
these diabolical means, which are commonly practised by the devil and his 
ministers, sorcerers, witches, magicians, &c., by spells, cabalistical words, 
charms, characters, images, amulets, ligatures, philters, incantations, &c., this 
disease and the like may be cured? and if they may, whether it be lawful to 
make use of them, those magnetical cures, or for our good to seek after such 
means in any case 1 The first, whether they can do any such cures, is questioned 
amongst many writers, some affirming, some denying. Yalesius, cont. med. lib, 
5. cap. 6, Malleus Maleficor. Heurnius, I. 3. pract. med. cap. 28, Cselius, lib, 
16. c. 16, Delrio, torn. 3, Wierus, lib. 2. de prcestig. deem., Libanius Lavater, 
de sped. part. 2. cap. 7, Holbrenner the Lutheran in Pistorium, Polydor 
Virg., I. 1. de prodig.. Tandlerus, Lemnius (Hippocrates and Avicenna 
amongst the rest), deny that spirits or devils have any power over us, and 
refer all with Pomponatius of Padua to natural causes and humours. Of the 
other opinion are Bodinus, DcemonomanticB, lib. 3. cap. 2, Arnoldus, Marcellus 
Empyricus, I. Pistorius, Paracelsus, Apodix. Magic, Agrippa, lib. 2. de occidt, 
Fliilos. cap. 36. 69. 71. 72. et I. 3. c. 23. et 10, Marcilius Ficinus, de vit. 
ccelit. compar. cap. 13. 15. 18. 21. (&c., Galeottus, de promiscua doct. cap. 24, 
Jovianus Pontanus, torn. 2, Plin. lib. 2^. c. 2, Strabo, lib. 15. Geog. Leo 
Suavius: Goclenius, de ung. armar., Oswoldus Crollius, Ernestus Burgravius, 
Dr. Flud, &c. Cardan de subt. brings many proofs out of Ars Notoria, and 
Solomon's decayed works, old Hermes, Artefius, Costaben Luca, Picatrix, &c., 
that such cures may be done. They can make fire it shall not burn, fetch 
back thieves or stolen goods, shew their absent faces in a glass, make serpents 
lie stiU, stanch blood, salve gouts, epilepsies, biting of mad dogs, tooth-ache, 

"Cpnsil. 235. pro Abbate Italo. ^ Consil. 23. aut curabitur, aut certe minus afficietui-, si volet. 



294 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 1. 

melanclioly, et omnia mundi Diala, make men immortal, young again as the 
"Spanish marquess is said to have done by one of his slaves, and some which 
jugglers in ^ China maintain still (as Tragaltius writes) that they can do by their 
extraordinary skill in physic, and some of our modern chemists by their strange 
limbecks, by their spells, philosopher's stones and charms. " ^Many doubt," 
saith Nicholas Taurellus, " whether the devil can cure such diseases he hath 
not made, and some flatly deny it, howsoever common experience confirms to 
our astonishment, that magicians can work such feats, and that the devil with- 
out impediment, can penetrate through all the parts of our bodies, and cure such 
maladies by means to us unknown." Daneus in his tract de Sortiariis sub- 
scribes to this of Taurellus; Erastus ds Lamiis, maintaineth as much, and so 
do most divines, out of their excellent knowledge and long experience they can 
commit ^agentes cum patientihus, coUigere semina rerum, eaque materice appli- 
care, as Austin infers de Civ. Dei et de Trinit, lib. 3. cap. 7. et 8. they can 
work stupendous and admirable conclusions; we see the effects only, but not the 
causes of them. Nothing so familiar as to hear of such cures. Sorcerers are 
too common; cunning men, wizards, and white- witches, as they call them, in. 
every village, which if they be sought unto, will help almost all infirmities of 
body and mind, Servatores in Latin, and they have commonly St. Catharine's 
wheel printed in the roof of their mouth, or in some other part about them, 
resistunt incantatorum pixestigiis (^ Boissardus writes), morhos a sagis motos 
propulsant, d'c, that to doubt of it any longer, "^or not to believe, were to 
run into that other sceptical extreme of incredulity," saith Taurellus. Leo 
Suavius in his comment upon Paracelsus seems to make it an art, which ought 
to be approved; Pistorius and others stifly maintain the use of charms, words, 
characters, (fee. Ars vera est, sed pauci artifices reperluntur; the art is true, 
but there be but a few that have skill in it. Marcellus Donatus, lib. 2. de hist, 
mir. cap. 1. proves out of Josephus' eight books of antiquities, that " 'Solomon 
so cured all the diseases of the mind by spells, charms, and drove away devils, 
and that Eleazar did as much before Vespasian." Langius in his 7ned. epist. 
holds JupiterMenecrates, that did so many stupendous cures in his time, to have 
used this art, and that he was no other than a magician. Many famous cures 
are daily done in this kind, the devil is an expert physician, as Godelman calls 
him, lib. \. cap. 18. and God permits oftentimes these witches and magicians 
to produce such effects, as Lavater, cap. 3. lib. 8. part. 3. cap. 1, Polid. Yirg., 
lib. 1. de prodigiis, Delrio and others admit. Such cures may be done, and as 
Paracels;, Tom. 4. de morb. ament. stiffly maintains, "^ they cannot otherwise 
be cured but by spells, seals, and spiritual physic." ^Arnoldus, lib. de sigilliSf 
sets down the making of them, so doth E-ulandus and many others. 

Roc posito, they can effect such cures, the main question is whether it be 
lawful in a desperate case to crave their help, or ask a wizard's advice. 'Tis 
a common practice of some men to go first to a witch and then to a physician, 
if one cannot the other shall, Flectere si nequeant superos Acheronta movebunt. 
" "" It matters not," saith Paracelsus, "whether it be God or the devil, angels, 
or unclean spirits cure him, so that he be eased." If a man fall into a ditch, 
as he prosecutes it, what matter is it whether a friend or an enemy help him 
out ] and if I be troubled with such a malady, what care I whether the devil 
himself, or any of his ministers by God's permission, redeem me ? He calls a 

<= Vide Renatum Morey, Animad. in scholam Salernit. c. 38. si ad 40 annos possent producere yitam, 
cur non ad centum ? si ad centum, cur non ad mille 1 <* Hist. Chinensum. • Alii dubitant an dsraon 

possit morbos curare quos non fecit, alii negant, sed quotidiana experientia confirmat, magos magno mul- 
torum stupore morbos curare, singulas corporis partes citra impedimentum permeare, et modis nobis iguotis 
curji-e. f Agentia cum patientibus conjugunr. e Cap. 11. de Servat. ^ Msec alii rident, sed vereor ne 
dum nolumus esse creduli, vitium non effugiamus incredulitatis. « Refert Solomonem mentis morbos 

curasse, et daemones abegisse ipsos carminibus, quod et coram Vespasiano fecit Eleazar. '' Spirituales morbi 
spiritualiter curari debent. ' Sigillum ex auro peculiar! ad Melancholiam, &c. m Lib. 1. de occult. 

Piiilos. nihil refert an Deus an diabolus, angeli an immundi spiritus gegro opem ferant, mode morbus curetur. 



Mem. 2.] Lawful Cures from God. 295 

" magician God's minister and his vicar, applying that of vos estis dii profanely 
to them, for which he is lashed by T. Erastas, part. 1. fol. 45. And elsewhere 
he encourageth his jjatients to have a good faith, "°a strong imagination, and 
they shall find the eflfects : let divioes say to the contrary what they will." He 
proves and contends that many diseases cannot otherwise be cured. Incantatione 
orti incantatione curari dehent; if they be caused by incantation, ^they must 
be cured by incantation. Constantinus, lib. 4. approves of such remedies: 
Bartolus the lawyer, Peter ^rodius, rerum Judic. lib. 3. tit. 7. Salicetus 
Godefridus, with others of that sect, allow of themj modb sint ad sanitatem, 
quce a magis fiunt, secils non, so they be for the parties' good, or not at all. 
But these men are confuted by Remigius, Bodinus, deem. lib. 3. cap. 2, Godel- 
manus, lib. 1. cap. 8, Wierus, Delrio. lib. 6. qucest. 2. tom. 3. inag. inquis., 
Erastus de Lamiis; all our ^divines, schoolmen, and such as write cases of 
conscience are against it, the scripture itself absolutely forbids it as a mortal 
sin, Levit. cap. xviii. xix. xx, Deut. xviii. &c.. Bom. viii. 19, "Evil is not to 
be done, that good may come of it." Much better it were for such patients 
that are so troubled, to endure a little misery in this life, than to hazard their 
souls' health for ever, and as Delrio counselleth, '""much better die, than be so 
cured." Some take upon them to expel devils by natural remedies, and 
magical exorcisms, which they seem to approve out of the practice of the 
primitive church, as that above cited of Josephus, Eleazar,Ir8eneus, Tertullian, 
Austin. Eusebius makes mention of such, and magic itself hath been publicly 
professed in some universities, as of old in Salamanca in Spain, and Cracow in 
Polaud : but condemned anno 1318, by the chancellor and university of ^ Paris. 
Our pontifical writers retain many of these adjurations and forms of exorcisms 
still in the church; besides those in baptism used, they exorcise meats, and 
such as are possessed, as they hold, in Christ's name. Bead Hieron. Meugus 
cap. 3, Pet. Tyreus, ^:)ari. 3. cap. 8. what exorcisms they prescribe, besides 
those ordinary means of "*fire suffumigations, lights, cutting the air with 
swords," cap. 57. herbs, odours: of which Tostatus treats, 2 Heg. cap. 16. 
qucest. 43. you shall find many vain and frivolous superstitious forms of ex- 
orcisms among them, not to be tolerated, or endured. 



MEMB. II. 

Lawful Cures, first from God. 

Being so clearly evinced, as it is, all unlawful cures are to be refused, it 
remains to treat of such as are to be admitted, and those are commonly such 
which God hath appointed, ""by virtue of stones, herbs, plants, meats, &c., and 
the like, which are prepared and applied to our use, by art and industry of 
physicians, who are the disj)en3ers of such treasures for our good, and to be 
"^honoured for necessities' sake," God's intermediate ministers, to whom in 
our infirmities we are to seek for help. Yet not so that we rely too much, or 
wholly upon them : a Jove princijnum, we must first begin with Sprayer, and 
then use physic ; not one without the other, but both together. To i^ray alone, 
and reject ordinary means, is to do like him in ^sop, that when his cart was 

" Magus minister et Vicarius Dei. oUtere forti imaginatione et experieris efFectum, dicant in adversum 
quii-quid volunt Theologi. p Idem Plinius contendit quosdam esse morbos qui incantationibus solum curentur. 
«jQui talibus credunt, aut ad eorum domos euntes, aut suis domibus introducunt, aut interrogant, sciant 
se tidem Cliristianam et baptismum prasvaricasse, et Apostatas esse. Austin de superstit. observ. lioc pacto a 
Deo deflcitur ad diabolum, P. Mart. ^Mori prasstat quam superstitiose sanari, Disquis. mag. 1. 2. c. 2. 

sect. 1. quaast. 1. Tom. 3. sp.Lumbard. « Suffitus, gladiorum ictus, &c. " Tlie Lord hath created 
medicines of the eartii, and he that is wise will not abhor them, Ecclus. xxxviii. 4. ^ My son fail not in 

thy sickness, but pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole, Ecclus. ixxviii. 9. J Hue omne prin- 
cipium, hue refer exitum. Hor. 3. carm. Ud. 6. 



296 



Cure of Mdancfholy, 



[Part. 2. Sec. i: 



"non Siculi dapes 

iDulcem elaborabunt saporem, 
Non animum cytheratve cantus. 



stalled, lay flat on his back, and cried aloud, help Hercules ! but that was to 
little purpose, except as his friend advised him, rotis tute ipse annitaris, he 
whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder to the wheel. God works by 
means, as Christ cured the blind man with clay and spittle : " Orandum est ut 
sit mens sana in corpore sano.'' As we must pray for health of body and mind, 
so we must use our utmost endeavours to preserve and continue it. Some kind 
pf devils are not cast out but by fasting and prayer, and both necessarily 
required, not one without the other. For all the physic we can use, art, excel- 
lent industry, is to no purpose without calling upon God, niljuvat imrnensos 
Crate7'o promittere montes: it is in vain to seek for help, run, ride, except 
God bless us. 

a Non domus et fundus, non seris acervus et auri 
J*lgi'oto possunt domino deducere febres." 

" With house, with land, with money, and Avith gold, 
The master's fever will not be controU'd." 

"VVe must use our prayer and physic both together : and so no doubt but our 
prayers will be available, and our physic take effect. 'Tis that Hezekiah prac- 
tised, 2 Kings XX, Luke the Evangelist : and which we are enjoined, Coloss. 
iv. not the patient only, but the physician himself. Hippocrates, a heathen, 
required this in a good practitioner, and so did Galen, Kb. de Flat, et Hipp, 
dog. lib. 9. cap. 15. and in that tract of his, an mores sequantur temp. cor. ca. 
11. 'tis a rule which he doth inculcate, ""and many others. Hyperius in his 
first book de sacr. sc7'ipt. led. speaking of that happiness and good success which 
all physicians desire and hope for in their cures, "^tells them that "it is not to 
be expected, except with a true faith they call upon God, and teach their 
patients to do the like." The council of Lateran, Canon 22. decreed they 
should do so j the fathers of the church have still advised as much : " what- 
soever thou takest in hand (saith ^ Gregory) let God be of thy counsel, consult 
with him; that healeth those that are broken in heart (Psal. cxlvii. 3.), and 
bindeth up their sores." Otherwise as the prophet Jeremiah, cap. xlvi. 11. 
denounced to Egypt, In vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt 
have no health. It is the same counsel which ^^Comineus that politic historio- 
grapher gives to all christian princes, upon occasion of that unhappy overthrow 
of Charles Duke of Burgundy, by means of which he was extremely melan- 
choly, and sick to death : insomuch that neither physic nor persuasion could 
do him any good, perceiving his preposterous error belike, adviseth all great 
men in such cases, "^to pray first to God with all submission and penitency, 
to confess their sins, and then to use physic." The very same fault it was, 
which the prophet reprehends in Asa king of Judah, that he relied more on 
physic than on God, and by all means would have him to amend it. And 'tis 
a fit caution to be observed of all other sorts of men. The prophet David was 
so observant of this precept, that in his greatest misery and vexation of mind, 
he put this rule first in practice. Psal. Ixxvii. 3, " When I am in heaviness, 
I will think on God." Psal. Ixxxvi. 4, " Comfort the soul of thy servant, for 
nnto thee I lift up my soul : " and verse 7, " In the day of trouble will I call 
upon thee, for thou hearest me." Psal. liv. 1, " Save me, O God, by thy 
name," &c. Psal. Ixxxii. psal. xx. And 'tis the common practice of all good 
men, Psal. cvii. 13, "When their heart was humbled with heaviness, they 
cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress." 

"Music and fine fare can do no good. « Hor. 1. 1 . ep. 2. bSint CrcEsi et Crassi licet, non hos 

Pactolus aureas undas agens eripiet unquam ^ miseriis. « Scientia de Deo debet in medico infixa esse, 

Mesue Arabs. Sanat omnes languores Deus. For you shall pray to your Lord, that he would prosper that 
which is given for ease, and then use physic for the prolonging of life, Ecclus. xxxviii. 4. * Omnes optant 
quandam in medicina fselicitatem, sed banc non est quod expectent, nisi Deum vera fide invocent, atque sgros 
similiter ad ardentem vocationem excitent. « Lemnius e Gregor. exhor. ad vitam opt. instit. cap. 48. 

Quicquid meditaris aggredi aut perficere, Deum in consilium adhibeto. ' Comraentar. lib. 7. ob infelicem 
pugnam contristatus, in aegritudinem incidit, ita ut a medicis curari non posset. sin his animi mal.s 

prmceps imprimis ad Deum precetur, et peccatis veniam exoret, inde ad medicinam, &c. 



Mem. 3.] Saints' Cure rejected. 297 

And they have found good success in so doing, as David confesseth^ Psal. xxx. 
11, " Thou hast turned my mourning into joy, thou hast loosed my sackcloth, 
and girded me with gladness." Therefore he adviseth all others to do the 
like, Psal. xxxi. 24, " All ye that trust in the Lord, be strong, and he shall 
estal)lish your heart." It is reported by *Suidas, speaking of Hezekiah, that 
there was a great book of old, of King Solomon's writing, which contained 
medicines for all manner of diseases, and lay open still as they came into the 
temple : but Hezekiah, king of Jerusalem, caused it to be taken away, because 
it made the people secure, to neglect their duty in calling and relying upon 
God, out of a confidence on those remedies. ^Minutius that worthy consul of 
Home, in an oration he made to his soldiers, was much offended with them, and 
taxed their ignorance, that in their misery called more on him than upon God. 
A general fault it is all over the world, and Minutius's speech concerns us all, 
we rely more on physic, and seek oftener to physicians, than to God himself 
As much faulty are they that prescribe, as they that ask, respecting wholly 
their gain, and trusting more to their ordinary receipts and medicines many 
times, than to him that made them. I would wish all patients in this behalf, 
in the midst of their melancholy, to remember that of Siracides, Ecc. i. 11. 
and 12, " The fear of the Lord is glory and gladness, and rejoicing. The 
fear of the Lord maketh a merry heart, and giveth gladness, and joy, and 
long life :" and all such as prescribe physic, to begin in nomine Dei, as 
' Mesne did, to imitate Laelius 'k Fonte Eugubinus, that in all his consultations, 
still concludes with a prayer for the good success of his business; and to re- 
member that of Crete one of their predecessors, fuge avaritiam, et sine oratione 
et invocatione Dei nihil facias, avoid covetousness, and do nothing without 
invocation upon God. 



MEMB. III. 

Whether it he lawful to seek to Saints for Aid in this Disease. 

That we must pray to God, no man doubts ; but whether we should pray 
to saints in such cases, or whether they can do us any good, it may be lawfully 
controverted. Whether their imagCxS, shrines, relics, consecrated things, holy 
water, medals, benedictions, those divine amulets, holy exorcisms, and the 
sign of the cross, be available in this disease? The papists, on the one side, 
stiffly maintain how many melancholy, mad, demoniacal persons are daily 
cured at St. Anthony's Church in Padua, at St. Vitus' in Germany, by our 
Lady of Loretto in Italy, our Lady of Sichem in the Low Countries : ^Quce et 
ccecis lumen, cegi^is salutem, mortuis vitam, clcmdis gressum reddit, omnes mor- 
hos corporis, animi, curat, et in ipsos dcemones imperium exercet; she cures 
halt, lame, blind, all diseases of body and mind, and commands the devil him- 
self, saith Lipsius, " twenty-five thousand in a day come thither," ^quis nisi nu- 
men in ilium locum sic induxit ; who brought them? in auribus, in ocidis 
omnium gesta, nova novitia; new news lately done, our eyes and ears are full 
of her cures, and who can relate them all ] They have a proper saint almost 
for every peculiar infirmity : for poison, gouts, agues, Petronella : St. Romanus 
for such as are possessed ; Valentine for the falling sickness ; St. Vitus for 
madmen, &c. and as of old ™ Pliny reckons up gods for all diseases (Febri 
fanum dicatum est), Lilius Giraldus repeats many of her ceremonies : all affec- 

* Greg. Tholoss. To. 2. 1. 28. c. 7. Syntax. In vestibule templi Solomonis liber remediomm cnjusque morbi 
fuit, quem revulsit Ezecliias, quod populus neglecto Deo nee invocato, sanitatem inde peteret. h Livius 

1. 23. Strepunt auves clamoribus plorantium sociorum, sa'pius nos quam deorum invocantium opem. 
i Rulandus adjungit optimam orationem ad finem Empyricorum. Mercurialis, consil. 25. ita concludit. 
Montanus passim, &c. et plures alii, &lq. k Lipsius. i Cap. 26. "» Lib. 2. cap. 7. de Deo Morbisque 

in genera descriptis deos reperimus. 



298 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 1. 

tioiis of tlie mind were heretofore accounted gods," love, and sorrow, virtue, 
honour, liberty, contumely, impudency, had their temples, tempests, seasons, 
Crepitus Ventris, dea Vacuna, dea Cloacina, there was a goddess of idleness, a 
goddess of the draught, or jakes, Prema, Premunda, Priapus, bawdy gods, and 
gods for all ''offices. Varro reckons up 30,000 gods: Lucian makes PodagTa 
the gout a goddess, and assigns her priests and ministers : and melancholy 
comes not behind; for as Austin mentioneth, lih. 4. de Civit. Dei, cap. 9. 
there was of old Angerona dea, and she had her chapel and feasts, to whom 
(saith PMacrobius) they did offer sacrifice yearly, that she might be pacified as 
well as the rest. 'Tis no new thing, you see this of papists; and in my judg- 
ment, that old doting Lipsius might have fitter dedicated his ^pen after all his 
labours, to this our goddess of melancholy, than to his Virgo Halensis, and 
been her chaplain, it would have become him better: but he, poor man^ 
thought no harm in that which he did, and will not be persuaded but that he 
doth well, he hath so many patrons, and honourable precedents in the like 
kind, that justify as much, as eagerly, and more than he there saith of his 
lady and mistress.; read but superstitious Coster and Gretser's Tract de Cruce, 
Laur. Arcturus Fanteus de Invoc. Sanct., Bellarmine, Delrio, dis. mag. torn. 3. 
I. 6. qucest. 2. sect, 3, Greg. Tolosanus, torn. 2. lih. 8. caqj. 24, Syntax. 
Strozius Cicogna, lih. 4. cap. 9, Tyreus, Hieronymus Mengus, and you shall 
find infinite examples of cures done in this kind, by holy waters, relics, 
crosses, exorcisms, amulets, images, consecrated beads, &c. Barradius the 
Jesuit boldly gives it out, that Christ's countenance, and the Virgin Mary's, 
would cure melancholy, if one had looked steadfastly on them. P. Morales the 
Spaniard, in his book de pulch. Jes. et Mar. confirms the same out of Carthu- 
sianus, and I know not whom, that it was a common proverb in those days, for 
such as were troubled in mind to say, eamus ad videndum JiliumMarice, let us 
see the son of ^lary, as they now do post to St. Anthony's in Padua, or to St. 
Hilary's at Poictiers in France. ''In a closet of that church, there is at this 
day St. Plilary's bed to be seen, " to which they bring all the madmen in the 
country, and after some prayers and other ceremonies, they lay them down 
there to sleep, and so they recover." It is an ordinary thing in those parts, 
to send all their madmen to St. Hilary's cradle. They say the like of St. 
Tubery in ^another place. Giraldus Camhrensis Itin. Gamh. c. 1. tells strange 
stories of St. Ciricius' stafiT, that would cure this and all other diseases. Others 
say as much (as 'Hospinian observes) of the three kings of Cologne; their 
names written in parchment, and hung about a patient's neck, with the sign 
of the cross, will produce like effects. Kead Lipomannus, or that golden legend 
of Jacohus de Voragine, you shall have infinite stories, or those new relations 
of our "Jesuits in Japan and China, of Mat. Riccius, Acosta, Loyola, Xave- 
rius's life, &c. Jasper Belga, a Jesuit, cured a mad woman by hanging St. 
John's gospel about her neck, and many such. Holy water did as much in 
Japan, &c. Nothing so familiar in their works, as such examples. 

But we, on the other side, seek to God alone. We say with David, Psal. 
xlvi. 1, " God is our hope and strength, and help in trouble, ready to be 
found." For their catalogue of examples, we make no other answer, but that 
they are false fictions, or diabolical illusions, counterfeit miracles. We cannot 
deny but that it is an ordinary thing on St. Anthony's day in Padua, to bring 
diverse madmen and demoniacal persons to be cured : yet we make a doubt 
whether such parties be so affected indeed, but prepared by their priests, by 

n Selden prolog, cap. 3. de diis Syris. Rofinus. » See Lilii Giraldi syntagma de diis, &c. p 12 Cal. 

Januarii ferias celebrant, ut angores et animi solicitudines propitiata depellat. i Hanc divae pennara 

consecravi, Lipshis. •• Jodocus Sincerus itin. Gallite. 1617. Hue mente captos deducunt, et statis oratio- 
nibus, sacrisque peractis, in ilium lectum dormitum ponunt, &c. » In Gallia Narbonensi. t Lib. de 

orig. Festorum. Collo suspensa et pergamena inscnpta, cum signo crucis, &c. u Em. Acosta com. rerum 
~ in Oriente gest. h. societat. Jesu, Anno 1568. Epist. Gonsalvi. Feraandis, Anno 1660. h Japonia. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 1.] Fatient. 293 

certain oiatments and drams, to cozen tlie commonalty, as ''Hildeslieim well 
saith ; the like is commonly practised in Bohemia as Mathiolus gives us to 
understand in his preface to his comment upon Dioscorides. But we need 
not run so far for examples in this kind, we have a just volume published at 
home to this purpose. "^A declaration of egregious poj)ish impostures, to 
withdraw the hearts of religious men under pretence of casting out of devils, 
practised by Father Edmunds, alias Weston, a Jesuit, and divers Bomish 
priests, his wicked associates, with the several parties' names, confessions, 
examinations, &c. which were pretended to be possessed." But these are 
ordinary tricks only to get opinion and money, mere impostures, ^scula- 
pius of old, that counterfeit god, did as many famous cures; his temple (as 
''Strabo relates) was daily full of patients, and as many several tables, inscrip- 
tions, pendants, donories, &c. to be seen in his church, as at this day our Lady 
of Loretto's in Italy. It was a custom long since, ^ 

■ " suspendisse potenti 



Vestimenta maris deo."* — Uor. Od. 1. lib. 5. Od. 

To do the like, in former times they were seduced and deluded as they are 
now. 'Tis the same devil still, called heretofore Apollo, Mars, Neptune, 
Yenus, JEsculapius, &c. as ^Lactantius, lib. 2. cle orig. erroris, c. 17. observes. 
The same Jupiter and those bad angels are now worshipped and adored by the 
name of St. Sebastian, Barbara, &c. Christopher and George are come in their 
places. Our lady succeeds Yenus (as they use her in many offices), the rest 
are otherwise supplied, as °Lavater writes, and so they are deluded. " "^ And 
God often winks at these impostures, because they forsake his word, and 
betake themselves to the devil, as they do that seek after holy water, crosses," 
&c. Wierus, lib. 4. cap. 3. What can tlhese men plead for themselves more 
than those heathen gods, the same cures done by both, the same spirit that 
seduceth; but read more of the pagan gods' effects in Austin c^e Civitate Dei, 
I. 10. cap. 6. and of iEsculapius especially in Cicogna, I. 3. coup. 8, or put case 
they could help, why should we rather seek to them, than to Christ himself, 
since that he so kindly invites us unto him, " Come unto me all ye that are 
heavy laden, and I will ease you," Mat. xi. and we know that " there is one 
God, one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ" (1 Tim. ii. 5.), who 
gave himself a ransom for all men. We know that "we have an ^advocate with 
the Father, Jesus Christ" (1 John ii. 1.), that " there is no other name under 
heaven, by which we can be saved, but by his," who is always ready to hear 
us, and sits at the right hand of God, and from ^whom we can have no repulse, 
solus vult, solus potest, curat universos tanquam singulos, et ^ itnumquemque 
nostrum ut solum, we are all as one to him, he cares for us all as one, and why 
should we then seek to any other but to him ? 



MEMB. lY. 

SuBSECT. I. — Physician, Patient, Physic. 

Of those diverse gifts which our apostle Paul saith God hath bestowed on 
man, this of physic is not the least, but most necessary, and especially con- 
ducing to the good of mankind. Next therefore to God in all our extremities 
(" for of the most high cometh healing," Ecclus. xxxviii. 2.) we must seek to, 

^ Spicel. de mortis dremoniacis, sic a sacrificulis parati nnguentis Magicis corpori illitis, ut stultse plebecnlte 
persuadeant tales curari h Sancto Antonio. y Printed at London 4to. by J. Roberts, 1G05. z Greg. lib. 8. 
Cujus fanura ajgrotantium multitudino refertura, undiquaque et tabellis pendentibus, in quibus sanati lan- 
guores erant inscripti. " " To offer the sailor's garments to the deity of the deep." ^ JIali angeli sump- 
serunt olim nomen Jovis, Jnnonis, Apollinis, &c. quos Gentiles deos credebant, nunc S. Sebastiani, Barbar*, 
&c. nomen habent, et alioriim. = Part. 2. cap. 9. de spect. Veneri substituunt Virginem Mariam. dAd 
h«c ludibria Deus connivet frequenter, ubi relicto verbo Dei, ad Satanam curritur, quales hi sunt, qui aquam 
lustralem, crucem, &c. lubricai fidei hominibus offerunt. e Chariot est ipsis homo quam sibi, Paul. 

^Bernardi 6 Austin. 



300 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 1. 

and rely upon the Physician, ^who is Manus Dei, saith Hierophihis, and to 
whom he hath given knowledge, that he might be glorified in his wondrous 
works. " With such doth he heal men, and take away their pains," Ecclus. 
sxxviii. 6, 7. " When thou hast need of him, let him not go from thee. The 
hour may come that their enterprises may have good success," ver. 13. It is 
not therefore to be doubted, that if we seek a physician as we ought, we may 
be eased of our infirmities, such a one I mean as is sufficient, and worthily so 
called; for there be many mountebanks, quacksalvers, empirics, in every street 
almost, and in every village, that take upon them this name, make this noble 
and profitable art to be evil spoken of and contemned, by reason of these base 
and illiterate artificers : but such a physician I speak of, as is approved, 
learned, skilful, honest, &c , of whose duty Wecker, Antid. cap. 2. ei Syntax. 
Tried. Crato, Julius Alexandrinus medic. Heurnius, prax. med. lib. 3. cap, 1. &€., 
treat at large. For this particular disease, him that shall take upon him to 
cure it, ' Paracelsus will have to be a magician, a chemist, a philosopher, an 
astrologer; Thurnesserus, Severinus the Dane, and some other of his followers, 
require as much : "many of them cannot be cured but by magic." ^ Paracelsus 
is so stiff for those chemical medicines, that in his cures he will admit almost 
of no other physic, deriding in the mean time Hippocrates, Galen, and all their 
followers : but magic and all such remedies I have already censured, and shall 
speak of chemistry ^ elsewhere. Astrology is required by many famous phy- 
sicians, by Ficinus, Crato, Fernelius; ™ doubted of, and exploded by others: 
I will not take upon me to decide the controversy myself, Johannes Hossurtus, 
Thomas Boderius, and Maginus in the preface to his mathematical physic, 
shall determine for me. Many physicians explode astrology in physic (saith 
he), there is no use of it, UJiam artem ac quasi temerariam insectantur, ao 
gloriam sibi ab ejus imperitia aucupari : but I will reprove physicians by phy- 
sicians, that defend and profess it, Hippocrates, Galen, Avicen., &c., that count 
them butchers without it, homicidas medicos Astrologice ignaros, dsc. Paracelsus 
goes farther, and will have his physician ° predestinated to this man's cure, this 
malady; and time of cure, the scheme of each geniture inspected, gathering of 
herbs, of administering astrologically observed; in which Thurnesserus and 
some iatromathematical professors, are too superstitious in my judgment. 
" "Hellebore will help, but not alway, not given by every physician," &c., but 
these men are too peremptory and self-conceited as I think. But what do I do, 
interposing in that which is beyond my reach"? A blind man cannot judge of 
colours, nor I peradventure of these things. Only thus much I would require, 
honesty in every physician, that he be not over-careless or covetous, harpy- 
like to make a prey of his patient; Carnificis namque est (as p Wecker notes) 
inter ipsos cruciatus ingens precium exposcere, as a hungry chirurgeon often 
produces and wiredraws his cure, so long as there is any hope of pay, 
" Non missura cuterti, nisi plena cruoris hirudo.'"^ Many of them, to get a fee, 
will give physic to every one that comes, when there is no cause, and 
they do so irritare silentem morbum, as "^Heurnius complains, stir up a 
silent disease, as it often falleth out, which by good counsel, good advice 
alone, might have been happily composed, or by rectification of those six 
non-natural things otherwise cured. This is Naturae helium inferre, to oppugn 
nature, and to make a strong body weak. Arnoldus in his 8 and 11 
Aphorisms gives cautions against, and expressly forbiddeth it, " * A wise phy- 

^ Ecclus. xxxviii. In the siglit of great men he shall be in admiration. » Tom. 4. Tract. 3. de morbis 

amentium, horum multi non nisi a Magis curandi et Astrologis, quoniam origo ejus k coelis petenda est. 
•^ Lib. de Podagra. 'Sect. 5. m Langius. J. Cagsar Claudinus consult. " Pra^destinatum ad hunc 

eurandu'.n. <> Helleborus curat, sed quod ab orani datus medico vanura est. p Antid. gen. lib. 3. cap. 2. 
<i " The leech never releases the skin until he is tilled with blood." >" Quod sspe evenit. lib. 3. cap. 1. cum 
non sit necessitas. Frustra fatigant remediis segros qui victus ratione curari possunt. Heurnius. » Modcstus 
et sapiens medicus, nunquam properabit ad pharmacum, nisi cogente necessitate. 41. Aphor. prudens et plus 
•mediciu cibis prius inedicinalibus quara mcdicinis puris morbum expellere satagat. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 2.] Patient. 301 

sician will not give physic but upon necessity, and first try medicinal diet, 
before he proceed to medicinal cure." * In another place he laughs those men 
to scorn, that think longis syrupis expugnare dcemones et aninii phantasmata, 
they can purge phantastical imaginations and the devil by physic. Another 
caution is, that they proceed upon good gounds, if so be there be need of 
physic, and not mistake the disease; they are often deceived by the "similitude 
of syuiptoms, saith Heurnius, and I could give instance in many consultations, 
wherein they have prescribed opposite physic. Sometimes they go too per- 
functorily to work, in not prescribing a just ^course of physic : To stir up the 
humour, and not to purge it, doth often more harm than good. Montanus, 
consil. 30. inveighs against such perturbations, "that purge to the halves, tire 
nature, and molest the body to no purpose." 'Tis a crabbed humour to purge, 
and as Lauren tins calls this disease, the reproach of physicians : Bessardus, 
Jiagellum rnedicorum, their lash ; and for that cause, more carefully to be 
respected. Though the patient be averse, saith Laurentius, desire help, and 
refuse it again, though he neglect his own health, it behoves a good physician 
not to leave him hel23less. But most part they offend in that other extreme, 
theyprescribe too much physic, and tire out their bodies with continualpotions, 
to no purpo ;e. JEtius, tetrabib. 2. 2. ser. cap. 90. will have them by all means 
therefore " ^to give some respite to nature," to leave off now and then ; and 
LseliusaFonteEugubinus in his consultations, found it (as he there witnesseth) 
often verified by experience, "^that after a deal of physic to no purpose, left 
to themselves, they have recovered." 'Tis that which Nic. Piso, Donatus 
Altomarus, still inculcate, dare requiem naturm, to give nature rest. 

SuBSECT. II. — Concerning the Patient. 

"When these precedent cautions are accurately kept, and that we have now 
got a skilful, an honest physician to our mind, if his patient will not be con- 
formable, and content to be ruled by him, all his endeavours will come to no 
good end. Many things are necessarily to be observed and continued on the 
patient's behalf : First that he be not too niggardly miserable of his purse, or 
think it too much he bestows upon himself, and to save charges endanger his 
health. The Abderites, when they sent for "^Hippocrates, promised him what 
reward he would, " ^ all the gold they had, if all the city were gold he should 
have it." jSTaaman the Syrian, when he went into Israel to Elisha to be cured 
of his leprosy, took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, 
and ten change of raiments (2 Kings v. 5). Another thing is, that out of 
bashfulness he do not conceal his grief; if aught trouble his mind, let him 
freely disclose it, ^^ Stultorum incurata pudor mains ulcera celat:'" by that 
means he procures to himself much mischief, and runs into a greater inconve- 
nience : he must be willing to be cured, and earnestly desire it. Pars 
sanitatis velle sanarifuit (Seneca). 'Tis a part of his cure to wish his own 
health ; and not to defer it too long. 

"''Qui blandiendo dulce nutrivit malum, I ," He that by clierisbing a mischief doth provoke, 

Sero recusat feiTe quod subiit jugum." | Too late at last refuseth to cast off his yoke." 

" d Helleborum frustra cum jam cutis fegi-a tumebit, I " When the skin swells, to seek it to appease 
Poscentes videas ; venienti occurrite morbo." | With hellebore, is vain ; meet your disease." 

By this means many times, or through their ignorance in not taking notice of 
their grievance and danger of it, contempt, supine negligence, extenuation, 
wretchedness and peevishness; they undo themselves. The citizens, I know 

*Brev. 1. c. 18. u Similitudo siepe bonis medicis imponit. ^Qui melancholicis prsebent remedia non 
satis valida, Longiores morbi imprimis solertiam medici postulant et fidelitatem, qui enim tumultuario hos 
tractant, vires absque uUo coramodo ladunt et fi-angunt, &c. yXaturse reraissionera dare oportet. 

« Flerique hoc morbo medicina nihil profecisse visi sunt, et sibi demissi invaluerunt. » Abderitani ep. 

Hippoc. b Quicquid auri apud nos est, libenter persolvemus, etiamsi tota urbs nostra aurum esset. 

'Seneca. <»Pers. 3. Sat. 



302 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 1. 

not of what city now, when rumour was brought their enemies were coming, 
could not abide to hear it ; and when the plague begins in many places and 
they certainly know it, they command silence and hush it up; but after they 
see their foes now marching to their gates, and ready to surprise them, they 
begin to fortify and resist when 'tis too late ; when the sickness breaks out and 
can be no longer concealed, then they lament their supine negligence : 'tis no 
otherwise with these men. And often out of prejudice, a loathing and distaste 
of physic, they had rather die, or do worse, than take any of it. " Barbarous 
immanity fMelancthon terms it) and folly to be deplored, so to contemn the 
precepts of health, good remedies, and voluntarily to pull death, and many 
maladies upon their own heads." Though many again are in that other 
extreme too profuse, suspicious, and jealous of their health, too apt to take 
physic on every small occasion,to aggravate every slender passion, imperfection, 
impediment : if their finger do bat ache, run, ride, send for a physician, as 
many gentlewomen do, that are sick, without a cause, even when they will 
themselves, upon every toy or small discontent, and when he comes, they make 
it worse than it is, by amplifying that which is not. ^Hier. Cappivaccius sets 
it down as a common fault of all " melancholy persons to say their symptoms 
are greater than they are, to help themselves." And which ^ Mercurialis 
notes, consil. 53. " to be more troublesome to their physicians, than other 
ordinary patients, that they may have change of physic." 

A third thing to be required in a patient, is confidence, to be of good cheer, 
and have sure hope that his physician can help him. ^ Damascen the Arabian 
requires likewise in the physician himself, that he be confident he can cure him, 
otherwise his physic will not be effectual, and promise withal that he will cer- 
tainly help him, make him believe so at least. 'Galeottus gives this reason, 
because the form of health is contained in ther physician's mind, and as Gralen 
holds " ^ confidence and hope to be more good than physic," he cures most in 
whom most are confident. Axiochus sick almost to death, at the very sight of 
Socrates recovered his former health. Paracelsus assigns it for an only cause, 
why Hippocrates was so fortunate in his cures, not for any extraordinary skill 
he had ; ^ but " because the common people had a most strong conceit of his 
worth." To this of confidence we may add perseverance, obedience, and con- 
stancy, not to change his physician, or dislike him upon every toy ; for he that 
so doth (saith " Janus Damascen) " or consults with many, falls into many 
errors ; or that useth many medicines." It was a chief caveat of "Seneca to 
his friend Lucilius,that he should not alter his physician, or prescribed physic: 
" Nothing hinders health more ; a wound can never be cured that hath seve- 
ral plasters." Crato, consil. 186. taxeth all melancholy persons of this fault : 
*' ° 'Tis proper to them, if things fall not out to their mind, and that they have 
not present ease, to seek another and another;" (as they do commonly that 
have sore eyes) twenty one after another, and they still promise all to cure 
them, try a thousand remedies ; and by this means they increase their malady, 
make it most dangerous and difficult to be cured, " They try many (saith 
PMontanus) and profit by none:" and for this cause, consil. 24. he enjoins his 
patient before he take him in hand, '"^perseverance and sufferance, for in such 

e De anima. Barbara tamen immanitate, et deploranda inscitia contemnunt pr^cepta sanitatis, mortem ct 
morbos ultro accersunt. ^ Consul. 173. e Scoltzio Melanch. iEgrorum hoc fere proprium est, ut graviora 
dicant esse symptomata, quam revera sunt. e Melancholici plerumque medicis sunt molesti, ut alia aliis 
adjungant. ^ Oportet infirmo imprimere salutem, utcunque promittere, etsi ipse desperet. Nullum medi- 
camentum efficax, nisi medicus etiam fuerit fortis imaginationis. • De promise, doct. cap. 15. Quoniam 

saniratis formam animi medici continent. '' Spes et confidentia plus valent quam medicina. ' Fselicior 
in medicina ob fidem Ethnicorum. "> Aphoris. 89. .^ger qui plurimos consulit medicos, plerumque in 

errorem singulorum cadit. ° Nihil ita sanitatem impedit, ac remediorum crebra mutatio, nee venit vulnus 
ad cicatricem in quo diversa medicamenta tentantur. o Melancholicorum proprium quum ex eorum 

arbitrio non fit subita mutatio in melius, alterare medicos qui quidvis, &c. p Consil. 31. Dum ad varia se 
conferunt, nullo prosunt. i Imprimis hoc statuere oportet, requiri perseverantiam, et tolerantiara. Exiguo 
enim tempore nihil ex, &c. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 3.] Phyde. 303 

a small time no great matter can be eiTocted, a,nd upon that condition be will 
administer physic, otherwise all his endeavour and counsel would be to small 
purpose." And in his 31. counsel for a notable matron, he tells her, """if she 
will be cured, she must be of a most abiding patience, faithful obedience, and 
singular perseverance ; if she remit, or despair, she can expect or hope for no 
good success." Consil. 230. for an Italian abbot, he makes it one of the 
greatest reasons why this disease is so incurable, ''^because the parties are so 
restless and impatient, and will therefore have him that intends to be eased, 
Ho take physic, not for a month, a year, but to apply himself to their prescrip- 
tions all the days of his life." Last of all, it is required that the patient be 
not too bold to practise upon himself, without an approved physician's consent, 
or to try conclusions, if he read a receipt in a book ; for so, many grossly mis- 
take, and do themselves more harm than good. That which is conducing to 
one man, in one case, the same time is opposite to another. "^An ass and a 
mule went laden over a brook, the one with salt, the other with wool : the 
mule's pack was wet by chance, the salt melted, his burden the lighter, and he 
thereby much eased ; he told the ass, who, thinking to speed as well, wet his 
pack likewise at the next water, but it was much the heavier, he quite tired. 
So one thing may be good and bad to several parties, upon diverse occasions. 
"Many things (saith ^Penottus) are written in our books, which seem to the 
reader to be excellent remedies, but they that make use of them are often 
deceived, and take for physic poison." I remember in Yalleriola's observa- 
tions, a story of one John Baptist, a Neapolitan, that finding by chance a 
pamphlet in Italian, written in praise of hellebore, would needs adventure 
on himself, and took one dram for one scruple, and had not he been sent for, 
the poor fellow had poisoned himself From whence he concludes out of 
Damascenus, 2 e^ 3 Aphorism, "^that without exquisite knowledge, to work 
out of books is most dangerous : how unsavoury a thing it is to believe 
writers, and take upon trust, as this patient perceived by his own peril." I 
could recite such another example of mine own knowledge, of a friend of 
mine, that finding a receipt in Brassivola, would needs take hellebore in 
substance, and try it on his own person ; but had not some of his familiars 
come to visit him by chance, he had by his indiscretion hazarded himself : 
many such I have observed. These are those ordinary cautions, which I 
should think fit to be noted, and he that shall keep them, as ""Montanus 
saith, shall surely be much eased, if not thoroughly cured. 

SuBSECT. III. — Concerning Physic. 

Physic itself in the last place is to be considered ; " for the Lord hath 
created medicines of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them." 
Ecclus.xxxviii. 4. ver. 8. " of such doth the apothecary make a confection," &c; 
Of these medicines there be diverse and infinite kinds, plants, metals, animals, 
&c., and those of several natures, some good for one, hurtful to another : some 
noxious in themselves, corrected by art, very wholesome and good, simples, 
mixed, &c., and therefore left to be managed by discreet and skilfuJ physicians, 
and thence applied to man's use. To this purpose they have invented method, 
and several rules of art, to put these remedies in order, for their particular 
ends. Physic (as Hippocrates defines it) is nought else but ""addition and 
subtraction ;" and as it is required in all other diseases, so in this of melan- 

'Si curari vult, opus est pertinaci perseverantia, fideli obedientia, et patientia singulari, si tedet aut 
desperet, nullum habeblt effectum. s^Egritudine amittunt patientiam, et inde morbi incurabiles. 

tNon ad mensem aut annum, sed oportettoto vitise curriculo curationi opevam dare. u Camerarius 

emb. 55. cent. 2. * Praifat. de nar. med. In libellis quas vulgo versantur apud literatos, incautiores 

multa legunt, a quibus decipiuntui-, eximia illis, sed portentosum hauriunt veuenum. i^Operari 

ex libris, absque cognitione et solerti ingenio, periculosum est. Unde monemur, quam inslpidum scriptis 
auctoribus credere, quod hie suo didicit periculo. ^ Consil 23. h32C omnia si quo ordiue decet, egerit, 

vel curabitur, vel certe minus afiicietur. 'Fuchsius, cap. 2. lib. I. 



304 Oure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

choly it ought to be most accurate, it being (as ^Mercurialis ackuowledgeth) so 
common an affection in these our times, and therefore fit to be understood. 
Several prescripts and methods I find in several men, some take upon them to 
cure all maladies with one medicine, severally applied, as that Panacea Aurum 
potabile, so much controverted in these days, Herha solis, ^c. Paracelsus 
reduceth all diseases to four principal heads, to whom Severinus, Kavelascus, 
Leo Suavius, and others adhere and imitate : those are leprosy, gout, dropsy, 
falling-sickness. To which they reduce the rest ; as to leprosy, ulcers, itches, 
furfurs, scabs, &c. To gout, stone, cholic, toothache, headache, &c. To 
dropsy, agues, jaundice, cachexia, &c. To the falling-sickness, belong palsy, 
vertigo, cramps, convulsions, incubus, apoplexy, &c. '"^If any of these four 
principal be cured (saith Eavelascus) all the inferior are cured," and the same 
remedies commonly serve : but this is too general, and by some contradicted : 
for this peculiar disease of melancholy, of which I am now to speak, I find 
■several cures, several methods and prescripts. They that intend the practic 
cure of melancholy, saith Diiretus in his notes to Hollerius, set down nine 
peculiar scopes or ends ; Savanarola prescribes seven especial canons, ^lianus 
Montaltus, cap. 2&, Faventinus in his empirics, Hercules de Saxonia, &c., have 
their several injunctions and rules, all tending to one end. The ordinary is 
threefold, which I mean to follow. AtcitrriTtxri, Pharmaceutica, and Chirurgica, 
diet, or living, apothecary, chirurgery, which Wecker, Crato, G-uianerius, &c., 
and most, prescribe j of which I will insist, and speak in their order. 



SECT. II. MEMB. I. 

SuBSECT. I. — Diet rectified in Substance. 

Diet, Aiairy]rix^, victus, or living, according to ''Fuchsius and others, com- 
prehend those six non-natural things, which I have before specified, are especial 
causes, and being rectified, a sole or chief part of the cure. ^Johannes Arcu- 
lanus, cajy. 16. in 9. Rhasis, accounts the rectifying of these six a sufficient 
cure. Guianerius, tract. 15, cap. 9. calls them, propriam et primam cur am, 
the principal cure : so doth Montanus, Crato, Mercurialis, Altomarus, &c., first 
to be tried, Lemnius, instit. cap. 22. names them the hinges of our health, ^no 
hope of recovery v/ithout them. Reinerius Solenander, in his seventh consul- 
tation for a Spanish young gentlewoman, that was so melancholy she abhorred 
all company, and would not sit at table with her familiar friends, prescribes this 
physic above the rest, guo good to be done without it. '^ Areteus, lib. 1. cap. 7. 
an old physician, is of opinion, that this is enough of itself, if the party be not 
too far gone in sickness. 'Crato, in a consultation of his for a noble patient, 
tells him plainly, that if his highness will keep but a good diet, he will warrant 
him his former health. ^Montanus, consil. 27. for a nobleman of France, 
admonishethhis lordship to be most circumspect in his diet, or else all his other 
physic will ^be to small purpose. The same injunction I find verbatim in 
J. Ccesar Glaudinus, Respon. 34, ScoUzii, consil. 183, Trallianus, cap. 16, lib. 1, 
Lcelius a fonte jEugubinus often brags, that he hath done more cures in this 
kind by rectification of diet, than all other physic besides. So that in a word 
I may say to most melancholy men, as the fox said to the weasel, that could 

b In pract. med. Iijec affectio nostris temporibus frequentissima, ergo maxiine pertinet ad nos hujus cura- 
tioneni intelligere. c Si aliquis horum morborura summus sanatur, sanantur omnes inferiores. 

«• Instit. cap. 8. sect. 1. Victus nomine non tarn cibus et potus, sed aex', exercitatio, somnus, vigilia, et 
reliquse res sex non-naturales continentur. * Sufflcit plerumque regimen rerum sex non-naturaliiim. 

f Et in his potissima sanitas consistit. e Nihil hie agendum sine exquisita vivendi ratione, &c. *> Si 

recens malum sit, ad pristinum habitum recuperandum alia medela non est opus. • Consil. 99. lib. 2. si 

celsitudo tua, rectam victus rationem, &c. ^ Moneo, Domine, ut sis prudens ad victum, sine quo caetera 

vemedia frustra adhibentur. i Omnia remedla irrita et vana sine tia. Novistis me plerosque ita laborantes, 
victu potius quam raedicamentis curasse. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Diet rectified. 305 

not get out of tlie garner, Macra cavum repetes, quern mctcra suhisti, ™ the six 
non-natural things caused it, and they must cure it. Which howsoever I treat 
of, as proper to the meridian of melancholy, yet nevertheless, that which is 
here said with him in ° Tully, though writ especially for the good of his 
friends at Tarentum and Sicily, yet it will generally serve ° most other diseases, 
and help them likewise, if it be observed. 

Of these six non-natural things, the first is diet, properly- so called, which 
consists in meat and drink, in which we must consider substance, quantity, 
quality, and that opposite to the precedent. In substance, such meats are 
generally commended, which are " ^ moist, easy of digestion, and not apt to 
engender wind, not fried, nor roasted, but sod (saith Yalescus, Altomarus, Piso, 
&c.), hot and moist, and of good nourishment;" Crato, consil. 21. lib. 2. admits 
roast meat, "^ if the burned and scorched superficies, the brown we call it, be 
pared off. Salvianus, lib. 2. cap. 1. cries out on cold and dry meats; 'young 
flesh and tender is approved, as of kid, rabbits, chickens, veal, mutton, capons, 
hens, partridge, pheasant, quails, and all mountain birds, which are so familiar 
in some parts of Africa, and in Italy, and as ^Dublinius reports, the common 
food of boors and clowns in Palestine. Galen takes exception at mutton, 
but without question he means that rammy mutton, which is in Turkey and 
Asia Minor, which have those great fleshy tails, of forty-eight pounds weight, 
as Yertomannus witnesseth, navig. lib. 2. cap, 5. The lean of fat meat is 
best, and all manner of broths, and pottage, with borage, lettuce, and such 
wholesome herbs, are excellent good, especially of a cock boiled; all spoon 
meat. Arabians commend brains, but ^Laurentius, c. 8. excepts against 
them, and so do many others; "eggs are justified as a nutritive wholesome 
meat, butter and oil may pass, but with some limitation; so ''Crato con- 
fines it, and " to some men sparingly at set times, or in sauce," and so sugai* 
and honey are approved. ^ All sharp and sour sauces must be avoided, and 
spices, or at least seldom used : and so saifron sometimes in broth may be 
tolerated ; but these things may be more freely used, as the temperature of 
the party is hot or cold, or as he shall find inconvenience by them. The 
thinnest, whitest, smallest wine is best, not thick, nor strong ; and so of beer, 
the middling is fittest. Bread of good wheat, pure, well purged from the 
bran, is preferred; Laurentius, cap. 8. would have it kneaded with rain water, 
if it may be gotten. 

Water.] Pure, thin, light water by all means use, of good smell and taste, 
like to the air in sight, such as is soon hot, soon cold, and which Hippocrates 
so much approves, if at least it may be had. Hain water is purest, so that 
it fall not down in great drops, and be used forthwith, for it quickly putrefies. 
Next to it, fountain water that riseth in the east, and runneth eastward, 
from a quick running spring, from flinty, chalky, gravelly grounds : and the 
longer a river runneth, it is commonly the purest, though many springs do 
jdeld the best water at their fountains. The waters in hotter countries, as in 
Turkey, Persia, India, within the tropics, are frequently purer than ours in the 
north, more subtile, thin, and lighter, as our merchants observe, by four ounces 
in a poimd, pleasanter to drink, as good as our beer, and some of them, as 
Choaspis in Persia, preferred by the Persian kings before wine itself. 

" = Clitorio quicunque sitim de fonte lavarit 

Yina fugit gaudetque meris abstemius undis." 

m " When you are again lean, seek an exit through that hole by which lean you entered." " I. de finihus 
Tarentinis et Siculis. oModo non multum elongentur. PLib. 1. de nielan. cap. 7. Calidi et humidi 

cibi, concocta faciles, flatus exortes, elixi non assi, neque Mxi sint. i Si interna tantum pulpa devore- 

tur, non superficies torrida ab igne. "^Bene nutrieutes cibi, tenella ffitas multum valet, carnes non virosie, 
nee pingues. « Hoedoper. peregr. Hierosol. t Inimicastomacho. "Not fried or buttered, but 

potclied. ^Consil. 16. Non improbatur butyrum et oleum, si tamen plusquam par sit, non profundaiur : 
sacchari et mellis usus, utiliter ad ciborum condimenta comprobatur. > Mercurialis, consil. 88. acerba 

omnia evitentur. ^ Ovid. Met. lib. 15. " Whoever has allayed his thirst with the water of the Clitorius, 
avoids wine, and abstemious deliglits in pure M'ater only." 

X 



306 . Cure of Melancholy. [Part 2. Sec. 2. 

Many rivers I deny not are muddy still, white, thick, like those in China, 
Nile in Egypt, Tiber at Rome, but after they be settled two or three days, 
defecate and clear, very commodious, useful and good. Many make use of deep 
wells, as of old in the Holy Land, lakes, cisterns, when they cannot be better 
provided; to fetch it in carts or gondolas, as in Venice, or camels' backs, as 
at Cairo in Egypt, ^ Radziviiius observed 8000 camels daily there, employed 
about that business ; some keep it in trunks, as in the East Indies, made four 
square with descending steps, and 'tis not amiss: for I would not have any 
one so nice as that Grecian Calls, sister to Nicephorus, emperor of Constanti- 
nople, and ^married to Dominitus Silvius.duke of Venice, that out of incredible 
wantonness, communi aqua uti nolehat, would use no vulgar water; but she 
died tantd (saithmine auihov) foetidissimi purls copid, of so fulsome a disease, 
that no water could wash her clean. '^ Plato would not have a traveller lodge 
in a city that is not governed by laws, or hath not a quick stream running by 
it; illudenim animum, hoc corruiiipit valetudiuem, one corrupts the body, the 
other the mind. But this is more than needs, too much curiosity is naught, in 
time of necessity any water is allowed. Howsoever, pure water is best, and 
which (as Pindarus holds) is better than gold ; an especial ornament it is, and 
"very commodious to a city (according to "^Vegetius) when fresh springs are 
included within the v/alls," as at Corinth, in the midst of the town almost, 
there was arx aUissima scatens fontibus, a goodly mount full of fresh water 
springs : " if nature afford them not they must be had by art." It is a wonder 
to read of those ^ stupend aqueducts, and infinite cost hath been bestowed in 
Home of old, Constantinople, Carthage, Alexandria, and such populous cities, 
to convey good and wholesome waters: read ^ Frontinus, Lipsius de adinir. 
^ Flmius, lib. 3. cap. 11, Strabo in his Geogr. That aqueduct of Claudius 
was most eminent, fetched upon arches fifteen miles, every arch 109 feet high: 
they had fourteen such other aqueducts, besides lakes and cisterns, 700 as I 
take it; ^ every house had private pipes and channels to serve them for their use. 
Peter Gillius, in his accurate description of Constantinople, speaks of an old 
cistern which he went down to see, 336 feet long, 180 feet broad, built of marble, 
covered over with arch- work, and sustained by 333 pillars, 12 feet asunder, 
and in eleven rows, to contain sweet water. Infinite cost in channels and 
cisterns, from Nilus to Alexandria, hath been formerly bestowed, to the ad- 
miration of these times ; ' their cisterns so curiously cemented and composed, 
that a beholder would take them to be all of one stone : when the foundation 
is laid, and cistern made, their house is half built. That Segovian aqueduct 
in Spain, is much wondered at in these days, ^upon three rows of pillars, one 
above another, conveying sweet water to every house : but each city almost is 
full of such aqueducts. Amongst the rest Mie is eternally to be commended, 
that brought that new stream to the north side of London at his own charge: 
and Mr. Otho Nicholson, founder of our water-works and elegant conduit in 
Oxford. So much have all times attributed to this element, to be conveniently 
provided of it : although Galen hath taken exceptions at such waters, which 
run through leaden pipes, ob cerussam quce in iis generatur, for that unctuous 
ceruse, which causeth dysenteries and fluxes; ""yet as Alsarius Crucius of 
Genua well answers, it is opposite to common experience. If that were true, 
most of our Italian cities, Montpelier in France, with infinite others, would find 
this inconvenience, but there is no such matter. Eor private families, in what 

aPeregr. Ilier. t> The Dukes of Venice were then permitted to marry. cDe Legibus. d Lib. 4. 
cap. 10. Magna urbis utilitas cum perennes fontes muris includuntur, quod si natura non prisstat, effodiendi, 
&c. « Opera gigantum dicit aliquis. »'De aquseduct. s Curtius Fons a quadragesirao lapide in 

xu-bem opere arcuate perductus. Plin. 36. 15. '' Quteque domus i^omse fistulas habebat et canales, &.c. 

s Lib. 2. ca. 20. Jod. a Meggen. cap. 15. pereg. Hier. Bellonius. ^ Cypr. Echovius delit. Hisp. Aqua pro- 

iluens inde in oranes fere domos ducitur, in puteis quoque ajstivo tempore frigidissima conservatur. ' Sir 
Hugh Middleion, Baronet. "' De qusesitis med. cent. fol. 354. 



Mem. 1. Subs 2.] Diet rectified, ' 307 

sort they should furnish themselves, let them consult with P. Crescentius, de 
Agric. I. 1. c. 4, Pamphilius Hirelicus and the rest. 

Amongst fishes, those are most allowed of, that live in gravelly or sandy 
waters, pikes, perch, trout, gudgeon, smelts, flounders, &c. Hippolitiis Salvi- 
anus takes exception at carp ; but I dare boldly say with ° Dubravius, it is an 
excellent meat, if it come not from "muddy pools, that it retain not an unsavoury 
taste. Urinacius Marinus is much commended by Oribasius, -^tius, and most 
of our late writers. 

PCrato, consil. 21 lib. 2. censures all manner of fruits, as subject to putre- 
faction, yet tolerable at sometimes, after meals, at second course, they keep 
down vapours, and have their use. Sweet fruits are best, as sweet cherries, 
plums, sweet apples, pear-mains, and pippins, which Laurentius extols, as 
having a peculiar property against this disease, and Plater magnifies, omnibus 
modis appropriata conveniunt, but they must be corrected for their windiness : 
ripe grapes are good, and raisins of the sun, musk-melons well corrected, and 
sparingly used. Pigs are allowed, and almonds blanched. Trallianus discom- 
mends figs, "^ Salvianus olives and capers, which " others especially like of, and 
so of pistick nuts. Montanus and Mercurialis out of Avenzoar, admit peaches, 
* pears, and apples baked after meals, only corrected with sugar and aniseed, or 
fennel-seed, and so they may be profitably taken, because they strengthen the 
stomach, and keep down vapours. The like may be said of preserved cherries, 
plums, marmalade of plums, quinces, &;c., but not to drink after them. * Pome- 
granates, lemons, oranges are tolerated, if they be not too sharp. 

" Crato will admit of no herbs, but borage, bugioss, endive, fennel, aniseed, 
balm ; Callenius and Arnoldus tolenite lettuce, spinage, beets, &c. The same 
Crato will allow no roots at all to be eaten. Some approve of potatoes, pars- 
nips, but all corrected for wind, j^o raw salads; but as Laurentius prescribes, 
in broths ; and so Crato commends many of them : or to use borage, hops, 
balm, steeped in their ordinary drink. ^Avenzoar magnifies the juice of a 
pomegranate, if it be sv/eet, and especially rose water, which he would have to 
be used in every dish, which they put in practice in those hot countries about 
Damascus, where (if we may believe the relations of Yertomannus) many hogs- 
heads of rose water are to be sold in the market at once, it is in so great 
request with them. 

SuBSSCT. II. — Diet rectified in quantity. 

Man alone, saith ^Cardan, eats and drinks Avithout appetite, and useth all 
his pleasure without necessity, animce vitio, and thence come many inconveni- 
ences unto him. For there is no meat whatsoever, though otherwise wholesome 
and good, but if unseasonably taken, or immoderately used, more than the 
stomach can well bear, it will engender crudity, and do much harm. There- 
fore "^Crato adviseth his^'patient to eat but twice a-day,and that at his set meals, 
by no means to eat without an appetite, or upon a full stomach, and to put 
seven hours' difference between dinner and supper. Which rule if we did 
observe in our colleges, it would be much better for our healths : but custom, 
that tyrant, so prevails, that, contrary to all good order and rules of physic, we 
scarce admit of five. If after seven hours' tarrying he shall have no stomach 

n De piscibus lib. liabent omnes in autitiis, modo non sint ^ ceeuoso loco. ° De pise. c. 2. 1. 7. Plu- 

riraum prajstat ad utilitatem et jucunditatern. Idem Trallianus, lib. 1. c. 16. pisces petrosi, et molles carne. 
p Elsi onmes putredini sunt obnoxji, ubi secundis mensis, incepto jam priore, devorentur, commodi succi 
prosunt, c^ui dulcedine sunt pi'iediti. Ut dulcia cerasa, poma, &c. i Lib. 2. cap. 1. ^ Montanus, 

consil. 24. « Pyra qu* grato sunt sapore, cocta mala, poma tosta, et saccharo, vel anisi semine conspersa, 
utiliter statim a prandio vel a coena sumi.possuut, eo quod ventriculuni roborent et vapores caput petentes 
reprimant. Mont. tPunica mala aurantia commode permittiintur modb non sint aastera et acida. 

" Ulera omnia prajter boraginem, buglossum, intybum, feniculum, anisum, raelissura, vitari debent. * Mer- 
cr.rialis, pract. Med. y Lib. 2. de com. Solus homo edit bibitque, &c. ^ Consil. 21, 18. si plus ingcratur 
quaai par est, et ventriculus tolerare posset, nocet, et cruditates generat, &c. 



308 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2 

let him defer his meal, or eat very little at his ordinary time of repast. This 
very counsel was given by Prosper Calenus to Cardinal Caesius, labouring of 
this disease ; and *Pla,terus prescribes it to a patient of his, to be most severely 
kept. Guianerius admits of three meals a day, but Montanus, consil. 23. ^;ro 
Ahh. Italo, ties him precisely to two. And as he must not eat overmuch, so he 
may not absolutely fast ; for as Celsus contends, lib. 1. Jacchinus, 15 in 9. 
Bhasis, t repletion and inanition may both do harm in tw^o contrary extremes. 
Moreover, that which he doth eat must be well % chewed, and not hastily gob- 
bled, for that causeth crudity and wind ; and by all means to eat no more than 
he can well digest. "Some think (saith § Trincavellius, lib. 11. cap. 29. de 
curand. loart. hum.) the more they eat the more they nourish themselves : " 
eat and live, as the proverb is, "not knowing that only repairs man which 
is well concocted, not that which is devoured." Melancholy men most part 
have good ^ appetites, but ill digestion, and for that cause they must be sure to 
rise with an appetite : and that which Socrates and Disarius the physicians in 
^Macrobius so much require, St. Hierom enjoins Rusticus to eat and drink no 
more than will " satisfy huager and thirst. "^Lessius, the Jesuit, holds twelve, 
thirteen, or fourteen ounces, or in our northern countries, sixteen at most, for all 
students, weaklings, and such as lead an idle sedentary life, of meat, bread, &c., 
a fit proportion for a whole day, and as much or little more of drink. Nothing 
pesters the body and mind sooner than to be still fed, to eat and ingurgitate 
beyond all measure, as many do. " ^ By overmuch eating and continual feasts 
they stifle nature, and choke up themselves; which, had they lived coarsely, or 
like galley slaves been tied to an oar, might have happily prolonged many 
fair years." 

A great inconvenience comes by variety of dishes, which causeth the pre- 
cedent distemperature, " ^than which (saith Avicenna) nothing is worse ; to 
feed on diversity of meats, or overmuch," Sertorius-like, in lucem ccenare, and 
as commonly they do in Muscovy and Iceland, to prolong their meals all day 
long, or all night. Our northern countries offend especially in this, and we in 
this island (amjoliter viventes in prandiis et coenis, as ^ Polydore notes) are 
most liberal feeders, but to our own hurt. ^ Pei^sicos odi puer apparatus : 
" Excess of meat breedeth sickness, and gluttony causeth choleric diseases : 
by surfeiting many perish, but he that dieteth himself prolongeth his life," 
Ecclus. xxxvii. 29, 30. We account it a great glory for a man to have his 
table daily furnished with variety of meats ; but hear the physician, he pulls 
thee by the ear as thou sittest, and telleth thee, " 'that nothing can be more 
noxious to thy health than such variety and plenty." Temperance is a bridle 
of gold, and he that can use it aright, ^ ego non summis viris coirqjaro, sed 
simillimum Deo judico, is liker a god than a man : for as it will transform a 
beast to a man again, so will it make a man a god. To preserve thine honour, 
health, and to avoid therefore all those inflations, torments, obstructions, cru- 
dities, and diseases that come by a full diet, the best way is to H'eed sparingly 
of one or two dishes at most, to hs^Ye ventrem bene ^noratum, as Seneca calls it, 
"""to choose one of many, and to feed on that alone,"as Crato adviseth his patient. 
The same counsel "Prosper Calenus gives to Cardinal Csesius, to use a moderate 

* Observat. lib. 1. Assuescatbis in die cibos sumere, certa semper hora. f ISTe plus ingerat cavcndum 

qu?>m ventriculus ferre potest, semperque surgat a mensa non satur. % Siquidem qui s,tminiansuin 

velociter ingerunt cibum, venti'iculo laborem inferunt, et flatus maximos promovent, Crato. § Quidam 

maxime comedere nituntur, putautes earatione se vires refecturos ; ignorantes, non ea qua? irgerunt posse 
vires reficere, sed qiize probe concoquunt. ^Multa appetunt, pauca digerunt. ^ Saturnal. lib. 7. 

cap. 4. <= Modicus et temperatus cibus et carni et animaj utilis est. ^ Hygiasticon reg. Uncise 14 vel 16 

per diem sufflciant, computato pane, came ovis, vel aliis obsonii«, et totidem vel paulo plures uncias potCis. 
"Idem, reg. 27. Plures in domibus suis brevi tempore pascentes extinguuntur, qui si triremibiis vincti fuissent, 
aut gregario pane pasti, sani et incolumes in longam tetatem vitam prorogassent. ^ JSfiliil deterius quam 
diversa nutrientia simul adjungere, et comedendi tempus prorogare. sLib. 1. hist. h Hor. ad lib. 

5. ode ult. ^ Ciborum varietate et copia in eadem mensa nihil nocentius homini ad salutem, Fr. Valeriola, 
observ. 1. 2. cap. 6. k Tul. orat. pro M. Marcel. ' Nullus cibum sumere debet, nisi stomaclius sit vacuus. 
Gordon, lib. med. 1. I.e. 11. E multis edixliis unum elige, relictisque cacteris, ex eo comede. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Diet Rectified. 309 

and simple diet : and, tlioiigh his table be jovially furnished by reason of his 
state and guests, yet for his own part to single out some one savoury dish, 
and feed on it. The same is inculcated by °Crato, consil. 9. I. 2. to a noble 
personage affected with this grievance ; he would have his highness to dine or 
sup alone, without all his honourable attendance and courtly company, with 
a private friend or so, ^ a dish or two, a cup of E-henish wine, &c. Mon- 
tanus, consil. 24. for a noble matron enjoins her one dish, and by no means 
to drink between meals. The like, consil. 229. or not to eat till he be an 
hungry, which rule Berengarius did most strictly observe, as Hilbertus, Ceno- 
mecensis Episc. writes in his life. 

-" cui non fuit unqiiara 



Ante sitim potus, nee cibus ante famem," 

and which all temperate men do constantly keep. It is a frequent solemnity 
still used with us, when friends meet, to go to the alehouse or tavern, they 
are not sociable otherwise : and if they visit one another's houses, they must 
both eat and drink. I reprehend it not, moderately used ; but to some men 
nothing can be more offensive; they had better, I speak it with Saint *^ Am- 
brose, pour so much water in their shoes. 

It much avails likewise to keep good order in our diet, " ""to eat liquid 
things first, broths, fish, and such meats as are sooner corrupted in the stomach ; 
harder meats of digestion must come last." Crato would have the supper 
less than the dinner, which Cardan, Contradict, lih.l. Tract. 5. contradict. 18. 
disallows, and that by the authority of Galen, 7. art. curat, cap, 6. and for 
four reasons he will have the supper biggest : I have read many treatises to 
this purpose, I know not how it may concern some few sick men, but for my 
part generally for all, I should subscribe to that custom of the Romans, to 
make a sparing dinner, and a liberal supper ; all their preparation and invi- 
tation was still at supper, no mention of dinner. Many reasons I could give, 
but when all is said pro and con, ^Cardan's rule is best, to keep that we are 
accustomed unto, though it be naught, and to follow our disposition and appe- 
tite in some things is not amiss; to eat sometimes of a dish which is hurtful, 
if we have an extraordinary liking to it. Alexander Severus loved hares and 
apples above all other meats, as 'Lampridius relates in his life; one pope pork, 
another peacock, &c. ; what harm came of if? I conclude our own experience 
is the best physician; that diet which is most propitious to one, is often per- 
nicious to another, such is the variety of palates, humours, and temperatures, 
let every man observe, and be a law unto himself. Tiberius, in "Tacitus, did 
laugh at all such, that thirty years of age would ask counsel of others con- 
cerning matters of diet ; I say the same. 

These few rules of diet he that keeps, shall surely find great ease and 
speedy remedy by it. It is a wonder to relate that prodigious temperance of 
some hermits, anchorites, and fathers of the church : he that shall but read 
their lives, written by Hierom, Athanasius, &c., how abstemious heathens 
have been in this kind, those Curii and Fabritii, those old philosophers, as 
Pliny records, lib. 11. Xenophon, lib. 1. devit. Socrat, emperors and kings, 
as Nicephorus relates, Eccles. hist., lib. 18. cap. 8. of Mauritius, Ludovicus 
Pius, &c., and that admirable ^example of Ludovicus Cornarus, a patrician of 
Venice, cannot but admire them. This have they done voluntarily and in 
health; what shall these private men do that are visited with sickness, and 

» L. de atra bile. Simplex sit citrns et non varins; quod licet dignitati tiice ob convivas diificile videatur, 
&c. " Celsitudo tua pi audeat sola, absque apparatu aulico, contentus sit illustrissunus princeps duobus 

tantura ferculis, vinoque Khenano solum in mensa uratur. p Semper intra satietatem a mensa recedat, 

uno ferculo contentus. i Lib. de Hel. et Jejunio. Multo melius in terram vina fudisses. "^ Crato. 

ISIultum refert non ignorare qui cibi priores, etc., liquida pr£ecedant carnium jura,pisces, fructus, &c. Coena 
brevier sitprandio. ^Xract. 6. contradict. 1. lib. 1. t Super omnia quotidianum leporem liabuit, et 

pomis indalsit. " Annal. 6. Eidere solebat eos, qui post 30 a-tatis annum, ad coguoscenda corporisuo 

noxiu vel utilia, alicujus cousiliiindigerent. -^A Lessio edit. 16U. 



310 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

necessarily ^ enjoined to recover, and continne their health ? It is a hard thing 
to observe a strict diet, et qui medice vivit, misere vivit,'^ as the saying is, 
quale hoc ipsuni erit vivere, his si privatus fueris ? as good be buried, as so 
much debarred of his appetite; excessit medicina rnalum, the physic is more 
troublesome than the disease, so he complained in the poet, so thou'thinkest : 
yet he that loves himself will easily endure this little misery, to avoid a greater 
inconvenience; e 7)ialis minimwni, better do this than do worse. And as 
^ Tally holds, "better be a temperate old man than a lascivious youth." 'Tis 
the only sweet thing (which he adviseth) so to moderate ourselves, that we 
may have senectutem in juventute, et in juventute senectutem, be youthful in our 
old age, staid in our youth, discreet and temperate in both. 



MEMB. II. 
Retention and Evacuatiom rectified, 

I HAVE declared in the causes what harm costiveness hath done in procuring 
this disease ; if it be so noxious, the opposite must needs be good, or mean at 
least, as indeed it is, and to this cure necessarily required; maxime conducit, 
saith Montaltus, cap. 27. it very much avails. ^Altomarus, cap. 7. " commends 
walking in a morning into some fair green pleasant fields, but by all means 
first, by art or nature, he will have these ordinary excrements evacuated." 
Piso calls it Benpficium Ventris, the benefit, help or pleasure of the belly, for 
it doth much ease it. Laurentius, cajJ. 8, Crato, consil. 21. I. 2. prescribes it 
once a day at least : where nature is defective, art must supply, by those leni- 
tive electuaries, suppositories, condite prunes, turpentine clysters, as shall be 
shown. Prosper Calenus, lib. de ati^a bile, commends clysters in hypochon- 
driacal melancholy, still to be used as occasion serves; ^ Peter Cnemander, in a 
consultation of his pro hypochondriaco, will have his patient continually loose, 
and to that end sets down there many forms of potions and clysters. Mercu- 
rialis, consil. 88. if this benefit come not of its own accord, prescribes " clys- 
ters in the first place: so doth Montanus, consil, 24. consil. 31 et 229. he 
commends turpentine to that purpose : the same he ingeminates, consil. 230. 
for an Italian abbot. 'Tis very good to wash his hands and face often, to shift 
his clothes, to have fair linen about him, to be decently and comely attired, 
for sordes vitiant, nastiness defiles and dejects any man that is so voluntarily, 
or compelled by want, it duUeth the spirits. 

Baths are either artificial or natural, both have their special uses in this 
malady, and as ^Alexander supposeth, lib. 1. cap. 16. yield as speedy a remedy 
as any other physic whatsoever, ^tius would have them daily used, assidua 
balnea, Tetra. 2. sect. 2. cap. 9. Galen cracks how many several cures he hath 
performed in this kind by use of baths alone, and Kufus pills, moistening them 
which are otherwise dry. Rhasis makes it a principal cure, Tota cura sit in 
humectando, to bathe and afterwards anoint with oil. Jason Pratensis, Lau- 
rentius, cap. 8. and Montanus set down their peculiar forms of artificial baths. 
Crato, consil. 17. lib. 2. commends mallows, camomile, violets, borage to be 
boiled in it, and sometimes fair water alone, and in his following counsel, 
Balneum aquce dulcis solum soepissime profuisse compertum habemus. So doth 
Puchsius, lib. 1. cap. 33, Frisimelica, 2. consil. 42. in Trincavellius. Some 

y Egyptii olim omnes morbos curabant vomitu et jejunio. Bohsmus, lib. 1 . cap. 5. * " He M'ho lives 

medically lives miserably." « Cat. Major : Melior conditio senis viventis ex prsescripto artis medicae, 

quam adolescentis luxuriosi. » Debet per amoeiia exerceri, et loca viridia, excretis prius arte vel natura 

aivi excrementis. *> Hildeslieim, spicel. 2. de mel. Primum omnium operam dabis ut singulis diebus 

habeas beneficium ventris, semper cavendo ne alvus sit diutius astricta. ^ gi non sponte, clisteribus 

purgetur. d Balneorum u.sus dulcium, siquid aliud, ipsis opitulatur. Credo li<ec dici cum aliq.ua jac- 

tiiutia, inquit Montauus, consil. 26. 



Mem. 2.] detention and Evacuation rsctified. 311 

beside herbs prescribe a ram's head and other things to be boiled. ^Fe me- 
lius, consil. 44. will have them used ten or twelve days together ; to which he 
must enter fasting, and so continue in a temperate heat, and after that frictions 
all over the body. Lsslius ^ugubinus, consil, 1 42. and Christoph. ^rerus,in a 
consultation of his, hold once or twice a week sufficient to bathe, the"Svater 
to be warm, not hot, for fear of sweating." Felix Plater, observ. lib. 1. for a 
melancholy lawyer, "^will ha,ve lotions of the head still joined to these baths, 
with a lee wherein capital herbs have been boiled." ''Lauren tins speaks of 
baths of milk, which I find approved by many others. And still after bath, the 
body to be anointed with oil of bitter almonds, of violets, new or fresh butter, 
'capon's grease, especially the backbone, and then lotions of the head, em- 
brocations, &c. These kinds of baths have been in former times much fre- 
quented, and diversely varied, and are still in general use in those eastern 
countries. The Komans had their public baths very sumptuous and stupend, 
as those of Antoninus and Dioclesian. Plin. 36. saith there were an infinite 
number of them in Rome, and mightily frequented ; soaie bathed seven times 
a day, as Comuiodus the emperor is reported to have done : usually twice a 
day, and they were after anointed with most costly ointments : rich women 
bathed themselves in milk, some in the milk of five hundred she-asses at once : 
we have many ruins of such baths found in this island, amongst those parietines 
and rubbish of old Koman towns. Lipsius, de mag. Urb. Bom. I. 3. c, 8, 
Rosinus, Scot of Antwerp, and other antiquaries, tell strange stories of their 
baths. Gillius, I. 4. cap. idt. Topogr. Constant, reckons up 155 public ^ baths 
in Constantinople, of fair building ; they are still 'frequented in that city by 
the Turks of ail sorts, men and women, and all over Greece and those hot 
countries : to absterge belike that fulsomeness of sweat, to which they are there 
subject. ""Busbequius, in his epistles, is very copious in describing the manner 
of them, how their women go covered, a maid following Avith a box of ointment 
to rub thsm. The richer sort have private baths in their houses ; the poorer 
go to the common, and are generally so curious in this behalf, that they will 
not eat nor drink until they have bathed, before and after meals some, "°and 
will not make water (but they will v/ash their hands) or go to stool." Leo 
Afer, I. 3. makes mention of one hundred several baths at Fez in Africa, 
most sumptuous, and such as have great revenues belonging to them. . Bux- 
torf, cap. l4. Synagog. Jud. speaks of many ceremonies amongst the Jews 
in this kind ; they are very sui)erstitious in their baths, especially women. 

Natural baths are praised by some, discommended by others ; but it is in 
a diverse respect. ° Marcus, de Oddis in Hip. affect, consulted about baths, con- 
demns them for the heat of the liver, because they dry too fast ; and yet by and 
by, ^in another counsel for the same disease, he approves them because they 
cleanse by reason of the sulphur, and would have their water to be drunk. 
Ai-eteus, c. 7. commends alum baths above the rest; and "^Mercurialis, consU. 
88. those of Lucca in that hypochondriacal passion. " He would have his 
patient tarry there fifteen days together, and drink the water of them, and to 
be bucketed, or have the water pom-ed on his head. John Baptista, Sylvaticus 
cont. 64. commends all the baths in Italy, and drinking of their water, whether 
they be iron, alum, sulphur; so doth '"Hercules de Saxonia. Bat in that they 
cause sweat and dry so much, he confines himself to hypochondriacal melancholy 

*In qnibns jejunus diu sedeat eo tempore, ne sudorem excitent aut manifestum teporem, sed quadain 
refvigeratione huraectent. f Aqua iion sit calida, sed tepid;!, ne sudor sequatur. s Lotiones capitis 

ex lixivio, in quo herbas capitales coxerint. "^ Cap. 8. de mel. » Aut axuugia pulli, Piso. '' TliernuG 
Kympheie. ' Sandes, lib. 1. saith, that women go twice a week to the baths at least. mEpist. 3. 

I'Xec alvum excernunt, quin aquam secum portent qua partes obscanas lavent. Busbequius, ep 3. Le^. 
Turci*. "Hildesheim, spicel. 2. de mel. Uypocon. si non adesset jecoris caliditas, Thermas laudarem, 

et si non nimiahamoris exsiccatio esset metuenda. pFoL 141. ^ Thermas Lucenses adeat, ibiinu; 

aquas ejus per 15 dies potet, et calidarum aquarum stillicidiis turn caput turn veutiiculum de more 
subjiciat. ' In pantli. 



312 Care of Melancliohj. [r^irt. 2. Sec. 2. 

alone, excepting tliafc of the head and tlie other. Tiincavelllus, consilX^. lib. 1. 
prefers those ^Porrectan baths before the rest, because of the mixture of bras?!, 
iron, alum, 2a\diConsil. 35. I. 3. for a melancholy lawyer, and coiisil. 36. in that 
hypochondriacal passion, the ^baths of Aquaria, and 36. consil. the drinking of 
them. Frisimelica, consulted amongst the rest in Trincavellius, consil. 42. 
lib. 2. prefers the waters of " Apona before all artificial baths whatsoever in this 
disease, and would have one nine years affected with hypochondriacal passions 
fly to them as to a ""holy anchor. Of the same mind is Trincavellius himself 
there, and yet both put a hot liver in the same party for a cause, and send 
him to the waters of St. Helen, which are much hotter. Montanus, consil. 
230. magnifies the ^'Chalderinian baths, and consil. 237. et 239. he exhorteth 
to the same, but with this caution, " ^ that the liver be outwardly anointed 
with some coolers that it be not overheated." But these baths must be warily 
frequented by melancholy persons, or if used, to such as are very cold of 
themselves, for as Gabelius concludes of all Dutch baths, and especially of those 
of Baden, " they are good for all cold diseases, "^ naught for choleric, hot and 
dry, and all infirmities proceeding of choler, inflammations of the spleen and 
liver." Our English baths, as they are hot, must needs incur the same 
censure : but D. Turner of old, and D. Jones have written at large of them. 
Of cold baths I find little or no mention in any physician, some speak against 
them: ''Cardan alone out ofAgathinus '^ commends bathing in fresh rivers 
and cold waters, and adviseth all such as mean to live long to use it, for it 
agrees with all ages and complexions, and is most profitable for hot tem- 
peratures." As for sweating, urine, blood-letting by hsemrods,, or otherwise, 
I shall elsewhere more opportunely speak of theui. 

Immoderate Venus in excess, as it is a cause, or in defect ; so moderately 
used to some parties an only help, a present remedy. Peter Forestus calls it 
aptissimum remedlum, a most apposite remedy, " ''remitting anger, and reason, 
that was otherwise bound." Avicenna, Fen. 3. 20, Oribasius, Tued. collect. 
lib. 6. ca}!. 37. contend out of Bufus and others, '"^that many madmen, 
melancholy, and labouring of the falling sickness, have been cured by this 
alone." Montaltus, cap. 27. de ^nelan. will have it drive away sorrow, and all 
illusions of the brain, to purge the heart and brain from ill smokes and vapours 
that offend them : "^and if it be omitted," as Yalescus supposeth, "it makes 
the mind sad, the body dull and heavy." Many other inconveniences are 
reckoned up by Mercatus, and by Bodericus a Castro, in their tracts de melan- 
cholid virgimiin et moiiicdium ; ob seminis retentionem soiviunt sape monicdes 
et virgines, but as Platerus adds, si nubant, sanantur, they rave single, and 
pine away, much discontent, but marriage inends all. Marcellus Donatus, lib. 
2. 7ned. hist. cap. 1. tells a story to confirm this out of Alexander Benedictus, 
of a maid that was mad, ob menses inhibitos, cum in officinam meritoriam inci- 
disset, a quindecim viris eddem node comiyressa, mensiuDi largo projiuvio, quod 
phiinbus annis ante constiterat, non sine Diagno pudore mane menti restituta 
discessit. But this must be warily understood, for as Arnold us objects, lib. 1. 
breviar. 18. cap. Quid coitus ad Tnelancholicimi succurn ? What affinity have 
these two ? " ^except it be manifest that sdperabundance of seed, or falness of 
blood be a cause, or that love, or an extraordinary desire of Yenus, have gone 
before," or that as Lod. Mercatus excepts, they be very flatuous, and have 

s Aqupe Porrectanse. * Aquse Aquarise. ^ Ad aquas Aponenses vehit ad sacram anchoram confu^iat. 
X Joh. Baubinus, li. 3. c. 14. hist, admir. Fontis BoUensis in ducat. Witteiiiberg laudat aquas BoUensesad 
melancholicos morbos, moerorem, fascinationem, aliaque animi pathemata. y Balnea Chaldei'ina. 

^liepar externe ungatur ne caletiat. aNocent calidis et siccis, cholevicis, et omnibus morbis ex cholera, 

hepatis, splenisque affectionibus. ^ Lib. de aqua. Qui breve hoc vit« curriculum cupiuut sani transi- 

gere, frigidis aquis siepe lavare debent, nulli setati cum sit incongrua, calidis imprimis utilis. « Solvit 

Venus rationis vim impeditam, ingentes iras remittit, &c. <i Multi comitiales, melancholici, insani, 

hujus usu solo sanati. « Si omittatur coitus, contristat, et plurimum gravat corpus et animum. ^ Nisi 
certo coustetnimum semen aut sanguinem caasam esse, aut amor prsecesserit, aut, &c. 



Mem. 3.] Digression of Air. 313 

been otherwise accustomed unto it. Montaltus, cap. 27. will not allow of 
moderate Venus to such as have the gout, palsy, epilepsy, melancholy, except 
they be very lusty, and full of blood. ^Lodovicus Antonius, lib. med. miscel. 
in his chapter of Yenus, forbids it utterly to all wrestlers, ditchers, labouring 
men, &c. ^Ficinus and 'Marsilius Cognatus put Yenus one of the five mor- 
tal enemies of a student : " it consumes the spirits, and weakeneth the brain." 
Halyabbas the Arabian, 5. Theor. cap. 36. and Jason Pratensis make it the 
fountain of most diseases, "''but most pernicious to them who are cold and 
dry:" a melancholy man must not meddle with it, but in some cases. Plu- 
tarch in his book de san. tuend. accounts of it as one of the three principal 
signs and preservers of health, temperance in this kind: "Ho rise with an 
appetite, to be ready to work, and abstain from venery," tria sahiherrijna, are 
three most healthful things. We see their opposites how pernicious they are 
to mankind, as to all other creatures tliey bring death, and many feral diseases : 
Immodicis brevis est cetas et rara senectus. Aristotle gives instance in spar- 
rows, which are parUm vivaces ob salacitatem, ™ short-lived because of their 
salacity, which is very frequent, as Scoppius in Priapiis will better inform you. 
The extremes being both bad, "the medium is to be kept, which cannot easily 
be determined. Some are better able to sustain, such as are hot and moist, 
phlegmatic, as Hippocrates insinuateth, some strong and lusty, well fed like 
"Hercules, pProculus the emperor, lusty Laurence, "^ prostibulum fee mince Mes- 
saliiia the empress, that by ]3hilters, and such kind of lascivious meats, use all 
means to 'enable themselves : and brag of it in the end, confodi niultas enim, 
occidi vero paucas per ventrem vidisti, as that Spanish ' Celestina merrily said : 
others impotent, of a cold and dry constitution, caunot sustain those gymnics 
without great hurt done to their own bodies, of which number (though they 
be very prone to it) are melancholy men for the most part. 



MEMB. III. 

Air rectified. With a digression of the Air. 

As a long- winged hawk, when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts aloft, 
and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still soaring hi^^her and 
higher till he be come to his full pitch, and in the end, when the 'game is 
sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon a sudden : so will I, having now 
come at last into these ample fields of air, wherein I may freely expatiate and 
exercise myself for my recreation, awhile rove, wander round about the world, 
mount aloft to those ethereal orbs and celestial spheres, and so descend to my 
former elements again. In which progress I will first see whether that rela- 
tion of the friar of * Oxford be true, concerning those northern parts under the 
Pole (if I meet obiter with the wandering Jew, Elias Artifex, or Ixucian's Icaro- 
menippus, they shall be my guides) whether there be such, 4. Euripes, and a 
great rock of loadstones, which may cause the needle in the compass still to 
bend that way, and what should be the true cause of the variation of t]ie com- 
pass, '^is it a magnetical rock, or the pole-star, as Cardan will; or some other 

sAthletis, Arthviticis, podagricis nocet, nee opportuna prodest, nisi fortibus et qui multo sanguine abun 
dant. Idem Scahger exerc. 28y. Turcis ideo luctatoribus proliibitum. iiDe sanit. tueud lib 1* 

' Lib. 1 . ca. 7. exhaurit enim spiritus animumque debilitat. t Frigidis et siccis corporibus inimicissima' 
1 Vesci mtra satietatem, impigrum esse ad laborem, vitale semen conservare. ^ Nequitia est ouiB te non 
sinit esse senem. » Vide Montanum, Pet. Godefridum, Amorum lib. 2. cap. 6. cui-iosum de his nam et 

numerum definite Talimudistis, unicuique sciatis assignari suum tempus, &c. « Thespiadas g-e luit 

PVideLampridiumvit. ejus4. i Et lassata viris, &c. '^ Vid. Mizald. cent. 8. 11. Lemnium lib 2 

cap. 16. CatuUum ad Ipsiphilara, &c , Ovid. Eleg. lib. 3. et 6. &c., quot itinera una nocte confecissent tot 
coronas ludicro deo puta Tnpliallo, Marsiaj, Hermte, Priapo donarent, Cingemus tibi mentulam coronis 
&c. » Pernoboscodid. Gasp. Barthii. t :Nich. de Lynna, cited by Mercator in his map. „ iloua 

Sloto. home call it the highest hill in the world, next Teneriffe in the Canaries. Lat 81 



314 Cure of Melanchohj. [Farfc. 2. Sec. 2. 

star in tlie bear, as Marsilius Ficiniis; or a magiietical meridian, as Maiiroli- 
cas ; Vel situs in vend terrce, as Agricola ; or the nearness of the next conti- 
nent, as Cabeus will; or some other cause, as Scaliger, Cortesius, Conimbri- 
censes, Peregrinns contend; why at the Azores it looks directly north, otherwise 
not? In the Mediterranean or Levant (as some observe) it varies 7. grad. 
by and by 12. and then 22. In the Baltic Seas, near Eascebarg in Finland, 
the needle runs round, if any ships come that way, though ^Martin Ridley 
write otherwise, that the needle near the Pole will hardly be forced from his 
direction. 'Tis fit to be inquired whether certain rules may be made of it, as 
11. grad. Land, varied, alibi 36. &c., and that which is more prodigious, the 
variation varies in the same place, now taken accurately, 'tis so much after a 
few years quite altered from that it was : till we have better intelligence, let 
our Dr. Gilbert, and Nicholas ^Cabeus the Jesuit, that have both written great 
volumes of this subject, satisfy these inquisitors. Whether the sea be open 
and navigable by the Pole arctic, and which is the likeliest way, that of Barti- 
son the Hollander, under the Pole itself, which for some reasons I hold best ; 
or by Fretum Davis, or Nova Zembla. Whether '^Hudson's discovery be true 
of a new found ocean, any likelihood of Button's Bay in 50. degrees, Hub- 
berd's Hope in 60. that of ^it ultra, near Sir Thomas Roe's welcome in North- 
west Fox, being that the sea ebbs and flows constantly there 15 foot in 12 
hours, as our ^new cards inform us that California is not a cape, but an island, 
and the west winds make the neaj) tides equal to the spring, or that there be 
any probability to pass by the straits of Anian to China, by the promontory of 
Tabin. If there be, I shall soon perceive whether ^Marcus Polus the Vene- 
tian's narration be true or false, of that great city of Quinsay and Cambalu; 
whether there be any such places, or that as ^Matth. Riccius the Jesuit hath 
written, China and Cataia be all one, the great Cham of Tartary and the king 
of China be the same; Xuntain and Quinsay, and the city of Cambalu be that 
new Peking, or such a wall 400 leagues long to part China from Tartary: 
whether ^Presbyter John be in Asia or Africa; M. Polus Venetus puts him 
in Asia, ®the most received opinion is, that he is emperor of the Abyssines, 
which of old was Ethiopia, now Nubia, under the equator in Africa. Whether 
^Guinea be an island or pp^rt of the continent, or that hungry ^Spaniard's dis- 
covery of Terra Australis Incognita, or Magellanica, be as true as that of Mer- 
curius Britannius, or his of Utoina, or his of Lucinia. And yet in likelihood 
it may be so, for without all question it being extended from the tropic of 
Capricorn to the circle Antarctic, and lying as it doth in the temperate zone, 
cannot choose but yield in time some flourishing kingdoms to succeeding ages, 
as America did unto the Spaniards. Shouten and Le Meir have done well in 
the discovery of the Straits of Magellan, in finding a more convenient passage 
to Mare pacijicum : methinks some of our modern argonauts should prosecute 
the rest. As I go by Madagascar, I would see that great bird ''ruck, that 
can carry a man and horse or an elephant, with that Arabian phoenix described 
by 'Adricomius; see the pelicans of Egypt, those Scythian gryphes in Asia: 
and afterwards in Africa examine the fountains of Nilus, whether Herodotus, 
'^ Seneca, Plin., lib. 5. cap. 9, Strabo, lib. 5. give a true cause of his annual 
flowing, ^Pagaphetta discourse rightly of it, or of Niger and Senegal; exa- 
mine Cardan, ""Scaliger's reasons, and the rest. Is it from those Etesian 
winds, or melting of snow in the mountains under the equator (for Jordan 
yearly overflows when the snow melts in Mount Libanus), or from those great 

« Cap. 26. in his Treatise of Magnetic Bodies. yLege lib. 1, cap. 23. et 24. de magnetica philosophia, et 
lib. 3. cap. 4. ^ 1612. »M. Brigs, his map, and Northwest Fox. b Lib. 2. ca. 64. de nob. civitat. 

Quinsay, et cap. 10. de Cambalu. <=Lib. 4. exped. ad Sinas, ca. 3. et lib. 5. c. 18. "M. Polus in Asia 

Presb. Joh. meminit, lib. 2. cap. 30. e Alluaresius et ahi. ' Lat. 10. Gr. Aust. e Ferdinando de 

Quir. Anno 1612. i' Alanim pennse continent in longitiidine 12 passus, elephantem in sublime tollere 

potest. Polus 1. 3. c. 40. > Lib. 2. Descript. terree sanctaj. t^atur. qua^st. lib. 4. cap. 2. 'Lib.de 
reg. Congo. m Excrcit. 47. 



Mem. 3.] Digression of Air. 315 

droppiog perpetual sliowers wliicli are so frequent to the inliabitants within the 
tropics, when the sun is vertical, and cause such vast inundations in Senegal, 
Maragnan, Oronoco and the rest of those great rivers in Zona Torrida, which 
have all commonly the same passions at set times : and by good husbandry 
and policy hereafter no doubt may come to be as populous, as well tilled, as 
fruitful, as Egypt itself or Cauchinthina? I would observe all those motions of 
the sea, and from what cause they proceed, from the moon (as the vulgar hold) 
or earth's motion, which Galileus, in the fourth dialogue of his system of the 
world, so eagerly proves, and firmly demonstrates; or winds, as "some will. 
Why in that quiet ocean of Zur, in mari jxicifico, it is scarce perceived, in our 
British seas most violent, in the Mediterranean and Red Sea so vehement, 
irregular, and diverse? Why the current in that Atlantic Ocean should still be 
in some places from, in some again towards the north, and why they come sooner 
than go? and so from Moabar to Madagascar in that Indian Ocean, the mer- 
chants come in three weeks, as ° Scaliger discusseth, they return scarce in 
three months, with the same or like winds : the continual current is from east 
to west. Whether Mount Athos, Pelion, Olympus, Ossa, Caucasus, Atlas, be 
so high as Pliny, Solinus, Mela relate, above clouds, meteors, uhi nee aurce neo 
venti spirant (insomuch that they that ascend die suddenly very often, the air 
is so subtile), 12J0 paces high, according to that measure of Dicearchus, or 
78 miles perpendicularly high, as Jacobus Mazonius, sec. 3. et 4. expounding 
that place of Aristotle about Caucasus; and as ^Blancanus the Jesuit contends 
out of Clavius and jSTonius demonstrations de Crepusculis: or rather 32 sta- 
diums, as the most received opinion is; or 4 miles, which the height of no 
mountain doth perpendicularly exceed, and is equal to the greatest depths of 
the sea, which is, as Scaliger holds, 1580 paces, Exerc, 38, others 100 paces. 
I would see those inner parts of America, whetlier there be any such great 
city of Mauoa, or Eldorado, in that golden empire, where the highways are as 
much beaten (one reports) as between Madrid and Yaladolid in Spain ; or any 
such Amazons as he relates, or gigantic Pa^tagones in Chica; with that mira- 
culous mountain "^Ybouyapab in the Northern Brazil, cujus jugum steriiitiir in 
a/iioenissimam planitiem, (he. or that of Pariacacca so high elevated in Peru. 
'The pike of Teneriffe how high it is? 70 miles, or 50 as Patricius holds, or 
9 as Snellius demonstrates in his Eratosthenes: see that strange ^Cirknick- 
zerksey lake in Carniola, whose waters gush so fast out of the ground, that they 
will overtake a swift horseman, and by and by with as incredible celerity are 
supped up : which Lazius and Wernerus make an argument of the Argonauts 
sailing under ground. And that vast den or hole called *Esmellen in Musco- 
via, quce visitur horreudo hiatu, d^c. which if any thing casually fall in, makes 
such a roaring noise, that no thunder, or ordnance, or v/arlike engine can make 
the like; such another is Gilber's Cave in Lapland, with many the like. I 
Avould examine the Caspian Sea, and see where and how it exonerates itself, 
after it hath taken in Volga, Jaxares, Oxus, and those great rivers ; at the 
mouth of Oby, or where ? What vent the Mexican lake hath, the Titicacan 
in Peru, or that circular pool in the vale of Terapeia, of which Acosta, I. 3. 
c. 16. hot in a cold country, the spring of which boils up in the middle twenty 
foot square, and hath no vent but exhalation : and that of Mare morCuum in 
Palestine, of Thrasj'-mene, at Periizium in Italy : the Mediterranean itself 
For from the ocean, at the Straits of Gibraltar, there is a perpetual current 
into the Levant, and so likewise by the Thracian Bosphorus out of the 

" See M. Carpenter's Geography, lib. 2. cap. 6. et Bern. Telesius, lib. de mari. °Exercit. 52. de maris 

raotu caus£e investigand* : prima reciprocationis, secunda varietatis, tertia celeritatis, quarta cessatiouis, 
quinta privationis, sexta contrarietatis. Patricius saith 52 miles in height. pLib. de explicatione 

locorum Mathem. Aristot. ^Laet. lib. 17. cap. 18. descript. occid. Ind. ^Luge alii vocant. *'Geor. 
V.'criierus. Aqii£e tanta celeritate erumpunt et absorbentur, ut expedite equiti aditum intercludant. t Boia- 
saraus de Magis, cap. de Pilapiis. 



316 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

Eaxine or Black Sea, besides all tliose great rivers of Nile, Po, Rhone, 
&c. how is this water consumed, by the sun or otherwise'? I would find out 
with Trajan the fountains of Danube, of Ganges, Oxus, see those Egyptian 
pyramids, Trajan's bridge, Grotto de Sybilla, Lucullus's fish-ponds, the temple 
of Nidrose, &c. And, if I could, observe what becomes of swallows, storks, 
cranes, cuckoos, nightingales, redstarts, and many other kind of singing birds, 
water-fowls, hawks, &c. some of them are only seen in summer, some in winter; 
some are observed in the "snow, and at no other times, each having their sea- 
sons. In winter not a bird is in Muscovy to be found, but at the spring in an 
instant the woods and hedges are full of them, saith ""Herbastein : how comes 
it to pass? Do they sleep in winter, like G-esner's Alpine mice; or do they 
lie hid (as ^Olaus affirms) "in the bottom of lakes and rivers, spiritum conti- 
nentes .? often so found by fishermen in Poland and Scandia, two together, 
mouth to mouth, wing to wing; and when the spring comes they revive again, 
or if they be brought into a stove, or to the fire-side." Or do they follow the 
sun, as Peter Martyr, legat. Bahylonica I. 2. manifestly convicts, out of his own 
knowledge; for when he was ambassador in Egypt, he saw swallows, Spanish 
kites, ''and many such other European birds, in December and January very 
familiarly flying, and in great abundance, about Alexandria, ubifioridce tunc 
arbores ac viridaria. Or lie they hid in caves, rocks, and hollow trees, as 
most think, in deep tin-mines or sea-clifis, as *Mr. Ciirew gives out? I con- 
clude of them all, for my part, as ''Munster doth of cranes and storks; whence 
they come, whither they go, incompertum adhuc, as yet we know not. We see 
them here, some in summer, some in winter; "their coming and going is sure 
in the night : in the plains of Asia (saith he) the storks meet on such a set 
day, he that comes last is torn in pieces, and so they get them gone." Many 
strange places, Isthmi, Euripi, Chersonesi, creeks, havens, promontories, 
straits, lakes, baths, rocks, mountains, places, and fields, where cities have 
been ruined or swallowed, battles fought, creatures, sea-monsters, remora, &c. 
minerals, vegetals. Zoophytes were fit to be considered in such an expedition, 
and amongst the rest that of ""Harbastein his Tartar lamb, ^ Hector Boethius' 
goosebearing tree in. the orchards, to which Cardan, lib. 7. cap. 36. de rerum 
varietat. subscribes : ®Yertomannus' wonderful palm, that ^fly in Hispaniola, 
that shines like a torch in the night, that one may well see to write ; those 
spherical stones in Cuba which nature hath so made, and those like birds, 
beasts, fishes, crowns, swords, saws, pots, &c. usually found in the metal 
mines in Saxony about Mansfield, and in Poland near Nokow and Pallukie, as 
^ Munster and others relate. Many rare creatures and novelties each part of 
the world affords : amongst the rest, I would know for a certain whether there 
be any such men, as Leo Suavius, in his comment on Paracelsus de sanit. 
tuend. and ^Gaguinus records in his description of Muscovy, "that in Luco- 
moria, a province in Russia, lie fast asleep as dead all winter, from the 27 of 
November, like frogs and swallows, benumbed with cold, but about the 24 of 
April in the spring they revive again, and go about their business." I would 
examine that demonstration of Alexander Picolomineus, whether the earth's 



" In campis Lovicen. solum visuntur in nive, et • iibinam vere, asstate, autumno se occultant. Hermes 
Polit. 1. 1. Jul. Bellius. " Statim Ineimte vere sylvK strepunt eorurn cantilenis. Muscovit. comment, 

y Immergunt se fluminibus, lacubusque per hyemem totam, &c. ^ Caeterasque volacres Pontum hyeme 

adveniente e nostris regionibus Europeis transvolantes. * Survey of Cornwall. ^ Porro ciconiae 

quonam e loco veniant, quo se conferant, incompertum adhuc, agmen venientium, descendentium, ut gruum 
venisse cernimus, nocturnis opmor temporibus. In patentibus Asia3 campis certo die congregant se, earn 
quEe novissime advenit lacerant, inde avolant. Cosmog. 1. 4. c. 126. 'Comment. Mtiscov. ^ Hist. 

bcot. 1. 1. e Vertomannus, 1. 5. c. 16. menlionetli a tree that bears fruits to eat, wood to burn, bark to 

make ropes, wine and water to drink, oil and sugar, and leaves as tiles to cover houses, flowers, for clothes, 
&c. f Animal infectum Cusino, ut quis legtre vel scribere possit sine alterius ope luminis. g Cosmog. 
lib. 1. cap. 435 et lib. 3. cap. 1. habent ollas a natura formatas e terra exti-actas, similes illis a figulis factis, 
coronas, pisces, aves, et onmes animantium species. ^ Ut solent hirundines et ranse prse frigoris magni- 
tudiue mori, et postea redeunte vere 24. Aprilis reviviscere. • 



Mem. 3.] Digression of Air. 317 

superficies be bigger tlian the sea's : or that of Archimedes be true, the super- 
ficies of all water is even? Search the depth, and see that variety of sea- 
monsters and fishes, mermaids, sea-men, horses, &c. which it affords. Or 
whether that be true which Jordanus Bruiius scoffs at, that if God did not 
detain it, the sea would overflow the earth by reason of his higher site, and 
which Josephus Blancanus the Jesuit in his interpretation on those mathema- 
tical places of Aristotle, foolishly fears, and in a just tract proves by many cir- 
cumstances, that in time the sea will waste away the land, and all the globe 
of the earth shall be covered with waters; risum teneatis, amicil what the sea 
takes away in one place it adds in another. Methinks he might rather sus- 
pect the sea should in time be filled by land, trees grow up, carcasses, &c. that 
all-devouring fire, omnia devoi'ans et consumens, will sooner cover and dry up 
the Vcist ocean with sand and ashes. I would examine the true seat of that 
terrestrial 'paradise, and where Ophir was whence Solomon did fetch his 
gold: from Peruana, which some suppose, or that Aurea Chersonesus, as Do- 
minicus ISTiger, Arias Montanus, Goropius, and others will. I would censure 
all Pliuy's, Solinus', Strabo's, Sir John Mandeville's, Glaus Magnus', Marcus 
Polus' lies, correct those errors in navigation, reform cosmographical charts, 
and rectify longitudes, if it were possible ; not by the compass, as some dream, 
with Mark Ridley in his treatise of magnetical bodies, cap. 43. for as Cabeus, 
magnet. pJiilos. lib. 3. caj:). 4. fully resolves, there is no hope thence, yet I 
would observe some better means to find them out. 

I would have a c^nveniant place to go down with Orpheus, Ulysses, 
Hercules, ^ Lucian's Menippus, at St. Patrick's purgatory, at Trophonius' 
den, Hecla in Iceland, ^tna in Sicily, to descend and see what is done in the 
bowels of the earth : do stones and metals grow there still'? how come fir trees 
to be ^digged out from tops of hills, as in our mosses, and marshes all over 
Europe? How come they to dig up fish bones, shells, beams, ironworks, many 
fathoms under ground, and anchors in mountains far remote from all seas. 
"Anno 1460 at Bern in Switzerland 50 fathom deep, a ship was digged out 
of a mountain, where they got metal ore, in which were 48 carcasses of men, 
with other merchandise. That such things are ordinarily found in tops of hills, 
Aristotle insinuates in his meteors, ''Pomponius Mela in his first book, c. de 
Numidia, and familiarly in the Alps, saith ° Blancanus the Jesuit, the like is 
to be seen: came this from earthquakes, or from Noah's flood, as Christians 
suppose, or is there a vicissitude of sea and land, as Anaximenes held of old, 
the mountains of Thessaly would become seas, and seas again mountains ? 
The whole world belike should be new moulded, when it seemed good to those 
all-commanding powers, and turned inside out, as we do haycocks in harvest, 
top to bottom, or bottom to top : or as we turn apples to the fire, move the 
world upon his centre ; that which is under the poles now, should be translated 
to the equinoctial, and that which is under the torrid zone to the circle arctic 
and antarctic another wdiile, and so be reciprocally warmed by the sun : or if the 
Avorlds be infinite, and every fixed star a sun, with his compassing planets (as 
Brunus and Campanella conclude) cast three or four worlds into one ; or else of 
one world make three or four new, as it shall seem to them best. To proceed, 
if the earth be 21,500 miles in ^compass, its diameter is 7,000 from us to 
our antipodes, and what shall be comprehended in all that space? What is the 
centre of the earth? is it pure element only, as Aristotle decrees, inhabited (as 
^Paracelsus thinks) with creatures, whose chaos is the earth : or with fairies, 

• Vid. Pererium in Gen. Cor. h Lapide, et alios. kin Necyomantia, Tom. 2. ' Fracastorius, lib. de 

simp. Georgius Merula, lib. de mem. Julius Billius, &c. " Simlerus, Ortelius. Brachiis centum sub terra 
reperta est, in qua quadraginta octo cadavera inerant, anchoras, &c. ° Pisces et conchse in monribus 

reperiuntur. " Lib. de locis Mathemat. Aristot. p Or plain, as Patricius holds, -which Austin, Lactan- 
tius, and some others, held of old as round as a trencher. i Li. de Zilphia et Pigmeis, they penetrate 

the earth as we do the air. 



318 Cure of Melanclioly. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

as the woods and waters (according to liini) are with nymphs, or as the air 
with spirits ? Dionisiodorus, a mathematician in ""Piinj, that sent a letter ad 
superos after he was dead, from the centre of the earth, to signify what 
distance the same centre was from the supeijicies of the same, viz., 42,000 
stadiums, might have done well to have satisfied all these doubts. Or is it the 
place of hell, as Yirgil in his ^neides, Plato, Lucian, Dante, and others 
poetically describe it, and as many of our divines think? In good earnest, 
Anthony Kusca, one of the society of that Ambrosian College, in Milan, in his 
great volume de Inferno, lib. 1. cap. 47. is stiff in this tenet, 'tis a corporeal 
fire tow, cap). 5, I. 2. as he there disputes. " Whatsoever philosophers write 
(saith *Surius), there be certain mouths of hell, and places appointed for the 
punishment of men's souls, as at Hecla in Iceland, where the ghosts of dead 
men are familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living : God would have 
such visible places, that mortal men might be certainly informed, that there be 
such punishments after death, and learn hence to fear God." Kranzius, Dan. 
hist. lib. 2. cap. 24. subscribes to this opinion of Surius, so doth Colerus, cap. 
12. lib. de immortal, animce (out of the authority belike of St. Gregory, 
Durand, and the rest of tlie schoolmen, who derive *s much from ^tna in 
Sicily, Lipari, Hiera, and those sulphureous vulcanian islands) making Terra 
del Fuego, and those frequent volcanoes in America, of which Acosta, lib. 3. 
cap. 24. that fearful mount Ilecklebirg in Norway, an especial argument to 
prove it, "* where lamentable screeches and bowlings are continually heard, 
which strike a terror to the auditors; fiery chariots are commonly seen to bring 
in the souls of men in the likeness of crows, and devils ordinarily go in and 
out." Such another proof is that place near the Pyramids in Egypt, by Cairo, 
as well to confirm this as the resurrection, mentioned by "Kornmannus, mirac. 
Qnort.lib. 1. caj). 38, Camerarins, oper. sue. cap. 37, Bredenbachius, pereg. ter, 
sanct. and some others, " where once a year dead bodies arise about March, 
and walk, after awhile hide themselves again: thousands of people come 
yearly to see them." But these and such like testimonies others reject, as 
fables, illusions of spirits, and they will have no such local known place, more 
than Styx or Phlegethon, Pluto's court, or that poetical />2/erw^ts, where Homer's 
soul was seen hanging on a tree, &c., to which they ferried over in Charon's 
boat, or went down at Hermione in Greece, compendiaria ad inferos via, which 
is the shortest cut, quia nullum a mortuis nauluni eo loci exposcunt (saith 
^ Gerbelius), and besides there were no fees to be paid. Well then, is it hell, 
or purgatory, as Bellarmine: or Limbus patrum, as Gallucius will, and as 
Rusca will (for they have made maps of it), ^or Ignatius parlour? Yirgil, some- 
time bishop of Saltburg(as Ay eutmns Anno 7 4:5. relates) by Bonifacius bishop 
of Mentz was therefore called in question, because he held antipodes (which 
they made a doubt whether Christ died for), and so by that means took away 
the seat of hell, or so contracted it, that it could bear no proportion to heaven, 
and contradicted that opinion of Austin, Basil, Lactantius, that held the earth 
round as a trencher (whom Acosta and common experience more largely con- 
fute), but not as a ball ; and Jerusalem where Christ died the middle of it ; or 
Delos, as the fabulous Greeks feigned : because when Jupiter let two eagles 
loose, to fly from the world's ends east and west, they met at Delos. But that 
scruple of Bonifacius is now quite taken away by our latter divines : Franciscus 
Kibera, in cap. 14. Apocalyps. will have hell a material and local fire in the 
centre of the earth, 200 Italian miles in diameter, as he defines it out of those 
words, Exivit sanguis de terra per stadia mille sexcenta, &c. But Lessius 

rLil>. 2. c. 112. sCommentar. ad annum 1537. Quicquid dieunt Philosophi, qusedam sunt Tartar! 

ostia, et loca puniendis animis destinata, ut .Hecla mons, &c. ubi mortuorum spiritus visuntur, &c. voluit 
Deus extare talia loca, ut di.scant mortales. ' Ut)i miserabiles ejulantiura voces audiuntur, qui auditoribus 
liorrorem incutiunt liaud vulgarem, &c. " Ex sepulchris apparent mense Martio, et rursus sub terrain 

se abscondunt, <tc. »Descript.Gra;c. lib. 6. de Pelop. y Conclave Ignatii. 



Mem. 3.] Digression of Air. 319 

lib. 13. de onorihus divinis, cap. 24. will have this local hell far less, one Dutch 
mile in diameter, all filled with fire and brimstone : because, as he there 
demonstrates, that space, cubically multiplied, will make a sphere able to hold 
eight hundred thousand millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot 
square) which will abundantly suffice ; Cilm cerium sit, inquit, facta suhduc- 
tione, non futuros centies niille Tnilliones damnandorum. But if it be no 
material fire (as Sco-Thomas, Bonaventure, Soncinas, Voscius, and others 
argue) it may be there or elsewhere, as Keckerman disputes. System. Theol. for 
sure somewhere it is, certum est cdicubi, etsi definitus circulus non assignetur. 
I will end the controversy in "^ Austin's words, "Better doubt of things concealed, 
than to contend about uncertainties, where Abraham's bosom is, and hell fire:" 
* Vix a mansuetis, a contentiosis nunquam invenitur ; scarce the meek, the con- 
tentious shall never find. If it be solid earth, 'tis the fountain of metals, waters, 
which by his innate temper turns air into v/ater, which springs up in several 
chinks, to moisten the earth's superfioies, and that in a tenfold proportion (as 
Aristotle holds) or else these fountains come directly from the sea, by ^secret 
passages, and so made fresh again, by running through the bowels of the earth; 
and are either thick, thin, hot, cold, as the matter or minerals are by which 
they pass; or as Peter Martyr, Ocean. Decad. lib. 9. and some others hold, 
from cabuudance of rain that falls, or from that ambient heat and cold, which 
alters that inward heat, and so j^er consequens the generation of waters. Or 
else it may be full of wind, or a sulpliureous innate tire, as our meteorologists 
inform us, which sometimes breaking out, causeth those horrible earthquakes, 
which are so frequent in these days in Japan, China, and oftentimes swallow 
up whole cities. Let Lucian's Menippus consult with or ask of Tiresias, if 
you will not believe philosophers, he shall clear all your doubts when he makes 
a second voyage. 

In the mean time let us consider of that which is sub dio, and find out a true 
cause, if it be possible, of such accidents, meteors, alterations, as happen above 
ground. "Whence proceed that variety of manners, and a distinct character (as 
it were) to several nations ? Some are wise, subtile, witty ; others dull, sad and 
heavy; some big, some little, as Tully de Fato, Plato in Timseo, Yegetiusand 
Bodine prove at large, Tiiethod. cap. 5. some soft, and some hardy, barbarous, 
civil, black, dun, white, is it from the air, from the soil, influence of stars, or 
some other secret cause 1 Why doth Africa breed so m?aiy venomous beasts, 
Ireland none ? Athens owls, Crete none ? "^ Why hath Daulis and Thebes no 
swallows (so Pausanias informeth us) as well as the rest of Greece, ^Ithaca no 
hares, Pontus asses, Scythia swine? whence comes this variety of com- 
plexions, colours, plants, birds, beasts, ^metals, peculiar almost to every place 1 
Why so many thousand strange birds and beasts proper to America alone, as 
Acosta demands, lib. 4. cap. 36. were they created in the six days, or ever in 
Noah's ark? if there, why are they not dispersed and found in other countries? 
It is a thing (saith he) hath long held me in suspense ; no Greek, Latin, 
Hebrew ever heard of them before, and yet as dififering from our European 
animals, as an egg and a chestnut; and which is more, kine, horses, sheep, &c., 
till the Spaniards brought them, were never heard of in those parts ? How 
comes it to pass, that in the same site, in one latitude, to such as are Periceci, 
there should be such difierence of soil, complexion, colour, metal, air, &c. The 
Spaniards are white, and so are Italians, when as the inhabitants about ^ Caput 

^ Melius dubitare de occultis, CLuam Itigare de incertis, ubi flamma inferni, &c. a See Dr. 

Raynolds prajlect. 55. in Apoc. '>As tliey come from tlie sea, so they return to the sea again by secret 

passages, as in all likelihood the Caspian Sea vents itself into the Euxine or ocean. « Seneca, quwst. lib. 
cap. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1), 12. de causis aeiuarum perpetu's. ^ In lis nee puUos hirund nes excludunt, 

neque, &c. Th. Ravennas, lib. de vit. hom. prajrog. ca. ult. ^At Quito in Peru. Plus auri quam 

terrai fod:tur in aurifodinis. g Ad Caput bonaj spei incolse sunt nigerrimi : Si sol causa, cur non H spani 
et Itali sequc n gri, in eadeai latitudlne, a;que distantes ab JSquatore, illi ad AusU-um, hi ad Boream ? qui 



320 Cure of Mdanclwly. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

honm spei are 'blaclianiores, and yet botli alike distant from tlie equator : nay, 
they that dwell in the same parallel line with these negroes, as about the 
Straits of Magellan, are white coloured, and yet some in Presbyter John's 
country in Ethiopia are dun ; they in Zeilan and Malabar parallel with them 
again black : Manamotapa in Africa, and St. Thomas Isle are extreme hot, 
both under the line, coal black their inhabitants, whereas in Peru they are 
quite opposite in colour, very temperate, or rather cold, and yet both alike 
elevated. Moscow in 53. degrees of latitude extreme cold, as those northern 
countries usually are, having one perpetual hard frost all winter long ; and in 
52. deg. lat. sometimes hard frost and snow all summer, as Button's Bay, &c. 
or by fits; and yet " England near the same latitude, and Ireland very moist, 
warm, and more temperate in winter than Spain, Italy, or France. Is it the 
sea that causeth this difference, and the air that comes from it? Why then is 
'Ister so cold near the Euxine, Pontus, Bithynia, and all Thrace ? friyidas 
regiones Maginus calls them, and yet their latitude is but 42. which should 
be hot : ^ Quevira, or Nova Albion in America, bordering on the sea, was so 
cold in July, that our ^Englishmen could hardly endure it. At JSToremberga in 
45. lat. all the sea is frozen ice, and yet in a more southern latitude than ours. 
New England, and the island of Cambrial Colchos, which that noble gentleman 
Mr. Yaughan, or Orpheus junior, describes in his Golden Fleece, is in the same 
latitude with Little Britain in France, and yet their winter begins not till 
January, their spring till May; which search he accounts worthy of an astro- 
loger : is this from the easterly winds, or melting of ice and snow dissolved 
within the circle arctic; or that the pJr being thick, is longer before it be warm 
by the sunbeams, and once heated like an oven will keep itself from cold % 
Our climes breed lice, '"Hungary and Ireland male audiuntm. this kind; come 
to the Azores, by a secret vii^tue of that air they are instantly consumed, and 
all our European vermin almost, saith Ortelius. Egypt is watered with JSTilus 
not far from the sea, and yet there it seldom or never rains : Rhodes, an island 
of the same nature, yields not a 'cloud, and yet our islands ever dropping and 
inclining to rain. The Atlantic Ocean is still subject to storms, but in Del Zur, 
or Mari pacifico, seldom or never any. Is it from tropic stars, o,2oertio por- 
tarum, in the dodecotemories or constellations, the moon's mansions, such 
aspects of planets, such winds, or dissolving air, or thick air, which causeth 
this and the like differences of heat and cold ? Bodine relates of a Portugal 
ambassador, that coming from "Lisbon to oDantzic in Spruce, found greater 
heat there than at any time at home. Don Garcia de Sylva, legate to Philip III., 
king of Spain, residing at Ispahan in Persia,1619, in his letter to the Marquess 
of Bedmar, makes mention of greater cold in Ispahan, whose latitude is 31. gr. 
than ever he felt in Spain, or any part of Europe. The torrid zone was by our 
predecessors held to be uninhabitable, but by our modern travellers found to be 
most temperate, bedewed with frequent rains, and moisteniiig showers, the 
breeze and cooling blasts in some parts, as '^ Acosta describes, most pleasant and 
fertile. Arica in Chili is by report one of the sweetest places that ever the 
sun shined on, Olympus terrcE, a heaven on earth : how incomparably do some 
extol Mexico in Nova Hispania, Peru, Brazil, &c., in some again hard, dry, 
sandy, barren, a very desert, and still in the same latitude. Many times we 
find great diversity of air in the same "^country, by reason of the site to seas, 

sub Presbytero Johan. habitant subfusci sunt, in Zeilan et Malabar nigri, ^que distantes ab iEquatare, 
eodemque coeli parallelo : sed hoc magis mirari quis possit, in tota America nusquam nigros inveniri, prseter 
paocos m loco Qaareno illis dicto : quae hujus coloris causa efficiens, coelive an terrai quaLtas, an soli pro- 
prietas, aut ipsorum hominum innata ratio, aut omnia ? Ortelius in Africa Theat. ^ Regio quoeiinque 

anni tempore temperatissima. Ortel. Multas Gallije et ItaL« regiones, molli tepore, et benigna quadara 
temperie prorsus antecellt, Jovi. ' Lat. 45. Danubii. '' Quevira, lat. 40. ^In Sir Fra. Drake's 

voyage. ™ Lansius orat. contra Hungaros. " Lisbon, lat. 38. " Dantzic, lat. 54 p De nat. novi orb s 
l.b. 1. cap. 9. Suaviss:mus omnium locus, &c. q The same variety of weather Lod. Guicc.ardiac observes 
betwixt Liege and Ajax not far distant, descrlpt. Belg. 



Mem. 3] Digression of Air. 321 

hills or dales, want of water, nature of soil, and tlie lil^e : as in Spain Arra- 
gon is asyeva et sicca, harsh and evil inhabited; Estremadura is dry, sandy, 
barren most part, extreme hot by reason of his plains; Andalusia another 
paradise ; Valencia a most pleasant air, and continually green ; so is it about 
'Granada, on the one side fertile plains, on the other, continual snow to be 
seen all summer long on the hill tops. That their houses in the Alps are three 
quarters of the year covered with snow, who knows nof? That Teneriffe is so 
cold at the to)), extreme hot at the bottom : Mons Atlas in Africa, Libanus in 
Palestine, with many such, tantos inter ardores fidos nivibus, * Tacitus calls 
them, and Radzivilus, epist. 2. fol. 27. yields it to be far hotter there than in 
any part of Italy: 'tis true; but they are highly elevated, near the middle 
region, and therefore cold, ob paucam solarium radiorum refractionem, as 
Serrarius answers, cora. in 3. cap. Josua qucest. 5. Abidensis, qucest. 37. In 
the heat of summer, in the king's palace in Escurial, the air is most temperate, 
by reason of a cold blast which comes from the snowy mountains of Sierra de 
Cadarama hard by, when as in Toledo it is very hot : so in all other countries. 
The causes of these alterations are commonly by reason of their nearness (I 
say) to the middle region : but this diversity of air, in places equally situated, 
elevated and distant from the pole, can hardly be satisfied with that diversity 
of plants, birds, beasts, which is so familiar with us : w^th Indians, everywhere, 
the sun is equally distant, the same vertical stars, the same irradiations of 
planets, aspects like, the same nearness of seas, the same superficies, the same 
soil, or not much different. Under the equator itself, amongst the Sierras, 
Andes, Lanos, as Herrera, Laet, and ^Acosta contend, there is tarn Tiiirabilis 
et inopinata vaHetas, such variety of weather, ut meritb exerceat ingenia, that 
no philosophy can yet find out the true cause of it. When I consider how 
temperate it is in one place, saith "" Acosta, within the tropic of Capricorn, as 
about Laplata, and yet hard by at Potosi, in that same altitude, mountainous 
alike, extreme cold ; extreme hot in Brazil, &c. Hie ego, saith Acosta, philo- 
sophiain Aristotelis meteorologicam vehementer irrisi, ciirn, d^c, when the sun 
comes nearest to them, they have great tempests, storms, thunder and light- 
ning, great store of rain, snow, and the foulest weather : when the sun is verti- 
cal, their rivers overflow, the morning fair and hot, noon-day cold and moist : 
all which is opposite to us. How comes it to pass? Scaliger, poetices, I. 3. c. 
16. discourseth thus of this subject. How comes, or wherefore is this teme- 
raria siderum dispositio, this rash placing of stars, or as Epicurus vii^,fortuita, 
or accidental 1 Why are some big, some little, why are they so confusedly, 
unequally situated in the heavens, and set so much out of order 1 In all other 
things nature is equal, proportionable, and constant; there hejustce dimensiones, 
et prudens partium dispositio, as in the fabric of man, his eyes, ears, nose, face, 
members are correspondent, cur non idem coelo opere omnium pulcherrimo ? 
Why are the heavens so irregular, neque pycvribus molibus, neque paribus inter- 
vallis, whence is this difierence 1 Diversos (he concludes) efficere locorum 
Genios, to make diversity of countries, soils, manners, customs, characters, and 
constitutions among us, iLt quanturth vicinia ad cliaritatem addat, sidera distra- 
hant ad perniciem, and so by this meRusJluvio vel monte distincti sunt dissi- 
miles, the same places almost shall be distinguished in manners. But this 
reason is weak and most insufficient. The fixed stars are removed since 
Ptolemy's time 2Q gr. from the first of Aries, and if the earth be immovable, 
as their site varies, so should countries vary, and diverse alterations would follow. 
But this we perceive not; as in Tully's time with us in Britain, caelum visu 
fcedum, et in quo facile generaniar nubes, d^c, 'tis so still. Wherefore Bodine, 



r Magin. Quadus. « Hist. lib. 5. t Lib. 11. cap. 7. ^ Lib. 2. cap. 9. Cur. Potosi et Plata, 

nrbes in tam tenui intervallo, utraque montosa, &c. 



322 Cure of Melarnlwly. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

Theat. nat. lib. 2. and some others, will have all these alterations and effects 
immediately to proceed from those genii, spirits, angels, which rule and domi- 
neer in several places; they cause storms, thunder, lightning, earthquakes, 
ruins, tempests, great winds, floods, &c., the philosophers of Conimbra, will 
refer this dive7:sity to the influence of that empyrean heaven : for some say the 
eccentricity of the sun is come nearer to the earth than in Ptolemy's time, the 
virtue therefore of all the vegetals is decayed, *men grow less, &c. There are 
that observe new motions of the heavens, new sta.vs, palantia sidera, comets, 
clouds, call them what you will, like those Medicean, Burbonian, Austrian 
planets, lately detected, which do not decay, but come and go, rise higher and 
lower, hide and show themselves amongst the fixed stars, amongst the planets, 
above and beneath the moon, at set times, now nearer, now farther off, 
together, asunder; as he that plays upon a sackbut by pulling it up and down 
alters his tones and tunes, do they their stations and places, though to us undis- 
cerned ; and from those motions proceed (as they conceive) diverse alterations. 
Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but conjectures. About Damascus 
in Coeli-Syria, is a ^Paradise, by reason of the plenty of waters, in promptib 
causa est, and the deserts of Arabia barren, because of rocks, rolling seas of 
sands, and dry mountains quod inaquosoj (saith Adricomius) tnontes hahens 
asperos, saxosos, prmcipites, horroHs et oiwrtis speciem prce se/erentes, "unin- 
habitable therefore of men, birds, beasts, void of all green trees, plants, and 
fruits, a vast rocky horrid wilderness, which by no art can be manured, 'tis 
evident." Bohemia is cold, for that it lies all along to the north. But why 
should it be so hot in Egypt, or there never rain? Why should those 
""etesian and north-eastern winds blow continually and constantly so long 
together, in some places, at set times, one way still, in the dog-days only : here 
perpetual drought, there dropping showers ; here foggy mists, there a pleasant 
air; here ''terrible thunder and lightning at such set seasons, here frozen seas 
all the year, there open in the same latitude, to the rest no such thing, nay 
quite opposite is to be found 1 Sometimes (as in ''Peru) on the one side of the 
mountains it is hot, on the other cold, here snow, there wind, with infinite 
such. Fromundus in his Meteors will excuse or solve all this by the sun's 
motion, but when there is such diversity to such as Fericeci, or very near site, 
how can that position hold? 

Who can give a reason of this diversity of meteors, that it should rain 
'stones, frogs, mice, &c., rats, which they call Lemmer in Norway, and are 
manifestly observed (as "^Munster writes) by the inhabitants, to descend and 
fall with some feculent showers, and like so many locusts, consume all that is 
green. Leo Afer speaks as much of locusts, about Pez in Barbary there be 
infinite swarms in their fields upon a sudden: so at Aries in France, 1553, 
the like happened by the same mischief, all their grass and fruits were devoured, 
magna incolarum admiratione et cons^e^^Tia^'ione (as Yaleriola, obser. med. lib. 1. 
obser. 1. relates) caelum subito obumbrabant, &g., he concludes, ®it could not be 
from natural causes, they cannot imagine whence they come, but from heaven. 
Are these and such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wool, blood, &c., 
lifted up into the middle region by the sunbeams, as 'Baracellus the physician 
disputes, and thence let fall with showers, or there engendered? ^Cornelius 
Gemma is of that opinion, they are there conceived by celestial influences : 
others suppose they are immediately from God, or prodigies raised by art and 
illusions of spirits, which are princes of the air; to whom Bodin., lib. 2. Theat, 

» Terra malos homines nunc educat atque pusillos. y Nav. 1. 1. c. 5. ■ Strabo. » As under the 
equator in many parts, showers here at such a time, winds at such a time, the Brise they call it. ^ Ferd. 
Cortesius, lib. Novus orbis inscript. <: Lapidatum est. Livie. <i Cosmog. lib. 4. cap. 22. Hse tempesta- 
;tibus decidunt e nubibus fteculentis, depascuntui-que more locustorum omnia virentia. '^ Hort. Genial. 

An a terra sursum rapiuntur a solo iterumque cum pluviis pnecipitantur t &c. ^ Tam omiaosus pro- 

ventus in natui-ales caasas referri vix potest. e Cosmog. c. 6. 



Mem. 3.] Digression of Air. 323 

N'at. SLibscribes. In fine, of meteors in general, Aristotle's reasons are ex- 
ploded by BernardinusTelesius, by Paracelsus his principles confuted, and other 
causes assigned, sal, sulphur, mercury, in which his disci^Dles are so expert, that 
they can alter elements, and separate at their pleasure, make perpetual motions, 
not as Cardan, Tasneir, Peregrinus, by some magnetical virtue, but by mixture 
of elements; imitate thunder, like Salmoneus, snow, hail, the sea's ebbing and 
flowing, give life to creatures (as they say) without generation, and what not? 
P. Nonius Saluciensis and Kepler take upon them to demonstrate that no 
meteors, clouds, fogs, ^vapours, arise higher than fifty or eighty miles, and all 
the rest to be purer air or element of fire : which 'Cardan, ^'Tycho, and ^ John 
Pena manifestly confute by refractions and many other arguments, there is no 
such element of fire at all. If, as Tycho proves, the moon be distant from us 
fifty and sixty semi-diameters of the earth : and as Peter Nonius will have it, 
the air be so angust, what proportion is there betwixt the other three elements 
and if? To what use serves it? Is it full of spirits which inhabit it, as the 
Paracelsians and Platonists hold, the higher the more noble, "full of birds, or 
a mere vacuum to no purpose? It is much controverted between Tycho Brahe 
and Christopher Kotman, the landgrave of Hesse's mathematician, in their 
astronomical epistles, whether it be the same DiaphanuQn, clearness, matter of 
air and heavens, or two distinct essences'? Christopher Rotman, John Pena, 
Jordanus Brunus, with many other late mathematicians, contend it is the same 
and one matter throughout, saving that the higher still the purer it is, and more 
subtile; as they find by experience in the top of some hills in ° America; if a 
man ascend, he faints instantly for want of thicker air to refrigerate the heart. 
Acosta, I. 3. c. 9. calls this mountain Periacacca in Peru; it makes men cast and 
vomit, he saith, that climb it, as some other of those Andes do in the deserts of 
Chili for five hundred miles together, and for extremity of cold to lose their fin- 
gers and toes. Tycho will have two distinct matters of heaven and air; but to 
say truth, with some small qualification, they have one and the self-same opinion 
about the essence and matter of heavens; that it is not hard and impenetrable, 
as peripatetics hold, transparent,of a 5'2a;2^ci essentia, '^ °but that it is penetrable 
and soft as the air itself is, and that the planets move in it, as birds in the air, 
fishes in the sea. This they prove by motion of comets, and otherwise (though 
Claremontius in his Antitycho stifOly opposes), which are not generated, as Aris- 
totle teacheth, in the aerial region, of a hot and dry exhalation, and so con- 
sumed : but as Anaxagoras and Democritus held of old, of a celestial matter : 
and as ^ Tycho, '^Eliseus, Eceslin, Thaddeus, Haggesius, Pena, Potman, Fra- 
castorius, demonstrate by their progress, parallaxes, refractions, motions of the 
planets, which interfere and cut one another's orbs, now higher, and then 
lower, as $ amongst the rest, which sometimes, as 'Kepler confirms by his 
own, and Tycho's accurate observations, comes nearer the earth than the 0. 
and is again eftsoons aloft in Jupiter's orb; and ^ other sufficient reasons, far 
above the moon : exploding in the mean time that element of fire, those fictitious 
first watery movers, those heavens I mean above the firmament, which Delrio, 
Lodovicus Imola, Patricius, and many of the fathers afiirm; those monstrous 
orbs of eccentrics, and Eccentre Epicycles deserentes. Which howsoever 
Ptolemy, Alhasen, Yitellio, Purbachius, Maginus, Clavius, and many of their 
associatae, stiffly maintain to be real orbs, eccentric, concentric, circles cequant, 

^ Cardan saith vapours rise 288 miles from the earth, Eratosthenes 48 miles. ' De subtil. 1.2. ''In 
Progymnas. iPrsefat. ad Euclid. Catop. » Manucodiatfe, hirds that live continually in the air, and 

are never seen on ground hut dead : See Ulysses Alderovand. Ornitliol. Seal, exerc. cap. 229. " Laet. 

descript. Amer. oEpist. lib. 1. p. 83. Ex quibus constat nee diversa aeris et retheris diaphana esse, nee 

Tefractiones aliunde quam a crasso aere causari — Non dura aut impervia, sed liquida, subtilis, motuique 
Planetarum facile cedens. p In Progymn. lib. 2. exempl. quinque. 1 1n Theoria nova Met. c«lestimn 1-')T8. 
>-Epit. Astron. lib. 4. • Malta saiie hinc consequuntur absui-da, et si nihil aliud, tot Cometce in sethere 

animadversij qui nullius orbis ductum comitantur, id ipsuui suScieater refellunt. Tycho, astr. epist. 
page 107. 



324 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

&c,, are absurd and ridiculous. For who is so mad to think that there shouhl 
be so many circles^ like subordinate wheels in a clock, all impenetrable and 
hard, as they feign, add and subtract at their pleasure. *Maginus makes eleven 
heavens, subdivided into their orbs and circles, and all too little to serve those 
particular appearances : Fracastorius, seventy-two homocentrics ; Tycho Brahe, 
Nicholas Kamerus, Helisseus E,oeslin, have peculiar hypotheses of their own 
inventions; and they be but inventions, as most of them acknowledge, as we 
admit of equators, tropics, colures, circles arctic and antarctic, for doctrine's 
sake (though Ramus thinks them all unnecessary), they will have them 
supposed only for method and order, Tycho hath feigned I know not how many 
subdivisions of epicycles in epicycles, &c., to calculate and express the moon's 
motion: but when all is done, as a supposition, and no otherwise; not (as he 
holds) hard, impenetrable, subtile, transparent, cfec.,or making music, as Pytha- 
goras maintained of old, and Robert Constantine of late, but still, quiet, liquid, 
open, &c. 

If the heavens then be penetrable, as these men deliver, and no lets, it were 
not amiss in this aerial progress to make wings and fly up, which that Turk in 
Busbequius made his fellow-citizens in Constantinople believehe would perform: 
and some new-fangled wits, methinks, sliould some time or other find out : or 
if that may not be, yet with a Galileo's glass, or Icaromenippus' wings in 
Lucian, command the spheres and heavens, and see what is done amongst them. 
Whether there be generation and corruption, as some think, by reason of ethe- 
real comets, that in Cassiopeia, 1572, that in Gygno, IGOO, that in Sagittarius, 
1604, and many like, which by no means Jul. Csesar la Galla, that Italian 
philosopher, in his physical disputation with Galileus, de phenomenis in orbe 
lunm, cap. 9. will admit: or that they were created ah initio, and show them- 
selves at set times : and as "Heliseeus Poeslin contends, have poles, axle-trees, 
circles of their own, and regular motions. For, non pereunt, sed 'niinuuntur et 
disjxirenf, ''Blancanus holds they come and go by fits, casting their tails still 
from the sun : some of them, as a burning-glass projects the sunbeams from it; 
though not always neither ; for sometimes a comet casts his tail from Yenus, as 
Tycho observes. And as ^ Helisseus Poeslin of some others, from the moon, 
with little stars about them ad stuporem astronomorum ; cum multis aliis in 
cobIo miraculis, all which argue with those Medicean, Austrian, and Burbonian 
stars, that the heaven of the planets is indistinct, pure, and open, in which the 
planets move certis legihus ac metis. Examine likewise. An coelum sit cola- 
ratum ? Whether the stars be of that bigness, distance, as astronomers relate, 
so many in * number, 1026, or 1725, as J. Bayerus; or as some Rabbins, 
29,000 myriads; or as Galileo discovers by his glasses, infinite, and that via 
lactea, a confused light of small stars, like so many nails in a door : or all in a 
row, like those 12,000 isles of the Maldives in the Indian ocean? Whether 
the least visible star in the eighth sphere be eighteen times bigger than the 
earth; and as Tycho calculates, 14,000 semi-diameters distant from it? 
Whether they be thicker parts of the orbs, as Aristotle delivers : or so many 
habitable worlds, as Democritus ? Whether they have light of their own, or from 
the sun, or give light round, as Patritius discourse th? An ceque diste^it a 
centro mundi? Whether light be of their essence; and that light be a substance 
or an accident ? Whether they be hot by themselves, or by accident cawse heat ? 
Whether there be such a precession of the equinoxes as Copernicus holds, or 
that the eighth sphere move? An hene philosoplientur., R. Bacon and J. Dee, 
Aphorism, de multiplicatione specierum ? Whether there be any such images 
ascending with each degree of the zodiac in the east, as Aliacensis feigns? An 

t In Theoricis planetanim, three above the firmament, which all wise men reject, u Theor. nova ccelest. 
Meteor. » Lib. de fahrica mundi. y Lib de Cometis. * An sit crux et nubecula in coelis ad Polum 
Antarcticum, quod ex Corsalio refert Patritius. 



Mem. 3.] Digression of Air. 32o 

aqua super ccelum ? as Patritius and the schoolmen will, a crystalline ^watery 
lieaven^ which is ''certainly to be nnderstood of that in the middle region? for 
otherwise, if at Noah's flood the water came from thence, it must be above a 
hundred years falling down to us, as "some calculate. Besides, An terra sit 
animata .? which some so confidently believe, with Orpheus, Hermes, Averroes, 
from which all other souls of men, beasts, devils, plants, fishes, &c., are derived, 
and into which again, after some revolutions, as Plato in his Timseus, Plotinus 
in his Enneades more largely discuss, they return (see Chalcidius and Ben- 
nius, Plato's commentators), as all philosophical matter, in materiam primam. 
Keplerus, Patritius, and some other Neoterics, have in part revived this 
opinion. And that every star in heaven hath a soul, angel or intelligence 
to animate or move it, &c. Or to omit all smaller controversies, as matters of 
less moment, and examine that main paradox, of the earth's motion, now so 
much in question : Aristarchus Samius, Pythagoras maintained it of old, 
Democritusand many of their scholars,DidacusAstanica, Anthony Fascarinus, 
a Carmelite, and some other commentators, will have Job to insinuate as 
much, cap. 9. ver. 4. Qui commovet terram de loco suo, &c., and that this one 
place of scripture makes more for the earth's motion than all the other prove 
against it ; whom Pineda confutes most contradict. Hov/soever, it is re- 
vived since by Copernicus, not as a truth, but a supposition, as he himself 
coufesseth in the preface to pope Nicholas, but now maintained in good 
earnest by ''Calcagninus, Telesius, Kepler, K-otman, Gilbert, Digges, Galileo, 
Campanella, and especially by ^Lansbergias, naturce, 7'ationi, et veritati 
consentaneum, by Origanus, and some ^others of his followers. Por if the 
earth be the centre of the world, stand still, and the heavens move, as the 
most I'eceived ^opinion is, which they call inordinatam coeli dispositioneni, 
though stifHy maintained by Tyclio, Ptolemeus, and their adherents, quis ille 
furor ? &c., what fury is that, saith ^Dr. Gilbert, satis animose, as Cabeus 
notes, that shall drive the heavens about with such incomprehensible celerity 
in twenty-four hours, when as every point of the firmament, and in the equator, 
must needs move (so 'Clavius calculates) 176,660 in one 24:6th part of an 
hour : and an arrow out of a bow must go seven times about the earth whilst 
a man can say an Ave Maria, if it keep the same space, or compass the earth 
1884 times in an hour, which is supra humanam cogitationem, beyond human 
conceit : ocyor et jacido, et ventos cequante sagitta. A man could not ride so 
much ground, going 40 miles a day, in 2904 years, as the firmament goes in 
23 hours : or so much in 2.03 years, as the firmament in one minute : quod 
incredibile videtur : and the *" pole-star, which to our thinking, scarce movethout 
of its place, goeth a bigger circuit than the sun, whose diameter is much larger 
than the diameter of the heaven of the sun, and 20,000 semi-diameters of the 
earth from us, with the rest of the fi.xed stars, as Tycho proves. To avoid 
therefore these impossibilities, they ascribe a triple motion to the earth, the 
sun immovable in the centre of the whole world, the earth centre of the moon, 
alone, above $ and ^ beneath 'b, V-, $, (or as 'Origanus and others will, one 
single motion to the earth, still placed in the centre of the world, which is more 
probable,) a single motion to the firmament, which moves in 30 or 26 thou- 
sand years : and so the planets, Saturn in 30 years absolves his sole and proper 
motion, Jupiter in 12, Mars in 3, &c., and so solve all appearances better 
than any way whatsoever : calculate all motions, be they in longum or latum, 
direct, stationary, retrograde, ascent or descent, without epicycles, intricate 



aGilbertus Origanus. '^ See this discussed in Sir Walter Raleigh's history, in Zanch. ad Gasman. 

<=Vidl Fromundum de Meteoris, lib. 5. artic. 5. et Lansbergium. "iPeculiari libello. ^ Comment, in 

motum terras, Middlebergi, 1630. 4. 'Peculiar! libello. eSee Mr. Carpeuters Geogr. cap. 4. lib. 1. 

Campanella et Origanus praef. Ephemer. where Scripture places are answered. '» De Magnete^ 'Com- 
ment, in 2 cap. sphasr. Jo. de Sacr. Bosc. J'Dlst.S. gr. l.aPulo. JPra;!:'. Ephem. 



3^0 . Cure of Melancholy, [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

eccentrics, &c., recti as commodiusque per unicum motwn terrm, saith Lansber- 
gius, much more certain than by those Alphonsine, or any such tables, which 
are grounded from those other suppositions. And 'tis true they say, according 
to optic principles, the visible appearances of the planets do so indeed answer 
to their magnitudes and orbs, and come nearest to mathematical observations 
and precedent calculations, there is no repugnancy to physical axioms, because 
no penetration of orbs; but then between the sphere of Saturn and the firma- 
ment^ there is such an incredible and vast ""simce or distance (7,000,000 semi- 
diameters of the earth, asTycho calculates) void of stars : and besides, they do 
so enhance the bigness of the stars, enlarge their circuit, to solve those ordinary 
objections or parallaxes and retrogradations of the fixed stars, that alteration 
of the poles, elevation in several places or latitude of cities here on earth (for, 
say they, if a man's eye were in the firmament, he should not at all discern that 
great annual motion of the earth, but it would still appear punctum indivisi- 
bile and seem to be fixed in one place, of the same bigness) that it is quite 
opposite to reason, to natural philosophy, and all out as absurd as dispropor- 
tional (so some will) as prodigious, as that of the sun's swift motion of heavens. 
But hoc posito, to grant this their tenet of the earth's motion : if the earth 
move, it is a planet, and shines to them in the moon, and to the other planet- 
ary inhabitants, as the moon and they do to us upon the earth : but shine she 
doth, as Galileo, " Kepler, and others prove, and then per consequens, the rest 
of the planets are inhabited, as well as the moon, which he grants in his dis- 
sertation with Galileo's Nuncius Sidereus "" that there be Jovial and Saturn 
inhabitants," &c., and those several planets have their several moons about them, 
as the earth hath hers, as Galileo hath already evinced by his glasses : ^four 
about Jupiter, two about Saturn (though Sitius the Florentine, Fortunius 
Licetus, and Jul. Csesar^la Galla cavil at it) yet Kepler, the emperor's mathe- 
matician, confirms out of his experience that he saw as much by the same help, 
and more about Mars, Venus, and the rest they hope to find out, peradventure 
even amongst the fixed stars, which Brunus and Brutius have already averred. 
Then (I say) the earth and they be planets alike, inhabited alike, moved about 
the sun, the common centre of the world alike, and it may be those two green 
children which '^Nubrigensis speaks of in his time, that fell from heaven, came 
from thence ; and that famous stone that fell from heaven in Aristotle's time, 
olymp. 84, a7i7io tertio, ad Capuce Fluenta, recorded by Laertius and others, 
or Ancile or buckler in l^uma's time, recorded by Festus. We may likewise 
insert with Campanella and Brunus, that which Pythagoras, Aristarchus, 
Samius, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Melissus, Democritus, Leucippus maintained in 
their ages, there be 'infinite worlds, and infinite earths or systems, in injlnito 
cetliere, wliich ^Eusebius collects out of their tenets, because infinite stars and 
planets like unto this of ours, which some stick not still to maintain and pub- 
licly defend, sperahundus expecto innumerabilium mundorum in ceternitate per 
arnhulaiio'iiefib^ cyC. (Nic. Hill. Londinensis philos. Epicur.) For if the firma- 
ment be of such an incomparable bigness, as these Copernical giants will have 
it, infinitum, aut ivfinito proximum, so vast and full of innumerable stars, as 
being infinite in extent, one above another, some higher, some lower, some 
nearer, some farther ofi", and so far asunder, and those so huge and great, inso- 



"> Which may be full of planets, perhaps, to us unseen, as those about Jupiter, &c, n Luna circum- 

terrestris Planeta quum sit, consentaneum est esse In Luna vivcntes creaturas, et singulis Planetarum globis 
suiserviunt circulatores, ex qua considei-atione, de eorum incolis summa probabilitate concludinnis, qiiod 
et Tychoni Braheo, e sola consideration e vastitatis eorum visum fuit. Kepi, dissert, cam. nun. sid. f. 29. 
o Temperare non possum quin ex inventis tuis hoc moneam, veri non absimile, non tam in Luna, sed etiam 
in Jove, et reliquis Planetis incolas esse. Kepi. fo. 26. Si non sint accolsB in Jovis globo, qui notent adnii- 
randam banc varietatem oculis, cui bono quatuor illi Planetas Jovem circumcursitant? p Some of those 
above Jupiter I have seen myself by the help of a glass ei^ht feet long. iRerum Angl. 1. 1. c. 27 de 

v-iridibus pueris. 'Infiniti alii mundi, vel ut Brunus, terraj huic uostrte similes. * Libro Cont. philos. 
cap. 29. 



Mem. 3.] Digression of Air. 327 

mucli that if the whole sphere of Saturn, and all that is included in it, totum 
aggregatwm (as Eromundus of Louvain in his tract, de immohilitate terrce 
argues) evehatur inter Stellas, videri a nobis non poterat, tarn immanis est dis~ 
tantia inter tellurem etjixas, sed instar puncti, d:c. If our world be small in 
respect, why may we not suppose a plurality of worlds, those infinite stars 
visible in the firmament to be so many suns, with particular fixed centres; to 
have likewise their subordinate planets, as tlie sun hath his dancing still round 
hiral which Cardinal Cusanus, Walkarinus, Brunus, and some others have 
held, and some still maintain, Aninim Aristotelismo innutritce, etminutis specio- 
lationihus assuetce, secus forsan, dx. Though they seem close to us, they are 
infinitely distant, and so per consequens, they are infinite habitable worlds: 
what hinders? Why should not an infinite cause (as God is) produce infinite 
effects? as Nic. Hill. Democrit. philos. disputes: Kepler (I confess) will by no 
means admit of Brunus's infinite worlds, or that the fixed stars should be so 
many suns, with their compassing planets, yet the said 'Kepler between jest 
and earnest in his perspectives, lunar geography, " et somnio suo, dissertat, cum 
nunc, sider. seems in part to agree with this, and partly to contradict; for 
the planets, he yields them to be inhabited, he doubts of the stars; and 
so doth Tycho in his astronomical epistles, out of a consideration of their 
vastity and greatness, break out into some such like speeches, that he will 
never believe those great and huge bodies were made to no other use than 
this that we perceive, to illuminate the earth, a point insensible in respect 
of the whole. But who shall dwell in these vast bodies, earths, worlds, " ^ if 
they be inhabited? rational creatures?" as Kepler demands, "or have they 
souls to be saved? or do they inhabit a better part of the world than we do? 
Are we or they lords of the world? And how are all things made for man?" 
Difficile est nodmn hunc expedire, eo quod nondicm omnia quce hue pertinent 
explorata habemus : 'tis hard to determine : this only he proves, that we are 
2)rcEcipuo mundi sinu, in the best place, best world, nearest the heart of the 
sun. y Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian monk, in his second book de sensu 
rerum, cap. 4, subscribes to this of Kepler; that they are inhabited he cer- 
tainly supposeth, but with what kind of creatures he cannot say, he labours 
to prove it by all means : and that there are infinite worlds, having made an 
apology for Galileo, and dedicates this tenet of his to Cardinal Cajetanus. 
Others freely speak, mutter, and would persuade the world (as ''Marinus Marce- 
nus complains) that our modern divines are too severe and rigid against mathe- 
maticians; ignorant and peevish, in not admitting their true demonstrations 
and certain observations, that they tyrannise over art, science, and all philosophy, 
in suppressing their labours (saith Pomponatius), forbidding them to write, to 
speak a truth, all to maintain their superstition, and for their profit's sake. As 
for those places of Scripture which oppugn it, they will have spoken ad captuni 
vulgi, and if rightly understood, and favourably interpreted, not at all against 
it: and as Otho Gasman, Astrol. cap. 1. part. 1. notes, many great divines, 
besides Porphyrins, Proclus, Simplicius, and those heathen philosophers, doc- 
trind et cetate venerandi, Mosis Genesin 7nundanam popidaris nescio cujus 
ruditatis, quce longe absit a vera Fhilosoj^horio/n eruditione, insimidant : for 
Moses makes mention but of two planets, and d, no four elements, &c. Bead 
more on him, in " Grossius and Junius. But to proceed, these and such like 



* Kepler fol. 2. dissert. Quid impedit quin credamus ex Ms initii?, plures alios mundos detegendos, vel (nt 
Democrito placuit) inflnitos ? " Lege Somnium Kepleri, edit. 1635. xQuid igitux inqiiies, si sint 

in coelo plures globi, similes nostrse telluris, an cum illis certabimus, quis meliorem mundi plagam teneat? 
Si nobiliores illorum globi, nos non sumus creatm'arum rationalium nobilissimi : quomodo igitur omnia 
propter hominem? quomodo nos domini op^rum Dei ? Kepler, fol. 29. y Franckfort, quarto, 1620. ibid. 4". 
1622. J^Prtefat. in Comment, in Genesin. Modo suadent Theologos, surama ignoiatione versari, veras 

scientias admittere nolle, et tyrannidem exercere, ufc eos falsis dogmatibus, superstitionibus, et religiune 
Catholica detineant. » Theat. Biblico. 



328 Care of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

insolent and bold attempts, prodigious paradoxes, inferences must needs follow, 
if it once be granted, which Eotman, Kepler, Gilbert, Diggeus, Origanus, 
Galileo, and others, maintain of the earth's motion, that 'tis a planet, and 
shines as the moon doth, which contains in it " ^both land and sea as the moon 
doth:" for so they find by their glasses that Macula in facie Lunce, "the 
brighter parts are earth, the dusky sea," which Thales, Plutarch, and Pytha- 
goras formerly taught : and manifestly discern hills and dales, and such like 
concavities, if we may subscribe to, and believe Galileo's observations. But to 
avoid these paradoxes of the earth's motion (which the Church of Rome hath 
lately ''condemned as heretical, as appears by Blancanus and Fromundus's 
writings) our later mathematicians have rolled all the stones that may be 
stirred : and, to solve all appearances and objections, have invented new hypo- 
theses, and fabricated new systems of the world, out of their own Dedalseanheads. 
Fracastorius will have the earth stand still, as before ; and to avoid that suppo- 
sition of eccentrics and epicycles, he hath coined seventy-two homocentrics, to 
solve all appearances. Nicholas Pamerus will have the earth the centre of the 
world, but movable, and the eighth sphere immovable, the five other planets to 
move about the sun, the sun and moon about the earth. Of which orbs Tycho 
Brahe puts the earth the centre immovable, the stars immovable, the rest with 
E-amerus, the planets without orbs to wander in the air, keep time and distance, 
true motion, according to that virtue which God hath given them. "^Helisseus 
Koeslin censureth both, with CojDernicus (whose hypothesis de terrce motu, Phi- 
lippus Lansbergius hath lately vindicated, and demonstrated with solid argu- 
ments in a just volume, Jansonius CiTesius ®hath illustrated in a sphere). The 
said Johannes Lansbergius, 1633, hath since defended his assertion against all 
the cavils and calumnies of Fromundus his Anti-Aristarchus, Baptista Morinus, 
and Petrus Bartholinus: Fromundus, 1634, hath written against him again, 
J. Posseus of Aberdeen, &c. (sound drums and trumpets), whilst Roeslin(I say) 
censures all, and Ptolemeus himself as insufiicient : one offends against natural 
philosophy, another against optic principles, a third against mathematical, as 
not answering to astronomical observations: one puts a great space between 
Saturn's orb and the eighth sphere, another too narrow. In his own hypo- 
thesis he makes the earth as before the universal centre, the sun to the five 
upper planets, to the eighth sphere he ascribes diurnal motion, eccentrics, and 
epicycles to the seven planets, which hath been formerly exploded; and so, 
Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt, ^as a tinker stops one hole and 
makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse himself : reforms some, and mars 
all. In the mean time, the world is tossed in a blanket amongst them, they 
hoist the earth up and down like a ball, make it stand and go at their plea- 
sures : one saith the sun stands, another he moves ; a third comes in, taking 
them all at rebound, and lest there should any paradox be wanting, he * finds 
certain spots and clouds in the sun, by the help of glasses, which multiply (saith 
Keplerus) a thing seen a thousand times bigger in piano, and makes it come 
thirty -two times nearer to the eye of the beholder : but see the demonstration 
of this glass in ^ Tarde, by means of which, the sun must turn round upon his 
own centre, or they about the sun. Fabricius puts only three, and those in the 
sun : Apelles 15, and those without the sun, floating like the Gyanean Isles in 
the Euxine sea. ^ Tarde, the Frenchman, hath observed thirty-three, and those 
neither spots nor clouds, as Galileo, Epist. ad Valserum, supposeth, but planets 
concentric with the sun, and not far from him with regular motions. 'Christo- 



•'His argumentis plane satisfecisti, do maculas in Luna esse mavia, dolucidas partes esse terram. Kepler, 
fol. 16. c Anno 1616. d In Hypothes. demundo. Edit. 1597. « Lugduni, 1633. f" Whilst 

these hlocklieads avoid one fault, they fall into its opposite." * Jo. Fahritius de maculis in sole. Witeh. 

"Itill. g In liurboniis sideribus. ^ Lib. de Burbouiis sid. Stellas sunt erraticfe, qme propriis orbibus 

feruntur, non longfe a Sole dissitis, sed juxta Solem. i Braccini fol. 1630. lib. 4. cap. 52. 55. 59. &c. 



Mem. 3.] Digression of Air. 329 

pher Shemer, a German Suisser Jesuit, Ursicd Rosa, divides them in miaculas 
et faculas,2aid will have them to be fixed inSolis sitperficie : and to absolve theii* 
periodical and regular motion in twenty-seven or twenty-eight days, holding 
withal the rotation of the snn npon his centre ; and all are so confident, that 
they have made schemes and tables of their motions. The ^ Hollander, in his 
dissertatiunculd cum Jjjelle, censures all; and thus they disagree amongst 
themselves, old and new, irreconcilable in their opinions ; thus Aristarchus, 
thus Hipparchus, thus Ptolemeus, thus Albateginus, thus Alfraganus, thus 
Tycho, thus Hanierus, thus Eoeslinus, thus Fracastorius, thus Copernicus and 
his adherents, thus Clavius and Maginus, &c., Avith their followers, vary and 
determine of these celestial orbs and bodies : and so whilst these men contend 
about the sun and moon^ like the philosophers in Lucian, it is to be feared, 
the sun and moon will hide themselves^ and be as mncli ofi'ended as ^ she was 
with those, and send another messenger to Jupiter, by some new-fangled 
Icaroraenippus, to make an end of all those curious controversies, and scatter 
them abroad. 

But why should the sun and moon be angry, or take exceptions at mathe- 
maticians and philosophers'? when as the like measure is offered unto God 
himself by a company of theologasters : they are not contented to see the sun 
and moon, measure their site and biggest distance in a glass, calculate their 
motions, or visit the moon in a poetical fiction, or a dream, as he saith, "^Audax 
facinus et memorahile nunc incij)ia7n, neque hoc sceculo usurpatum prius, quid 
in Lunce regno hdc node gestum sit exponam, et quo nemo unquam nisi somni- 
ando pervenit, ""but he and Menippus: or as ° Peter Cuneus, Bond Jide agam, 
nihil eorum quce sci'ipturus sum, verum esse scitote, c&c, quce nee facta, necfatura 
sunt, dicam, ^stili tantum et ingenii causa, not in jest, but in good earnest 
these gigantical Cyclops will transcend spheres, heaven, stars, into that empy- 
rean heaven; soar higher yet, and see what God himself doth. The Jewiali 
Talmudists take upon them to determine how God spends his whole time, 
sometimes playing with Leviathan, sometimes overseeing the world, &c., like 
Lucian's Jupiter, that spent much of the year in painting butterflies' wings, 
and seeing who ofiered sacrifice; telling the hours when it should rain, how 
much snow should fall in such a place, which way the wind should stand in 
Greece, which way in Africa. In the Turks' Alcoran, Mahomet is taken up to 
heaven, upon a Pegasus sent on purpose for him, as he lay in bed with his wife, 
and after some conference with God is set on ground again. The pagans paint 
him and mangle him after a thousand fashions ; our heretics, schismatics, and 
some schoolmen, come not far behind : some paint him in the habit of an old 
man, and make maps of heaven, number the angels, tell their several '^ names, 
offices : some deny God and his providence, some take his office out of his 
hand, will "bind and loose in heaven, release, pardon, forgive, and be quarter- 
master with him ; some call his Godhead in question, his power, and attributes, 
his mercy, justice, providence: they will know with ^Cecilius, why good and 
bad are punished together, war, fires, plagues, infest all alike, why wicked men 
flourish, good are poor, in prison, sick, and ill at ease. Why doth he sufier so 
much mischief and evil to be done, if he be * able to help? why doth he not 
assist good, or resist bad, reform our wills, if he be not the author of sin, and 
let such enormities be committed, unworthy of his knowledge, wisdom, govern- 

k Lugdun. Eat. An. 1612, i Ne se suTjducant, et relicta statione decessum parent, ut curiositatis flnem 
faciant. m Hercules tuam fidera Satyra Menip. edit. 1608. ° " I shall now enter upon a bold and 

memorable exploit ; one never before attempted in this age. T shall explain this nighfs transactions in the 
kingdom of the moon, a place where no one has yet arrived, save in his dreams." ° Sardi venales Satyr. 
Menip. An. 16 1 2. p Puteani Comus sic incipit, or as Lipsius Satyre in a dream. iTritemius, 1. de 7. 

secundis. ■" They have fetched Trajanus' soul out of hell, and canonise for saints whom they list. * In 

Minutius. sine delectu tempestates tangunt loca sacra et profana, honoruni et malorum fata juxta, nullo 
ordine res fiunt, so uta legibus fortuna dominatur. ' Vel malus vel impotens, qui peccatum permittit, (i;c. 
uude haic superstitio ? 



330 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

ment, mercy, and providence, why lets he all things be done by fortune and 
chance? Others as prodigiously inquire after his omnipotency, an possit 
plures similes creare deos ? an ex scarabceo deum ? &c., et quo demum ruetis 
sacrificuli? Some, by visions and revelations, take upon them to be familiar 
with God, and to be of privy council with himj they will tell how many, and 
who shall be saved, when the world shall come to an end, what year, what 
month, and whatsoever else God hath reserved unto himself, and to his angels. 
Some again, curious fantastics, will know more than this, and inquire with 
" Epicurus, what God did before the world was made? was he idle? Where 
did he bide? What did he make the world of? why did he then make it, and 
not before? If he made it new, or to have an end, how is he unchangeable, 
infinite, &c. Some will dispute, cavil, and object, as Julian did of old, whom 
Cyril confutes, as Simon Magus is feigned to do, in that "" dialogue betwixt 
him and Peter : and Ammonius the philosopher, in that dialogical disputation 
with Zacharias the Christian. If God be infinitely and only good, why should 
he alter or destroy the world? if he confound that which is good, how shall 
himself continue good ? If he pull it down because evil, how shall he be free 
from the evil that made it evil? &c., with many such absurd and brain-sick 
questions, intricacies, froth of human wit, and excrements of curiosity, &c., 
which, as our Saviour told his inquisitive disciples, are not fit for them to know. 
But hoo ! I am now gone quite out of sight, I am almost giddy with roving 
about: I could have ranged farther yet; but I am an infant, and not ^able to 
dive into these profundities, or sound these depths ; not able to understand, 
much less to discuss, I leave the contemplation of these things to stronger 
wits, that have better ability, and happier leisure to wade into such philoso- 
phical mysteries; for put case I were as able as willing, yet what can one man 
do? I will conclude with ''Scaliger, Nequaquam nos homines sumus, sed partes 
hominis, ex omnibus aliquid fieri potest, idque non magjium; ex singulis fere 
nihil. Besides (as Nazianzen hath it), Deus latere nos multa voluit: and with 
Seneca, cap. 35. de Gometis, Quid mirainur tarn rara mundi spectacula non 
teneri certis legibus, nondum intelligi ? riiultce sunt gentes quoe tantum de facie 
sciunt Gcelum, veniet tempus fortasse, quo ista quce nunc latent in lucem dies 
extrahat et longioris cevi diligentia, una cetas non svfiicit, pfosteri, o&c, when God 
sees his time, he will reveal these mysteries to mortal men, and show that to 
some few at last, which he hath concealed so long. For I am of *his mind, 
that Columbus did not find out America by chance, but God directed him 
at that time to discover it : it was contingent to him, but necessary to God ; 
he reveals and conceals to whom and when he will. And which ^ one said of 
history and records of former times, " God in his providence, to check our 
presumptuous inquisition, wraps up all things in uncertainty, bars us from long 
antiquity, and bounds our search within the compass of some few ages :" many 
good things are lost, which our predecessors made use of, as Pancirola will 
better inform you; many new things are daily invented, to the public good; 
so kingdoms, men, and knowledge ebb and flow, are hid and revealed, and 
when you have all done, as the Preacher concluded. Nihil est sub sole novum, 
(nothing new under the sun). But my melancholy spaniel's quest, my game 
is sprung, and I must suddenly come down and follow. 

Jason Pratensis, in his book de morbis capitis, and chaj)ter of melancholy, 
hath these words out of Galen, "°Let them come to me to know what meat 
and drink they shall use, and besides that, I will teach them what temper of 

» Quid fecit Deus ante mundum creatum ? ubi vixit otiosus a suo subjecto, &c. "^ Lib. 3. recog. Pet. 

cap. 3. Peter answers by the simile of an egg-shell, which is cunningly made, yet of necessity to be broken; 
so is the world, &c., that the excellent state of heaven might be made manifest. y Ut me pluma levat, 

sic grave mergit onus. ' Exercit. 184. » Laet. descript. occid. IndiaB. b Daniel principio 

historise. <= Veniant ad me audituri quo esculento, quo item poculento uti debeant, et prater alimentuui 
ipsum potumque, ventos ipsos docebo, item aeris ambientis temperiera, insuper regiones quas eligere, quas 
Yitare ex usu sit. 



Mem. 3.] jyigression of Air. 331 

ambient air they shall make clioice of, what wind, what countries they shall 
choose, and what avoid." Out of which lines of his, thus much we may gather, 
that to this cure of melancholy, amongst other things, the rectification of air is 
necessarily required. This is performed, either in reforming natural or arti- 
ficial air. Natural is that which is in our election to choose or avoid : and 'tis 
either general, to countries, provinces; particular, to cities, towns, villages, or 
private houses. AVhat harm those extremities of heat or cold do in this malady, 
I have formerly shown : the medium must needs be good, where the air is tem- 
perate, serene, quiet, free from bogs, fens, mists, all manner of putrefaction, 
contagious and filthy noisome smells. The "^Egyptians by all geographers are 
commended to be hilares, a conceited and merry nation : which I can ascribe 
to no other cause than the serenity of their air. They that live in the Orcades 
are registered by ® Hector Boethius and ^Cardan, to be of fair complexion, long- 
lived, most healthful, free from all manner of infirmities of body and mind, by 
reason of a sharp purifying air, which comes from the sea. The Boeotians in 
Greece were dull and heavy, crassi Boeoti, by reason of a foggy air in which they 
YiYQ^,^ BosotwDi in crasso jurares aere nation, Attica most acute, pleasant, and 
refined. The clime changes not so much customs, manners, wits (as Aristotle 
Folid. lib. 6, caj). 4. Yegetius, Plato, Bodine, method, hist. cap. 5. hath proved 
at large) as constitutions of their bodies, and temperature itself. In all par- 
ticular provinces we see it confirmed by experience, as the air is, so are the 
inhabitants, dull, heavy, witty, subtle, neat, cleanly, clownish, sick, and sound. 
In ^Perigord in France the air is subtle, healthful, seldom any plague or con- 
tagious disease, but hilly and barren: the men sound, nimble, and lusty; but 
in some parts of Guienne, full of moors and marshes, the people dull, heavy, 
and subject to many infirmities. Who sees not a great difference between 
Surrey, Sussex, and Romney Marsh, the wolds in Lincolnshire and the fens. 
He therefore that loves his health, if his ability will give him leave, must often 
shift places, and make choice of such as are wholesome, pleasant, and con- 
venient : there is nothing better than change of air in this malady, and gene- 
rally for health to wander up and down, as those ' Tartari Zaviolhenses, that 
live in hordes, and take opportunity of times, places, seasons. The kings of 
Persia had their summer and winter houses; in winter at Sardis, in summer 
at Susa; now at Persepolis, then at Pasargada. Cyrus lived seven cold months 
at Babylon, three at Susa, two at Ecbatana, saith ''Xenophon, and had by that 
means a perpetual spring. - The great Turk sojourns sometimes at Constanti- 
nople, sometimes at Adrianople, &c. The kings of Spain have their Escurial 
in heat of summer, ^Madrid for a wholesome seat, Yalladolid a pleasant 
site, &c., variety of secessus as all princes and great men have, and their several 
progresses to this purpose. LucuUus the Homan had his house at Pome, at 
Baise, &c. '"^Yhen Cn. Pompeius, Marcus Cicero (saith Plutarch) and many 
noble men in the summer came to see him, at supper Pompeius jested with him, 
that it was an elegant and pleasant village, full of vmidows, galleries, and all offices 
fit for a summer house; but in his judgment very unfit for winter: Lucullus 
made answer that the lord of the house had wit like a crane, that changeth her 
country with the season; he had other houses furnished, and built for that 
purpose, all out as commodious as this. So Tully had his Tusculan, Plinius his 
Lam-etan village, and every gentleman of any fashion in our times hath the 
like. The ° bishop of Exeter had fourteen several houses all furnished, in times 
past. In Italy, though they bide in cities in winter, which is more gentleman- 

d Leo Afer, Maginus, &c. e Lib. 1. Scot. Hist. ^ Lib. L de rer. var. s Horat. ^ Maginus. 

1 Haitonus de Tartaiis. ^ Cyropsed. li. 8. perpstuum inde ver. i The air so clear, it never breeds the 
plague. ™ Leander Albertus in Campania, h Plutarcho vita Luculli. Cum Cn. Pompeius, Marcus 

Cicero, multique nobiles viri L. Lucullum EBstivo tempore convenissent, Pompeius inter coenam dum fami- 
liariter jocaus est, earn villam imprioais sibi sumptuosam, et eiegantem videri, fenestris, porticibus, ike. 
o Godwin, vita Jo. Voysye al. Harman. 



332 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

like, all the summer they come abroad to their country-houses, to recreate 
themselves. Our gentry in England live most part in the country (except it be 
some few castles) building still in bottoms (saith ° Jovius) or near woods, corona 
arhorum vire^itium; you shall know a village by a tuft of trees at or about it, 
to avoid those strong winds wherewith the island is infested, and cold winter 
blasts. Some discommend moated houses, as unwholesome ; so Camden saith 
of PEw-elme, that it was therefore unfrequented, ob stagni vicini halitus, and 
all such places as be near lakes or rivers. But I am of opinion that these 
inconveniences will be mitigated, or easily corrected by good fires, as "^ one 
reports of Yenice, that graveolentia and fog of the moors is sufficiently qualified 
by those innumerable smokes. Nay more, ''Thomas Philol. Ravennas, a great 
physician, contends that the Venetians are generally longer-lived than any city 
in Europe, and live many of them 120 years. But it is not water simply 
that so much offends, as the slime and noisome smells that accompany such 
overflowed places, which is but at some few seasons alter a flood, and is suffi- 
ciently recompensed with sweet smells and aspects in summer, Ver pinget vario 
gemmantia i^rata colore, and many other commodities of pleasure and profit ; 
or else may be corrected by the site, if it be somewhat remote from the water, 
as Lindley, ^Orton super monteni, * Drayton, or a little more elevated, though 
nearer, as ''Caiicut, ^Amington, ^'Polesworth, ''Weddington (to insist in such 
places best to me known, upon the river of Anker, in Warwickshire, "Swarston, 
and ^ Drakesly upon Trent). Or howsoever they be unseasonable in winter, 
or at some times, they have their good use in summer. If so be that their 
means be so slender as they may not admit of any such variety, but must 
determine once for all, and make one house serve each season, I know no men 
that have given better rules in this behalf than our husbandry writers. '^Cato 
and Columella prescribe a good house to stand by a navigable river, good high- 
ways, near some city, and in a good soil, but that is more for commodity than 
health. 

The best soil commonly yields the worst air, a dry sandy plat is fittest to 
build upon, and such as is rather hilly than plain, full of downs, a Cotswold 
country, as being most commodious for hawking, hunting, wood, waters, and 
all manner of pleasures. Perigord in France is barren, yet by reason of the 
excellency of the air, and such pleasures that it affords, much inhabited by the 
nobility; as Nuremberg in Germany, Toledo in Spain. Our countryman 
Tusser will tell us so much, that the fieldone is for profit, the woodlaud for plea- 
sure and health; the one com^monly a deep clay, therefore noisome in winter, 
and subject to bad highways: the other a dry sand. Provision miay be had 
elsewhere, and our towns are generally bigger in the woodland than the fieldone, 
more frequent and populous, and gentlemen more delight to dwell in such 
places. Sutton Cold field in Warwickshire (where I was once a grammar 
scholar), may be a sufficient witness, which stands, as Camden notes, loco in- 
grato et sterili, but in an excellent air, and fall of all manner of pleasures. 
^ Wadley in Berkshire is situate in a vale, though not so fertile a soil as some 
vales afford, yet a most commodious sight, wholesome, in a delicious air, a rich 
and pleasant seat. So Segrave in Leicestershire (which town ®I am now bound 
to remember) is situated in a champaign, at the edge of the wolds, and more 
barren than the villages about it, yet no place likely yields a better air. And 
he that built that fair house, ^WoUerton in Nottinghamshire, is much to be 
commended (though the tract be sandy and barren about it) for making choice 

o Descript. Brit. p In Oxfordshire. i Leander Albertus. ■" Cap. 21. de vit. horn, prorog. 

s The possession of Robert Bradshaw, Esq. t Of George Purefey, Esq. " The possession of William 

Purefey, Esq. » The seat of Sir John Reppington, Kt. y Sir Henry Goodieres, lately deceased. 

* The dwelling-house of Hum. Adderley, Esq. * Sir John Harpar's, lately deceased. ^ Sir George 

Greselies, Kt. <= Lib. 1. cap. 2. ^ The seat of G. Purefey, Esq. e For I am now incumbent of 

that rectory, presented thereto by my right honourable patron the Lord Berkley. ^ Sir Francis Willoughby. 



Mem. 3.] Air rcctijied. 333 

of such a place. Conslantine, lib. 2. cap. cle Agriciilt. praisetli mountains, 
hilly, steep places, above the rest by the seaside, and sucli as look toward the 
^north upon some great river, as ^Farmack in Derbyshire, on the Trent, envi- 
roned with hills, open only to the north, like Mount Edgecombe in Cornwall, 
which 'Mr. Carew so much admires for an excellent seat: such is the general 
site of Bohemia: serenat Boreas, the north wind clarifies, "''but near lakes or 
marshes, in holes, obscure places, or to the south and west, he utterly disproves," 
those winds are unwholesome, putrefying, and make men subject to diseases. 
The best building for health, according to him, is in *<4iigh places, and in an 
excellent prospect," like that of Cuddeston in Oxfordshire (which place I must 
lionoris ergo mention) is lately and fairly ""built in a good air, good prospect, 
good soil, both for profit and pleasure, not so easily to be matched. P. Cres- 
centius, in his lib. 1. de Agric. cap. 5. is very copious in this subject, how a 
house shordd be wholesomely sited, in a good coast, good air, wind, &c., Yarro 
de re rust. lib. 1. cap. 12. "forbids lakes and rivers, marshy and manured 
grounds, they cause a bad air, gross diseases, hard to be cured: "°if it be so 
that he cannot help it, better (as he adviseth) sell thy house and land than lose 
thine health." He that respects not this in choosing of his seat, or building his 
house, is Qnente ca2Jtus,msi(\, ^Cato saith, "and his dwelling next to hell itself," 
according to Columella : he commends, in conclusion, the middle of a hill, upon 
a descent. Baptista Porta, Villce, lib. 1. ca]?. 22. censures Varro, Cato, Colu- 
mella, and those ancient rustics, approving many things, disallowing some, and 
will by all means have the front of a house stand to the south, which how it 
may be good in Italy and hotter climes, I know not, in our northern countries 
I am sure it is best: Stephanus, a Frenchman, j^'^^csdio rustic, lib. 1. cap. 4. 
subscribes to this, approving especially the descent of a hill south or south-east, 
with trees to the north, so that it be well watered; a condition in all sites 
which must not be omitted, as Herbastein inculcates, lib. 1. Julius Csesar 
Claudinus, a physician, considt. 24:, for a nobleman in Poland, melancholy given, 
adviseth him to dwell in a house inclining to the '''east, and 'by all means to 
provide the air be clear and sweet; which Montanus, co?z5iZ. 229, counselleth 
the earl of Monfurt, his patient, to inhabit a pleasant house, and in a good air. 
If it be so the natural site may not be altered of our city, town, village, yet by 
artificial means it may be helped. In hot countries, therefore, they make the 
streets of their cities very narrow, all over Spain, Africa, Italy, Greece, and 
many cities of France, in Languedoc especially, and Provence, those southern 
parts : Montpelier, the habitation and university of physicians, is so built, with 
high houses, narrow streets, to divert the sun's scalding rays, which Tacitus 
commends, lib. 15, Annal., as most agreeing to their health, "* because the 
height of buildings, and narrowness of streets, keep away the sunbeams." 
Some cities use galleries, or arched cloisters towards the street, as Damascus, 
Bologna, Padua, Berne in Switzerland, Westchester with us, as well to avoid 
tempests, as the sun's scorching heat. They build on high hills, in hot coun- 
tries, for more air; or to the Eexside, as Baise, Naples, &c. In our northern 
coasts we are opposite, we commend straight, broad, open, fair streets, as most 
befitting and agreeing to our clime. We build in bottoms for warmth : and 
that site of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos, in the ^gean sea, which Yitruvius 



? ]\roiitani et maritimi salubriores, acclives, et ad Boream vergentes. hThe dwelling of Sir To. 

Burdet, Knight, Baronet. 'In liis Survey of Cornwall, bock 2. tp^p^e paludes, stagna, et loca con- 

cava, vel ad Aiistrum, vel ad Occidentem inclinatfe, domus sunt morbosre. ' Oportet igitur ad sanitateni 
domus in altioribus wdiflcare, et ad speculationem. ^ By Jolm Bancroft, Dr. of Divinity, my quondam 

tutor in Christ-church, Oxon. now the Right Reverend Lord Bishop Oxon. Avho built this house for himself 
and his successors. « Hyeme ent vehementer frigida, et estate non salubris : paludes enim faciunt 

CTassum aerem, et difHciles morbus. <> Vendas quot assibus possis, et si nequeas, relinquas. p Lib. 1. 

cap. 2. in Oreo habita i Aurora musis arnica, Vitruv. r^cles Orientem spectantes vir nobilissimiis 

inhabitet, et curet ut sit aer clarus, lucidus, odoriferus. Eligat habitationem optimo acre jucundam. 
• Quoniam angustiaj itmerum et altitudo tectorum, non perinde Soils calorera adraittit. 



334 Cure of MehncJwly. [Rirt. 2. Sec. 2. 

so imicli discommends, magnificently builfc with fair houses, sed imjorudeMer 
positam, unadvisedly sited, because it lay along to the south, and when the 
south wind blew, the people were all sick, would make an excellent site in 
our northern climes. ^ 

Of that artificial site of houses I have sufficiently discoursed : if the plan of 
the dwelling may not be altered, yet there is much in choice of such a chamber 
or room, in opportune opening and shutting of windows, excluding foreign air 
and winds, and walking abroad at convenient times. * Crato, a German, com- 
mends east and south site (disallowing cold air and northern winds in this case, 
rainy weather and misty days), free from putrefaction, fens, bogs, and muck- 
hills. If the air be such, open no windows, come not abroad. Montanus will 
have his patient not to "stir at all, if the wind be big or tempestuous, as most 
part in March it is with us; or in cloudy, lowering, dark days, as in November, 
which we commonly call the black month ; or stormy, let the wind stand how 
it will, consil. 27. and 30. he must not "^open a casement in bad weather," 
or in a boisterous season, consil. 299, he especially forbids us to open windows 
to a south wind. The best sites for chamber windows, in my judgment, are 
north, east, south, and which is the worst, v/est. Levinus Lemnius, lib. 3. 
cap. 3. de occidt. nat. mir. attributes so much to air, and rectifying of wind 
and windows, that he holds it alone sufficient to make a mail sick or well; to 
alter body and mind. "^ A clear air cheers up the spirits, exhilarates the mind ; 
a thick, black, misty, tempestuous, contracts, overthrows." Great heed is 
therefore to be taken at what times we walk, how we place our windows, lights, 
and houses, how we let in or exclude this ambient air. The Egyptians, to avoid 
immoderate heat, make their windows on the top of the house like chimneys, 
with two tunnels to draw a thorough air. In Spain they commonly make great 
opposite windows without glass, still shutting those which are next to the sun : 
so likewise in Turkey and Italy (Yenice excepted, which brags of her stately 
glazed palaces), they use paper windows to like purpose ; and lie, sub dio, in the 
top of their flat-roofed houses, so sleeping under the canopy of heaven. In some 
parts of ^ Italy they have windmills, to draw a cooling air out of hollow caves, 
and disperse the sam.e through all the chambers of their palaces, to refresh 
them ; as at Costoza, the house of Csesareo Trento, a gentleman of Yicenza, 
and elsewhere. Many excellent means are invented to correct nature by art. 
If none of these courses help, the best way is to make artificial air, which how- 
soever is profitable and good, still to be made hot and moist, and to be seasoned 
with sweet perfumes, ""pleasant and lightsome as it may be; to have roses, 
violets, and sweet-smelling flowers ever in their windows, posies in their hand. 
Laurentius commends water-lilies, a vessel of v.^arm water to evaporate in the 
room, which v/ill make a more delightful perfume, if there be added orange- 
flowers, pills of citrons, rosemary, cloves, bays, rose water, rose- vinegar, benzoin, 
labdanum, styrax, and such like gums, which make a pleasant and acceptable 
perfume. ""Bessardus Bisantinus prefers the smoke of juniper to melancholy 
persons, which is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers. 
•"Guianerius prescribes the air to be moistened with water, and sweet herbs 
boiled in it, vine, and sallow leaves, &c., *^to besprinkle the ground and posts 
with rose-water, rose-vinegar, which Avicenna much approves. Of colours it is 
good to behold green, red, yellow, and white, and by all means to have light 



♦Consil. 21. li. 2. Frigidus aer, nubilosus, densns, vitandus, gequ^ ac venti septentrionales, &c. ° Consil. 
24. »Fenestram non aperiat. yDiscutit Sol lioirorera crassi spiritus, mentem exhilarat, 

non enim tam corpora, quam et animi mutationem inde subeunt, pro coeli et ventorum ratione, et saiii 
aliter atfecti ccelo r.ubilo, aliter sereno. De natura ventorum, see Pliny, lib. 2. cap. 26, 27, 28. Strabo, 
li. 7. &c. = Fines Morison parr. 1. c. 4. ^Altomarus car. 7. Briiel. Aer sit lucidus, benfe olens, 

humidus. Montaltus idem ca. 26. Olf actus rerum suavium. Laurentius, c. 8. bAnt.Pliilos.cap.de 

melanch. c Tract. 15. c. 9. ex redolentibus herbis et foliis vitis viiiifer^, salicis, &c. dpavimentunx 

aceto et aqua rosacea irrorare, Laurent, c. 8. 



Mem. 3.] • Air rectified. 335 

enough, with windows in the day, wax candles in the night, neat chaml)er.s, 
good fires in winter, merry companions; for thongh mehmcholy persons love 
to be dark and alone, yet darkness is a great increaser of the humour. 

Although our ordinary air be good by nature or art, yet it is not amiss, as I 
have said, still to alter it j no better physic for a melancholy man than change 
of air, and variety of places, to travel abroad and see fashions. "^ Leo Afer 
speaks of many of his countrymen so cured, without all other physic : amongst 
the negroes, " there is such an excellent air, that if any of tbem be sick else- 
where, and brought thither, he is instantly recovered, of which he was often an 
eye-witness." ^Lipsius, Zuinger, and some others, add as much of ordinary 
travel. No man, saith Lipsius, in an epistle to Phil. Lanoius, a noble friend of 
his, now ready to make a voyage, "°can be such a stock or stone, whom that 
pleasant speculation of countries, cities, towns, rivers, will not affect." ''Seneca 
the philosopher was infinitely taken with the sight of Scipio Africanus' house, 
near Linternum, to view those old buildings, cisterns, baths, tombs, &c. And 
how was 'Tully pleased with the sight of Athens, to behold those ancient and 
fair buildings, with a remembrance of their wortliy inhabitants. Paulus JEmi- 
lius, that renowned Rom.an captain, after he had conquered Perseus, the last 
kin^ of Macedonia, and novv^ made an end of his tedious wars, thoufrh he had 
been long absent from Pome, and much there desired, about the beginning of 
autumn (as kLivy describes it) made a pleasant peregrination all over Greece, 
accompanied with his son Scipio, and Atheneus the brother of king Eumenes, 
leaving the charge of his army with Sulpicius Gallus. By Thessaly he went to 
Delphos, thence to Megaris, Aulis, Athens, Argos, Lac edsemon, Megalopolis, &c. 
He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage, as v/ho doth not 
that shall attempt the like, though his travel be adjactationeni magis quam ad 
usum reipuh. (as 'one v/ell observes) to crack, gaze^ see fine sights and fashions, 
spend time, rather than for his own or public good 1 (as it is to many gallants 
that travel out their best days, together with their means, manners, honesty, 
religion) yet it availeth howsoever. For j^eregrination charms our senses 
with such unspeakable and sweet variety, "that some count him unhappy 
that never travelled, and pity his case, that from his cradle to his old age 
beholds the same still; still, still the same, the same. Insomuch that "Phasis, 
co7it. lib. 1. Tract. 2. doth not only commend, but enjoin travel, and such 
variety of objects to a melancholy man, "and to lie in diverse inns, to be drawn 
into several companies :" Montaltus, cap. 36. and many neoterics are of the 
same mind : Celsus a,dviseth him therefore that will continue his health, to 
have varium mtcB genus, diversity of callings, occupations, to be busied a,bout, 
" "sometimes to live in the city, sometimes in the country ; now to study or 
work, to be intent, then again to hawk or hunt, swim, run, ride, or exercise 
himself." A good prospect alone will ease melancholy, as Comesius contends, 
lib. 2. c. 7. de Sale. The citizens of ^Barcino, saith he, otherwise penned in, 
melancholy, and stirring little abroad, are much delighted with that pleasant 
prospect their city hath into the sea, which likethatof old Athens besides ^gina 
Salamina, and many pleasant islands, had all the variety of delicious objects : 
so are those Neapolitans and inhabitants of Genoa, to see the ships, boats, and 
passengers go by, out of their windows, their whole cities being situated on the 
side of a hill, like Pera by Constantinople, so that each house almost hath a 
free prospect to the sea, as some part of London to the Thames : or to have a 

«>Lib. 1. cap. de morb. Afrorum in Nigritanim regions tanta aevis temperies, ut siqiiis alibi morbosus 
eo advehatur, optimaj statira sanitati restituatur, qiiod niultis accidisse ipse meis oculis vidi. ^Lib. de 

peregrinat. s Epist. 2. cen. 1. Nee quisquam tam lapis aut frutex, quem non titillat amoena ilia, variaquc 
spectatio locorum, lu-bium, gentium, &c. iiEyist. 8G. iLib. 2. de legibus. k Lib. 45. 'Keeker- 

man prsefat. polit. m Fines Morison c. 3. part. 1. nMutatio de loco in locum, itinera, et voiagia 

longa et indeterminata, et hospitare in diversis diversoriis. oModo vuii esse, modo in ui'be, stepius in 

agro venari, &c. p In Catalonia in Spain. 



336 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

free prospect all over tlie city at once, as at Granada in Spain, and Fez in 
Africa, the river running betwixt two declining hills, the steepness causeth each 
house almost as well to oversee, as to be overseen of the rest. Every country 
is full of such "^ delightsome prospects, as well within land, as by sea, as Her- 
mon and 'E-ann in Palestina, Colalto in Italy, the top of Tagetus, or Acro- 
corinthus, that old decayed castle in Corinth, from which Peloponnesus, 
Greece, the Ionian and^gean seas were semel et simul at one view to be taken. 
In Egypt the square top of the great pyramid, three hundred yards in height, 
and so the sultan's palace in Grand Cairo, the country being plain, hath a mar- 
vellous fair prospect as well over Nilus, as that great city, five Italian miles 
long, and two broad, by the river side : from mount Sion in Jerusalem, the Holy 
Land is of all sides to be seen : such high places are infinite ; with us those of 
the best note are Glastonbury tower, Box Hill in Surrey, Bever Castle, Bod way 
Grange,* Walsby in Lincolnshire, where I lately received a real kindness, by the 
munificence of the right honourable my noble lady and patroness, the Lady 
Frances, countess dowager of Exeter : and two amongst the rest, which I may 
not omit for vicinity's sake, Oldbury in the confines of Warwickshire, where I 
have often looked about me with great delight, at the foot of which hill, *I was 
born : and Hanbury in Staffordshire, contiguous to which is Falde, a pleasant 
village, andan ancient patrimony belonging to our family, now in the possession 
of mine elder brother, William Burton, Esquire. ^Barclay the Scot commends 
that of Greenwich tower for one of the best prospects in Europe, to see London 
on the one side, the Thames, ships, and pleasant meadows ontheother. There 
be those that say as much and more of St. Mark's steeple in Yenice. Yet these 
are at too great a distance : some are especially affected with such objects as 
be near, to see passengers go by in some great road-way, or boats in a river, 
in suhjectum forum despicere, to oversee a fair, a market-place, or out of a 
pleasant wiudowinto some thoroughfare street, to beholda continual conconrse, 
a promiscuous rout, coming and going, or a multitude of spectators at a theatre, 
a mask, or some such like show. But I rove : the sum is this, that variety of 
actions, objects, air, places, are excellent good in this infirmity, and all others, 
good for man, good for beast. ^Constantine the emperor, lib. 18. cap. 13. ex 
Leontio, ''holds it an only cure for rotten sheep, and any manner of sick cattle." 
Lselius ^ fonte ^ugubinus, that great doctor, at the latter end of many of his 
consultations (as commonly he doth set dov/n what success his physic had,) in 
melancholy most especially approves of this above all other remedies what- 
soever, as ajipears consult. 69, consult. 229. &c. "^Many other things helped, 
but change of air was that which wrought the cure, and did most good." 



MEMB. lY. 

Exercise rectified of Body and Mind. 

To that great inconvenience, which comes on the one side by immoderate 
and unseasonable exercise, too much solitariness and idleness on the other, 
must be opposed as an antidote, a moderate and seasonable use of it, and that 
both of body and mind, as a most material circumstance, much conducing to 
this cure, and to the general preservation of our health. The heavens themselves 
run continually round, the sun riseth and sets, the moon increaseth and 
decreaseth, stars and planets keep their constant motions, the air is still 
tossed by the winds, the waters ebb and flow to their conservation no doubt, to 

"! Laudaturque domus longos quse prospicit agros. » Many towns there are of that name, saith Adri- 

comius, all high-sited. 'Lately resigned for some special reasons. ' At Lindley in Leicestershire, the 
possession and dwelling-place of i^^alph Burton, Esquire, my late deceased father. " In Icon animoram. 

« ^grotantes oves in alium locum transportandie sunt, ut alium aerem et aquam participantes, coalescant 
et corroborentur. yAlia utilia,sed ex mutatione aerispotissimum curatus. 



Mem. 4.] Exercise rectlM. 337 

teach us that we should ever be in action. For which cause Hieron prescribes 
Kusticus the monk, that he be always occupied about some business or other, 
" ^that the devil do not find him idle." ''Seneca would have a man do some- 
thing, though it be to no purpose. ^Xenophon wisheth one rather to play at 
tables, dice^ or make a jester of himself (though he might be far better em- 
ployed), than do nothing. The "Egyptians of old, and many flourishing com- 
monwealths since, have enjoined labour and exercise to all sorts of men, to 
be of some vocation and calling, and to give an account of their time, to pre- 
vent those grievous mischiefs that come by idleness ; " for as fodder, whip, and 
burthen belong to the ass : so meat, correction, and work unto the servant," 
Ecclus. xxxiii. 23. The Turks enjoin all men whatsoever, of what degree, 
to be of some trade or other, the Grand Seignior himself is not excused. " *^Iii 
our memory (saith Sabellicus), Mahomet the Turk, he that conquered Greece, 
at that very time when he heard ambassadors of other princes, did either 
carve or cut wooden spoons, or frame something upon a table." * This present 
sultan makes notches for bows. The Jews are most severe in this examination 
of time. All well-governed places, towns, families, and every discreet person, 
will be a law unto himself But amongst us the badge of gentry is idleness : 
to be of no calling, not to labour, for that's derogatory to their birth, to be a 
mere spectator, a drone, fruges consumer e natus, to have no necessary employ- 
ment to busy himself about in church and commonwealth (some few governors 
exempted), " but to rise to eat," &c., to spend his days in hawking, hunting, 
&c., and such like disports and recreations (^ which our casuists tax), are the 
sole exercise almost, and ordinary actions of our nobility, and in which they 
are too immoderate. And thence it comes to pass, that in city and country 
so many grievances of body and mmd, and this feral disease of melancholy so 
frequently rageth, and nov7 domineers almost all over Europe amongst our 
great ones. They know not how to spend their time (disports excepted, which 
are all their business), what to do, or otherwise how to bestow themselves : 
like our modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound of blood in a sin- 
gle combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour. Every man almost 
hath something or other to employ himself about, some vocation, some trade, 
but they do all by ministers and servants, ad otia duntaxat se natos existimant, 
imb ad sui ipsius plerumque et aliorum perniciem, ^as one freely taxeth such 
kind of men, they are all for pastimes, 'tis all their study, all their invention 
tends to this alone, to drive away time, as if they were born some of them to 
no other ends. Therefore to correct and avoid these errors and inconveniences, 
our divines, physicians, and politicians, so much labour, and so seriously ex- 
hort; and for this disease in particular, "^ there can be no better cure than 
continual business," as Rhasis holds, " to have some employment or other, 
which may set their mind awork, and distract their cogitations." Riches may 
not easily be had without labour and industry, nor learning without study, 
neither can our health be preserved without bodily exercise. If it be of the 
body, Guianerius allows that exercise which is gentle, " ' and still after those 
ordinary frications" which must be used every morning. Montaltus, cap. 26. 
and Jason Pratensis use almost the same words, highly commending exercise 
if it be moderate ; " a wonderful help so used," Crato calls it, " and a great 

zNe te daemon otiosum inveniat. ^pj-jcstat aliud agere quam niliil. •» Lib. 3. de dicris Socratis. 

Qui tesseris et risui excitando vacant, aliquid faciunt, etsi liceret liis ineliora agere. c Amasis compelled 
eveiy man once a year to tellhow iie lived. "^'Nostra memoria Maliometes Othomannus qui Gntcise 

imperium subvertit, cum oratoram postulata audiret externarum gentium, cochlearia lignea assidue cslabat, 
aut aliquid in tabula afflngebat. « Sands, fol. 37. of his voyage to Jerusalem. ^ Perkins, Cases of 

Conscience, 1. 3. c. 4. q. 3. sLuscinius Gvunnio. " They seem to think they were born to idleness, — • 

nay more, for the destruction of themselves and others." « JSlon est cura melior quam injungere iis neces- 
saria, etopportuna; operum administratio ibis magnum sanitatis incrementum, et qu* repleant animos 
eorum, et incutiantiis diversas cogitationes. Cont. 1. tract. 9. 'Ante exercitium, leves toto corpore 

tricationes conveniunt. Ad hunc morbuni exercitationes, quum rectb et suo tempore hunt, mirifice condu- 
cunt, etsanitdtem tuentur, &c. 

Z 



o3S CuTG of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

means to preserve our health, as adding strength to the whole body, increas- 
ing natural heat, by means of which the nutriment is well concocted in the 
stomach, liver, and veins, few or no crudities left, is happily distributed over 
all the body." Besides, it expels excrements by sweat and other insensible 
vapours; insomuch, that "^ Galen prefers exercise before all physic, rectifica- 
tion of diet, or any regimen in what kind soever; 'tis nature's physician. 
'Fulgentius, out of Gordonius ds conserv. vU. horn. lib. 1. co/:?. 7. terms exer- 
cise, " a spur of a dull, sleepy nature, the comforter of the members, cure of 
infirmity, death of diseases, destruction of all mischiefs and vices." The 
fittest time for exercise is a little before dinner, a little before supper, "" or at 
anytime when the body is empty. Montanus, consil. 31. prescribes it every 
morning to his patient, and that, as ° Calenus adds, " after he hath done his 
ordinary needs, rubbed his body, washed his hands and face, combed his 
head, and gargarised." What kind of exercise he should use, Galen tells us, 
lib. 2. et 3. de sanit. tuend. and in what measure, "°till the body be ready to 
sweat," and roused up ; ad ruborem, some say, non ad sudorem, lest it should 
dry the body too much; others enjoin those wholesome businesses, as to dig 
so long in his garden, to hold the plough, and the like. Some prescribe 
frequent and violent labour and exercises, as sawing every day so long- 
together (epid. 6. Hippocrates confounds them), but that is in some cases, to 
some peculiar men ; ^tlie most forbid, and by no means will have it go farther 
than a beginning sweat, as being ^perilous if it exceed. 

Of these labours, exercises, and recreations, which are likewise included, 
some properly belong to the body, some to the mind, some more easy, some 
hard, some with delight, some without, some within doors, some natural, 
some are artificial. Amongst bodily exercises, Galen commends ludicm parvce 
pilce, to play at ball, be it v/ith the hand or racket, in tennis-courts or other- 
wise, it exerciseth each part of the body, and doth much good, so that they 
sweat not too much. It was in great request of old amongst the Greeks, 
Komans, Barbarians, mentioned by Homer, Herodotus, and Plinius. Some 
write, that Aganella, a fair maid of Corcyra, was the inventor of it, for she 
presented the first ball that ever was made to JSTausica, the daughter of King 
Alcinous, and taught her how to use it. 

The ordinary sports which are used abroad are hawking, hunting, hilares 
venandi labores, ""one calls them,because they recreate bodyand mind, ^another, 
the '' *best exercise that is, by which alone many have been "freed from all 
feral diseases." Hegesippus, lib. 1. cap. 37, relates of Herod, that he was 
eased of a grievous melancholy by that means. Plato, 7. de leg. highly mag- 
nifies it, dividing it into three parts, " by land, water, air." Xenophon, m 
(Jyropoed. graces it with a great name, Deorum mnnus, the gift of the gods, a 
princely sport, which they have ever used, saith Langius, epist. 59. lib. 2. as 
well fur health as pleasure, and do at this day, it being the sole almost and 
ordinary sport of our noblemen in Europe, and elsewhere all over the world. 
Bohemus, de mar. gent. lib. 3. cap. 12. styles it therefore, studium nobilium, 
communiter venantur, quod sibi solis licere contendunt, 'tis all their study, their 
exercise, ordinary business, all their talk : and indeed some dote too much after 
it, they can do nothing else, discourse of nought else. Paulus Jovius, descr. 



^Lib. 1. de sanitat. tuend. i Exercitiiira naturse dormientis stimulatio, raembrorum solatium, movborum 
medela, fuga vitioruin, medicina languorum, destructio oinnium malorum, Crato. "^ Alimentis in ventricula 
probe concoctis. " Jejimo ventre, vesica, et alvo ab excrementis purgato, fricatis membris, lotis nianibus ut 
oculis, &c., lib. de atra bile. ° Quousque corpus universum intumesc'at, et tloridum appareat, sudoreque, 
&c. POmnino sudorem vitent, cap. 7. lib. 1. Valescus de Tar. i Exercitium si cxcedat, vakie 

perifculosum. Salust. Salvianus de remed. lib. 2. cap. 1. ''Camden in Staffordshire. sEriaevallius, 

lib. 1. cap. 2. optima omnium exercitationum multi ab hacsolummodo morbis liberati. * Jo-epiius 

Quercetanus dialect, polit. sect. 2. cap. 11. Inter omnia exercitia praBstantiai laudem meretur. " Chyron 
in monte Pelio, prseceptor heroum eos a morbis animi vcnationibus et puris cibis tuebatur. M. Tyrius. 



Meii). 4.] Exercise rcclifud. 339 

Brit, dotli in some sort tax our ^' " English noLility for it, for living in tlie 
country so mucli, and too frequent use of it, as if they had no other means 
but hawking and hunting to approve themselves gentlemen with." 

Hawking comes near to hunting, the one in the air, as the other on the 
earth, a sport as much affected as the other, by some preferred. ^ It was 
never heard of amongst the Romans, invented some twelve hundred years 
since, and first mentioned by Firmicus, lib. 5. cap. 8. The Greek emperors 
began it, and now nothing so frequent : he is nobody that in the season hath 
not a hawk on his fist. A great art, and many ''books written of it. It is 
a wonder to hear * what is related of the Turks' officers in this behalf, how 
many thousand men are employed about it, how many hawks of all sorts, how 
much revenues consumed on that only disport, how much time is spent at 
Adrianople alone every year to that purpose. The ^ Persian kings hawk after 
butterflies with sparrows made to that use, and stares : lesser hawks for lesser 
games they have, and bigger for the rest, that they may produce their sport 
to all seasons. The Muscovian emperors reclaim eagles to fly at hinds, foxes, 
&c., and such a one was sent for a present to ''Queen Elizabeth: some reclaim 
ravens, castrils, pies, &c., and man them for their pleasures. 

Fowling is more troublesome, but all out as delightsome to some sorts of 
men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades, gins, strings, baits, pitfalls, pipes, calls, 
stalking-horses, setting-dogs, decoy-ducks, &c., or otherwise. Some much 
delight to take larks with day-nets, small birds with chaff-nets, plovers, par- 
tridge, herons, snipe, &c. Henry the Third, king of Castile (as Mariana the 
Jesuit reports of him, lib. 3. cap. 7.) was much affected " ^ with catching of 
quails," and many gentlemen take a singular pleasure at morning and even- 
ing to go abroad with their quail-pipes, and will take any pains to satisfy 
their delight in that kind. The ^ Italians have gardens fitted to such use, 
with nets, bushes, glades, spa,ririg no cost or industry, and are very much 
affected with the sport. Tycho Brahe, that great astronomer, in the choro- 
graphy of his Isle of Huena, and Castle of TJraniburge, puts down his nets, 
and manner of catching small birds, as an ornament and a recreation, wherein 
he himself was sometimes employed. 

Fishing is a kind of hunting by water, be it with nets, weeles, baits, 
angling, or otherwise, and yields all out as much pleasure to some men as dogs 
or hawks; '■ ^ When they draw their fish upon the bank," saith Nic. Henselius 
Silesiographise, cap. 3. speaking of that extraordinary delight his countrymen 
took in fishing, and in making of pools. James Dubravius, that Moravian, 
in his book de pise, telleth, how travelling by the highway side in Silesia, he 
found a nobleman, ''^booted up to the groins," wading himself, pulling the 
nets, and labouring as much as any fisherman of them all: and when some 
belike objected to him the baseness of his office, he excused himself, " ^ that 
if other men might hunt hares, why should not he hunt carps?" Many gen- 
tlemen in like sort with us will wade up to the arm-holes upon such occasions, 
and voluntarily undertake that to satisfy their pleasure, which a poor man 
for a good stipend would scarce be hired to undergo. Plutarch, in his book 
de soler. animal, speaks against all fishing, " ' as a filthy, base, illiberal em- 
ployment, having neither wit nor perspicacity in it, nor worth the labour." 
But he that shall consider the variety of baits for all seasons, and pretty de- 

X Nobilitas omnis fere iirbes fa^tidit, castellis, et liberiore ccelo gaudet, genevisque dignitatem una 
maxims venatione, et falconam auciipiis tuctur. y Jos. Scaliger. commeii- in Cir. in foL 344. Salmuth. 

23. de Nov. repert. com. in Pancir. » Demetrius Constantinop. de re accipitraria, liber a P. Gillir latlne 

redditus. ^lius. epist. Aquilaj Symachi et Theodotionis ad Ptolomeum, &c. " Lonicerus, Gefiteus, Jovius. 
*'S. Antony Sherlie's relations. cHacluit. ^ Coturnicum aucupio. e Fines Morisou, part 3. c. 8. 

''Non majorem voluptatem animo capiunt, quhm qui feras insectantur, aut missis canibus, comprehendunt. 
quum retia trahentes, squamosas pecudes in ripas adducunt. g More piscatorum cruribus ocreatas. ^ Si 
principibus venatio leporis non sit inhonesta, ne«cio quomodo piscatio cyprinorum videri debeat pudenda. 
' Omnino turpis piscatio, nuUo studio digna, illiberalis credita est, quod nullum habet ingenium, nullam 
perspicaciam. 



340 Cure of Melancliohj. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

vices wliicli our anglers have mventeJ, peculiar lines, false flies, several sleights, 
&c., will say, that it deserves like commendation, requires as much study and 
perspicacity as the rest, and is to be preferred before many of them. Because 
hawking and hunting are very laborious, much riding, and many dangers 
accompany them; but this is still and quiet: and if so be the angler catch 
no fish, yet he hath a wholesome walk to the brookside, pleasant shade by 
the sweet silver streams; he hath good air, and sweet smells of fine fresh 
meadow flowers, he hears the melodious harmony of birds, he sees the swans, 
herons, ducks, water-horns, coots, &c., and many other fowl, with their brood, 
which he thinketh better than the noise of hounds, or blast of horns, and all 
the sport that they can make. 

Many other sports and recreations there be, much in use, as wringing, 
bowling, shooting, which Ascam commends in a just volume, and hath in 
former times been enjoined by statute as a defensive exercise, and an '^ honour 
to our land, as well may witness our victories in France. Keelpins, tronks, 
quoits, pitching bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustring, 
swimming, wasters, foils, football, baloon, quintan, &c., and many such, which 
are the common recreations of the countryfolks. Hiding of great horses, 
running at rings, tilts and tournaments, horse-races, wild-goose chases, which 
are the disports of greater men, and good in themselves, though many gen- 
tlemen by that means gallop quite out of their fortunes. 

But the most pleasant of all outward pastimes is that of ^ Areteus, deam- 
bulatio per ammna loca, to make a petty progress, a merry journey now and 
then with some good companions, to visit friends, see cities, castles, towns, 

««m Visere soepb amnes nitidos,per amagnaque Tempe, 1 "To seethe pleasant fields, the crystal fountains, 
Et placldas summis sectari in montibas auras." 1 And take the gentle ah- amongst the mountains." 

" To walk amongst orchards, gardens, bowers, mounts, and arbours, artificial 
wildernesses, green thickets, arches, groves, lawns, rivulets, fountains, and such 
like pleasant places, like that Antiochian Daphne, brooks, pools, fishponds, 
between wood and water, in a fair meadow, by a river side, ° uhi varice avium 
cantationes, Jlorum colores, pratorum frutices, &c., to disport in some pleasant 
plain, park, run up a steep hill sometimes, or sit in a shady seat, must needs 
be a delectable recreation. Hortus lorincipis et domus ad deledationem facta, 
cum sylva, monte et jnscmd, vulgd la montagna : the prince's garden at Fer- 
rara ^ Schottus highly magnifies, with the groves, mountains, ponds, for a de- 
lectable prospect, he was much afiected with it; a Persian paradise, or pleasant 
park, could not be more delectable in his sight. St. Bernard, in the descrip- 
tion of his monastery, is almost ravished with the pleasures of it. " A sick 
*i man (saith he) sits upon a green bank, and when the dog-star parcheth the 
plains, and dries up rivers, he lies in a shady bower," Fronde sub arborea fer- 
ventia temperat astra, "and feeds his eyes with variety of objects, herbs, trees, 
to comfort his misery, he receives many delightsome smells, and fills his ears 
with that sweet and various harmony of birds: good God (saith he), what a 
company of pleasures hast thou made for man!" He that should be admitted 
on a sudden to the sight of such a palace as that of Escurial in Spain, or to that 
which the Moors built at Grenada, Fontainbleau in France, the Turk's gardens 
in his seraglio, wherein all manner of birds and beasts are kept for pleasure ; 
wolves, bears, lynxes, tigers, lions, elephants, &c., or upon the banks of that 
Thracian Bosphorus : the pope's Belvedere in Some, ""as pleasing as those horti 

kPrsecipuahinc Anglis gloria, crebrse victorias partas. Jovius. iCap. 7. m Fracastorius. "Ara- 
bulationes subdiales, quas hortenses aurae ministrant, sub fornice viridi, pampinis virentibus concamerata?.. 
» 'J heophylact. Pitinerat. Ital. i Sedet segrotus cespite viridi, et cum incleraentia Canicularis 

terras excoquit, et siccat flumina, ipse securus sedet sub arborea fronde, et ad doloris sui solatium, naribus 
suis gramineas redolet species, pascit oculos herbarum amaana viriditas, aures suavi modulamine demulcet 
pictarum concentus avium, <fcc. Deus bone, quanta pauperibus procuras solatia ! "-Diod. Siculus, lib. 2. 



Mem. 4.] 



Exercise rectified. 



341 



lies ill Babylon, or that Indian king's delightsome garden in ^^lian ; or 
Hhose famous gardens of the Lord Cantelovv in France, could not choose, thou "-h 
he were never so ill paid, but be much recreated for the time ; or many of our 
noblemen's gardens at home. To take a boat in a pleasant evening, and with 
music "to row upon the waters, which Plutarch so much applauds, Elian 
admires, upon the river Piiieus: in those Thessalian fields, beset with green 
bays, where birds so sweetly sing that passengers, enchanted as it were with 
their heavenly music, omnium lahorurii et curarum ohliviscantur, forget forth- 
with all labours, care, and grief: or in a gondola through the Grand Canal in 
Yenice, to see those goodly palaces, must needs refresh and give content to a 
melancholy dull spirit. Or to see the inner rooms of a fair-built and sumptuous 
edifice, as that of the Persian kings, so much renowned by Diodorus and 
Curtius, in which all was almost beaten gold, ''chairs, stools, thrones, taber- 
nacles, and pillars of gold, plane trees, and vines of gold, grapes of precious 
stones, all the other ornaments of pure gold, 

"yFulget gemma floris, et jaspide fulva supellex, 
Strata micant Tj-rio " ■ 

With sweet odours and perfumes, generous wines, opiparous fare, &c., 
besides the gallan test young men, the fairest '^ \ivgin^, jntellce scitidce minis- 
trantes, the rarest beauties the world could aiford, and those set out with costly 
and curious attires, ad stuporem usque S2?ectantiuin, with exquisite music, as iu 
"Trimaltion's house, in every chamber sweet voices ever sounding day and night, 
incomparabilis luxus, all delights and pleasures in each kind which to please 
the senses could possibly be devised or had, convivce coronati, delitiis ebrii, (he. 
Telemachus, in Homer, is brought in as one ravished almost at the sight of that 
magnificent palace, and rich furniture of Menelaus, when he beheld 



*'i>iEris fulgorem et resonantia tecta corusco 
Auro atque electro nitido, scctoqae elcphanto, 
Argentoque simul. Talis Jovis ardua sedes, 
Aulaque coelicolum stellans tplendescit Olympo." 



" Such glittering of gold and brightest brass to shine, 
Clear amber, silver pure, and ivory so fine : 
Jupiter's lofty palace, where the gods do dwell. 
Was even such a one, and did it not excel." 



It will laxare animos, refresh the soul of man to see fair-built cities, streets, 
theatres, temples, obelisks, &c. The temple of Jerusalem was so fairly built of 
white marble, with so many pyramids covered with gold ; tectuinque templi 
fidvo coruscans aicro, nvmio suo ftdgore ohccecabat oculos itiyierantium, was so 
glorious, and so glistened afar off, that the spectators might not well abide the 
sight of it. Bat the inner parts were all so curiously set out with cedar, gold, 

jewels, &c., as he said of Cleopatra's palace in Egypt, "Crassumque trabes 

absconderat aurum, that the beholders were amazed. What so pleasant as to 
see some pageant or sight go by, as at coronations, weddings, and such like 
solemnities, to see an ambassador or a prince met, received, entertained with 
masks, shows, fireworks, &c. To see two kings fight in single combat, as 
Porus and Alexander ; Canute and Edmund Ironside ; Scanderbeg and Eerat 
Bassa the Turk; when not honour alone but life itself is at stake, as the "^poet 
of Hector, 

-"nee enim pro tergore Tauri, 



Pro bove nee certamen erat, quse prsemia cursus 

Esse Solent, sed pro magni vitaque animaque Hectoris." 

To behold a battle fought, like that of Cressy, or Agincourt, or Poictiers, qua 
nescio (saith Eroissart) an vetustas idlam proferre possit dariorem. To see one 
of Caesar's triumphs in old Home revived, or the like. To be present at an 



»Lib. 13. de animal, cap. 13. tPet. Gillius. Paul. Ilentzeus Itinerar. Italias. 1617. lod. Sincerus 

Itinerar. Gallioj, 1617. Simp. lib. 1. quest. 4. " Jucundissiuia deambulatio juxta mare, et navigatio 

prope terraTO. In utraque fluminis ripa. ^ Aurei panes, aurea obsonia. vis Margaritarum aceto subacta, 
&c. y Lucan. " The furniture glitters with brilliant gems, with yellow jasper, and the couches dazzle 

with their purple dye." ^ 300 pellices, pellicatores et pincernaa innumeri, pueri loti purpura induti, &c. 

ex omnium pulchritudine delecti. ^ Ubi omnia cantu sti-epunt. ^ Odyss. 6. " Lucan. 1.8. '' The 

timbers were concealed by solid gold." ^ Hiad. 10. " For neither was the contest for the hide of a bull, 
nor for a beeve, which are the usual prizes in the race, but for the life and soul of the great Hector." 



342 . Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

interview, ®as that famous of Henry the EiglitL. and Francis tne First, so much 
renowned all over Europe; uhi tanto apparatu (saith Hubertus Yellius) tamque 
triumpliali portipd amho reges cum eorum conjagibus coiers, ut nulla unquam 
cetas tarn celebria festa viderit aut audierit, no age ever saw the like. So infi- 
nitely pleasant are such shows, to the sight of which oftentimes they will come 
hundreds of miles, give any money for a place, and remember many years after 
with singular deligTit. Bodine, when he was ambassador in England, said he 
saw the noblemen go in their robes to the parliament house, summd cutti ju~ 
cunditate vidimus, he was much affected v/itli the sight of it. Pomponius 
Columna, saith Jovius in his life, saw thirteen Frenchmen, and so many Italians, 
once fight for a whole army: Quod jucundissimum spectaculum in vita dlcit 
sua, the pleasantest sight that ever he saw in his life. Who would not have 
been affected with such a spectacle? Or that single combat of ^Breaute the 
Frenchman, and Anthony Schets a Dutchman, before the walls of Sylvaducis 
in Brabant, anno 1600. They were twenty-two horse on the one side, as 
many on the other, which like Livy's Horatii, Torquati and Corvini fought for 
their own glory and country's honour, in the sight and view of their whole city 
and army. ^ When Julius Csesar warred about the banks of Rhone, there came 
a barbarian prince to see him and the Boman army, and when he had beheld 
Csesar a good while, " ''I see the gods now (saith he) which before I heard of," 
nee foiliciorem ullam vitce mecB aut optavi, aut sensi diem: it was the happiest 
day that ever he had in his life. Such a sight alone were able of itself to drive 
away melancholy; if not for ever, yet it must needs expel it for a time. !Rad- 
zivilus was much taken with the pasha's palace in Cairo, and amongst many 
other objects Avhich that place afforded, with that solemnity of cutting the banks 
of the Nile by Imbram Pasha, Vv^hen it overflowed, besides two or three hundred 
gilded galleys on the water, he saw two millions of men gathered together on 
the land, with turbans as white as snov/; and 'twas a goodly sight. The very 
reading of feasts, triumphs, interviews, nuptials, tilts, tournaments, combats, 
and monomachies, is most acceptable and pleasant. ' Franciscus Modius hath 
made a large collection of such solemnities in two great tomes, which whoso 
will may peruse. The inspection alon«e of those curious iconographies of tem- 
ples and palaces, as that of the Lateran church in Albertus Durer, that of the 
temple of Jerusalem in '^ Josephiis, Adricomius, and Villalpandus : that of the 
Escuricil in Guadas, of Diana at Ephesus in Pliny, Nero's golden palace in 
Rome, ^Justinian's in Constantinople, that Peruvian Jugo's in ™Cusco, ut non 
ah hominihus, sed a doimoniis constructum videatur; St. Mark's in Venice, by 
Ignatius, with many such; prisco7^um artificum o^^e?'^ (saith that "interpreter 
of Pausanias}, the rare workmanship of those ancient Greeks, in theatres, 
obelisks, temples, statues, gold, silver, ivory, marble images, non minoreferme 
quum leguntur, quain quurii cernuntur, animum delectatione complent, affect one 
as much by reading almost as by sight. 

The country hath his recreations, the city his several gymnics and exer- 
cises. May games, feasts, wakes, and merry meetings, to solace themselves; 
the very being in the country ; that life itself is a suthcient recreation to some 
men, to enjoy such pleasures, as those old patriarchs did. Dioclesian, the 
emperor, was so much affected with it, that he gave over his sceptre, and 
turned gardener. Constantine wrote twenty books of husbandry. Lysander, 
when ambassadors came to see him, bragged of nothing more than of his 
orchard, hi sunt ordines mei. What shall I say of Cincinnatus, Cato, 
Tally, and many suchi how they have been pleased with it, to prune, 

• Between Ardes and Guines, 1519. f Swertius in delitiis, fol. 487. reteri Horatiorum exemplo, virtute 

et successu admirabiii, c^esis hostibus 17. in conspectu patriae, <fcc. sPaterculus, vol. post. ^ q^os 

antea audivi, inquit, liodie vLdi decs. ' Pandectte Ti'iumph. fol. ^ Lib. 6. cap. U. de bello Jud. 

iprocopius. o' Laet. lib. 10. Auier. descript. nKomulas Ainaseus praefat. Pausan. 



Mem. 4.] Exercise rectified. 343 

plant, inoculate and graft, to show so many several kinds of pears, apples, 
plums, peaches, &c. 



"° N'unc captare feras laqiieo, nunc fallere viseo, 
Atque etiam magnos canibus circuiidare saltus, 
Insidias avibus moliri, inceudcre veyres." 



" Sometimes with traps deceive, with line and string 
To catch wild birds and heasts, encompassing 
The grove with dogs, and out of bashes firing." 



• et nidos avium scrutari," &c. 



JucanJus, in his preface to Cato, Varro, Columella, &c., put out by him, 
confesseth of himself, that he was mightily delighted with these husbandry 
studies, and took extraordinary pleasure in them : if the theor}^ or specula- 
tion can so much affect, what shall the place and exercise itself: the practical 
part do? The same confession I find in Herbastein, Porta, Camerarius, and 
many others, which have written of tha,t subject. If my testimony were 
aught worth, I could say as much of myself; I am verb Saturnus; no man 
ever took more delight in springs, woods, groves, gardens, walks, fishponds, 
rivers, &c. But 

" * Tantalus k labris sitiens fugientia captat 
riumiua : " 

And so do I; Velle licet, potiri non licet" ^ 

Every palace, every city almost hath his peculiar walks, cloisters, terraces, 
groves, theatres, pageants, games, and several recreations; every country, some 
professed gymnics to exhilarate their minds, and exercise their bodies. The 
P Greeks had their Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean games, in honour 
of Neptune, Jupiter, Apollo; Athens hers: some for honour, garlands, 
crowns; for "^ beauty, dancing, running, leaping, like our silver games. The 
^ Romans had their feasts, as the Athenians, and Lacedsemonians held their 
public banquets, in Pritanteo, Paaathenseis, Thesperiis, Phiditiis, plays, nau- 
machies, places for sea-fights, theatres, amphitheatres, able to contain 70,000 
men, wherein they had several delightsome shows to exhilarate the people; 
* gladiators, combats of men with themselves, with wild beasts, and wild beasts 
one with another, like our bull-baitings, or bear-baitings (in which many 
countrymen and citizens amongst us so much delight, and so frequently use), 
dancers on ropes. Jugglers, wrestlers, comedies, tragedies, publicly exhibited, 
at the emperor's and city's charge, and that with incredible cost and magni- 
ficence. In the Low Countries (as ''Meteran relates), before these wars, they 
had many solemn feasts, plays, challenges, artillery gardens, colleges of 
rhymers, rhetoricians, poets : and to this day, such places are curiously main- 
tained in Amsterdam, as appea,rs by that description of Isaacus Pontanus, 
Ecriim Amstelod. lib. 2. cap. 25. So likev/ise not long since at Friburg, in 
Germany, as is evident by that relation of "" Neander, they had Ludos sep- 
tennales, solemn plays every seven years, which Bocerus, one of their own 
poets, hath elegantly described : 

"At nunc magnifico speetacula structa paratu 
Quid memorem, veteri non concessura Quirino, 
Ludorum pompa ? " y&c. 

In Italy they have solemn declamations of certain select young gentlemen in 
Florence (like those reciters in old Pome), and public theatres in most of 
their cities, for stage-players and others, to exercise and recreate themselves. 
All seasons almost, all places have their several pastimes; some in summer, 
some in winter; some abroad, some within; some of the body, some of the 
mind : and diverse men have diverse recreations and exercises. Domitiau, 

o Virg. 1. Georg. * " The thirsting Tantalus gapes for the water that eludes his lips." f " I may 

desire, but can't enjoy." p Boterus, lih. 3. polit. cap. 1. i See Athenasus dipnoso. 'Ludi votivi, 

sac.i, ludicri, Megalenses, Cereales, Florales, Martiales, &c. Rosinus, 5. 12. >* See Lipsius Amphithe- 

atruni. Rosinus, lib. 5. Meursius de ludis Gnecorum. 1 150Q men at once, tigers, lions, elephants, horse?, 
dogs, bears, &c. "Lib. ult. et 1. 1. ad finem consuetudiae non minus laudabili quam veteri contuber- 

nia Rlietorum, Rythmorum in urbibus et nuinicipiis, certisque diebus exercebant se sagittarii, gladiatore?, 
&c. Alia Ingenii, animique exercitia, quorum praicipuum studium, principeni populum tragoediis, coraoe- 
diis, fabulis scenicis, aliisque id genus ludis recreare. * Orbis terras descript. part. 3. >' " What shall 

I say of their spectacles produced with the most magnificent decorations, — a degree of costliness never in- 
dulged in even by the Romans?" . 



344 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

the emperor, was much delighted with catching flies; Augustus to play with 
nuts amongst children; ^Alexander Severus was often pleased to play with 
whelps and young pigs. * Adrian was so wholly enamoured with dogs and 
horses, that he bestowed monuments and tombs of them, and buried them in 
graves. In foul weather, or when they can use no other convenient sports, by 
reason of the time, as we do cock-tighting, to avoid idleness, I think (though 
some be more seriously taken with it, spend much time, cost and charges, 
and are too solicitous about it), ^Severus used partridges and quails, as many 
Frenchmen do still, and to keep birds in cages, with which he was much 
pleased, when at any time he had leisure from public cares and businesses. 
He had (saith Lampridius), tame pheasants, ducks, partridges, peacocks, and 
some 20,000 ringdoves and pigeons. Busbequius, the emperor's orator, when 
he lay in Constantinople, and could not stir much abroad, kept for his recre- 
ation, busying himself to see them fed, almost all manner of strange birds 
and beasts; this was something, though not to exercise his body, jQt to 
refresh his mind. Conradus Gesner, at Zurich in Switzerland, kept so likewise 
for his pleasure, a great company of wild beasts ; and (as he saith) took great 
delight to see them eat their meat. Turkey gentlewomen, that are perpetual 
prisoners, still mewed up according to the custom of the place, have little else 
besides their household business, or to play with their children to drive away 
time, but to dally with their cats, which they have in delitiis, as many of our 
ladies and gentlewomen use monkeys and little dogs. The ordinary recreations 
which we have in winter, and in most solitary times busy our minds with, are 
cards, tables, and dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small 
trunks, shuttlecock, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, ulegames, frolics, 
jests, riddles, catches, purposes, questions and commands, °merry tales of errant 
knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dv,^arfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, 
fairies, goblins, friars, &c., such as the old woman told Psyche in "^Apuleius, 
Boccace novels, and the rest, quarum auditione pueri delectantur, senes nar- 
ratione, which some delight to hear, some to tell; all are well pleased with. 
Amaranthus, the philosopher, met Hermocles, Diophantus, and Philolaus, his 
companions, one day busily discoi'irsing about Epicurus and Democritus' 
tenets, very solicitous which was most probable and came nearest to truth : 
to put them out of that surly controversy, and to refresh their spirits, he told 
them a pleasant tale of Stratocles the physician's wedding, and of all the par- 
ticulars, the company, the cheer, the music, &c,, for he was new come from 
it; with which relation they were so much delighted, that Philolaus wished 
a blessing to his heart, and many a good wedding, ^many such merry meet- 
ings might he be at, " to please himself with the sight, and others with the 
narration of it." News are generally welcome to all our ears, avide audimus, 
aures enim hominuTn novitate Icetantur ^ (as Pliny observes), we long after 
rumour to hear and listen to it, ^ densmn humeris bibit aure vulgus. We are 
most part too inquisitive and apt to hearken after news, which Caesar, in his 
''Commentaries, observes of the old Cauls, they would be inquiring of every 
carrier and passenger what they had heard or seen, what news abroad % 

" quid toto fiat in orbe, 

Quid Seres, quid Thraces agant, secreta novercse, 
Et pueri, quis amet," &c. 

as at an ordinary with us, bakehouse or barber's shop. When that great 
Gonsalva was upon some displeasure confined by King Ferdinand to the city of 
Loxa in Andalusia, the only comfort (saith * Jovius) he had to ease his melan- 

I Lampridius. » Spai'tian. ^ Delectatus lusis catulorum, porcellorura, ut perdices inter se pugnarent, 
avit ut aves parvulaa sursum et deorsum volitarent, his maxime delectatus, ut solitudines publicas sublevaret. 
« r.rumaleslaite ut possint producere noctes. '^ Miles. 4. <-' dii similibus ssepe conviviis date ut ipse 

A'idendodelectetur, etpostinodum narrando delectet. Theod. prodromus Amorum dial, interpret. Gilberto 
(iaulinio. Epist. lib. 8. Kuifino. e Hor. ''Lib. 4. Gallic-e consuetudinis est ut viatores etiam invitos 
cousibtere cogaut, ct quid quisque eoruni audierit aut cognorit de qua re quairunt. ' Vita3 ejus lib. ult. 



Mem. 4.] Exercise rect'tfitd. 345 

clioly thoughts, was to hear news, and to listen after those ordinary occurrences, 
which were brought him cum primis, by letters or otherwise out of the re- 
motest parts of Europe, Some men's whole delight is to take tobacco, and 
drink all day long in a tavern or alehouse, to discourse, sing, jest, roar, talk of 
a cock and bull over a pot, &c. Or when three or four good companions meet, 
tell old stories by the fireside, or in the sun, as old folks usually do, qucb ajyrici 
meminere senes, remembering afresh and with pleasure ancient matters, and 
such like accidents, which happened in their younger years ; others' best pas- 
time is to game, nothing to them so pleasant. ^^Ilic Veneri indulget, hunc 
decoquit cdea — many too nicely take exceptions at cards, Hables, and dice, and 
such mixed lusorious lots, whom Gataker well confutes. Which though they 
be honest recreations in themselves, yet may justly be otherwise excepted at, 
as they are often abused, and forbidden as things most pernicious; insanam 
Q^em et damnosam, '" Lemnius calls it. " For most part in these kind of disports 
'tis not art or skill, but subtlety, cunnycatching, knavery, chance and fortune 
carries all away : " 'tis amhulatoria pecunia, 

"puncto mobilis horje 

Permutat dominos, et cedit in altera jura." ° 

They labour most part not to pass their time in honest disport, but for filthy 
lucre, and covet ousness of money. In foedissimum lucrum et avaritiam homi- 
num convertitur, as Daneus observes. Fons fraudum et malejlcioruin, 'tis the 
fountain of cozenage and villainy. "°A thing so common all over Europe at 
this day, and so generally abused, that many men are utterly undone by it," 
their means spent, patrimonies consumed, they and their posterity beggared; 
besides swearing, wrangling, drinking, loss of time, and such inconveniences, 
which are ordinary concomitants : " ^for when once they have got a haunt of 
such companies, and habit of gaming, they can hardly be drawn from it, but 
as an itch it will tickle them, and as it is with whoremasters, once entered, 
they cannot easily leave it off:" Vexat mentes insania cupido, they are mad 
upon their sport. And in conclusion (which Charles the Seventh, that good 
French king, published in an edict against gamesters) unde 2nce et hilaris vitce 
suj^ugium sihi suisque liberis totique famUice, &c. "Tliat v/hich was once their 
livelihood, should have maintained wife, children, family, is now spent and gone j " 
moeror et egestas, djc, sorrow and beggary succeeds. So good things may be 
abused, and that which was first invented to ''refresh men's weary spirits, when, 
they come from other labours and studies to exhilarate the mind, to entertain 
time and company, tedious otherwise in those long solitary winter nights, and 
keep them from worse matters, an honest exercise is contrarily perverted. 

Chess-pltiy is a good and witty exercise of the mind for some kind of men, 
and fit for such melancholy, Ehasis holds, as are idle, and have extravagant 
impertinent thoughts, -or troubled with cares, nothing better to distract their 
mind, and alter their meditations : invented (some say) by the ""general of an 
army in a famine, to keep soldiers from mutiny : but if it proceed from over- 
much study, in such a case it may do more harm than good ; it is a game too 
troublesome for some men's brains, too full of anxiety, all out as bad as study; 
besides it is a testy choleric game, and very offensive to him that loseth the 
mate. ^William the Conqueror, in his younger years, playing at chess with 

•^ Juven. 1 They account them unlawful because sortilegious. "> Instit. c. 44. In his ludis plerumque 
non avs aut peritia viget, sed fraus, fallacia, dolus, astutia, casus, fortuna, temeritas locum habent, non ratio, 
consilium, sapientia, &c. » " In a moment of fleeting time it changes masters and submits to new con- 

trol." AbusQS tam fi-equens hodie in Europa ut plerique crebro harum usu patrimonium profundant, 

exhaustisque facultatibus, ad inopiam redigantur. p Ubi semel prurigo ista animum occupat aigre discuti 
potest, solicitantibus undique ejusdem farinse liominibus, damnosas illas voluptates repetunt, quod et scor- 
tatoribus insitum, &c. Q Instituitur ista cxercitatio, non lucri, sed valetudinis et oblectamenti ratione, et 
quo animus defatigatus respiret, novasque vires ad subeundos labores denuo concipiat. r Latrunculorum 
Indus inventus est a duce, ut cmn miles intolerabili fame laboraret, altero die edens altero ludens, famis 
oblivisceretur. Bellonius. See more of this game in Daniel Souter's Palamedcs, vei de variis ludis, 1 . 3. 
'D. Llayward in vita ejus. 



SiG Care of MdancliGhj. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

the Prince of France (Dauphine was not annexed to tLat crown in those days) 
losing a mate, knocked the chess-board about his pate, which was a cause 
afterward of much enmity between them. For some such reason it is belike, 
that Patritius, in his 3. hook, tit. 12. de reg. instit. forbids his prince to play 
at chess; hawking and hunting, riding, &c. he will allow; and this to other 
men, but by no means to him. In Muscovy, where they live in stoves and hot 
houses all winter long, come seldom or little abroad, it is again very necessary, 
and therefore in those parts, (saith * Plerbastein) much used. At Fez in Africa, 
where the like inconvenience of keejDing within doors is through heat, it is 
very laudable ; and (as ""Leo Afer relates) as much frequented. A sport fit 
for idle gentlewomen, soldiers in garrison, and courtiers that have nought 
but love matters to busy themselves about, but not altogether so convenient for 
such as are students. The like I may say of Col. Bruxer's philosophy game, 
D. Fulke's Metromachia and his Ouroiiomachia, with the rest of those intricate 
asti'ological and geometrical fictions, for such especially as are mathematically 
given ; and the rest of those curious games. 

Dancing, singing, masking, mumming, stage plays, howsoever they be heavily 
censured by some severe Catos, yet if opportunely and soberly used, may justly 
be approved. Melius estfodere, quam scdtare, ^saith Austin : but what is that 
if they delight in if? ^ Nertio saltat sobrius. But in what kind of dance? I 
know these sports have many oppugners, whole volumes writ against them ; 
■when as all they say (if duly considered) is but ignoratio Elenchi; and some 
again, because they are now cold and wayward, past themselves, cavil at all 
such youthful sports in others, as he did in the comedy; they think them, illico 
Qiasci senes, d'c. Some out of preposterous zeal object many times trivial argu- 
ments, and because of some abuse, will quite take away the good use, as if 
they should forbid wine because it makes men drunk; but in my judgment 
they are too stern : there " is a time for all things, a time to mourn, a time to 
dance," Eccles. iii. 4. '• a time to embrace, a time not to embrace (verse 5), 
and nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works," verse 22 ; 
fur my part, I v/ill subscribe to the king's declaration, and was ever of that mind, 
those May games, wakes, and Whitsun ales, &c., if they be not at unseasonable 
hours, may justly be permitted. Let them freely feast, sing and dance, have 
their puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabors, crowds, bagpipes, &c., play at ball, 
and barley-breaks, and what sports and recreations they like best. In Fran- 
conia, a province of Germany, (saith ''Aubanus Bohemus) the old folks, after 
evening prayer, went to the alehouse, the younger sort to dance : and to say 
truth with ''Salisburiensis, satiusfuerat sic otiari, quam turjnus occupari, better 
do so than worse, as without question otherwise (such is the corruption of 
man's nature) many of them will do. For that cause, plays, masks, jesters, 
gladiators, tumblers, jugglers, &c., and all that crew is admitted and winked 
at : ^ Tata jocularium scena j^rocedit, ei ideo spectacida admissa sunt, et injiiiita 
tyrocinia vanitatum, ut his occupentur, qui 2^&rniciosiils otiari solent : that they 
might be busied about such toys, that would otherwise more perniciously be 
idle. So that as " Tacitus said of the astrologers in Rome, we may say of 
them, genus liominum est quod in civitate nostra et vitabitur semiper etretinebitur, 
they are a debauched company most part, still spoken against^ as well they de- 
serve some of them (for I so relish and distinguish them as fiddlers, and musi- 
cians), and yet ever retained. " Evil is not to be done (I confess) that good 
may come of it : " but this is evil ^;er accidens, and, in a qualified sense, to 
avoid a greater inconvenience, may justly be tolerated. Sir Thomas More, in 



< Muscovit. coramentarium. " Inter cives Fessanos latrunculorum ludiis est usitatissimus, lib. 3. de. 

Africa. "='"Itisbettertodigtlian to dance." yXullius. "iS^'o sensible man danccs/' »i)emoi-. 

gent. apolycrat. 1. 1. cap. 8. b idem Salisbmiensis. cjiist.iij,. i. 



xtlem. 4.] Exercise rectified, 317 

his Utopian Commonwealth, "^as he will have none idle, so will he have no 
man labour over hard, to he toiled out like a horse, 'tis more than slavish 
infelicity, the life of most of our hired servants and tradesmen elsewhere (ex- 
cepting his Utopians) but half the day allotted for work, and half for honest 
recreation, or whatsoever employment they shall think fit for themselves." If 
one half day in a week were allovv^ed to oui* household servants for their merry- 
meetings, by their hard masters, or in a year some feasts, like those Roman 
Saturnals, I think they would labour harder all the rest of their time, and both 
parties be better jideased: but this needs not (you will say), for some of them, 
do nought but loiter all the week long. 

This which I am at, is for such as are fracti animis, troubled in mind, to 
ease them, over-toiled on the one part, to refresh : over idle on the other, to 
keep themselves busied. And to this purpose, as any labour or employment 
will serve to the one, any honest recreation will conduce to the other, so that it 
be modera^te and sparing, as the use of meat and drink ; not to spend all their 
life in gaming, playing, and pastimes, as too many gentlemen do; but to revive 
our bodies and recreate our souls with honest RjDorts : of which as there be 
diverse sorts, and peculiar to several callings, ages, sexes, conditions, so there 
be proper for several seasons, and those of distinct natures, to fit that variety 
of humours which is amongst them, that if one will not, another may : some in 
summer, some in winter, some gentle, some more violent, some for the mind 
alone, some for the body and mind : (as to some it is both business and a plea- 
sant recreation to oversee workmen of all sorts, husbandry, cattle, horse, &c. 
To build, plot, project, to make models, cast up accounts, &c.) some vv^ithout, 
some within doors; new, old, &c., as the season serveth, and as men are in- 
clined. It is reported of Philippus Bonus, that good duke of Burgundy (by 
Lodovicus Vives, in Epist. and Pont. ^Hcuter in his history) that the said duke, 
at the marriage of Eleonora, sister to the king of Portugal, at Bruges in Flan- 
ders, which was solemnized in the deep of winter, w^hen, as by reason of unsea- 
sonable weather, he could neither haw k nor hunt, and was now tired with cards, 
dice, &c., and such other domestic sports, or to see ladies dance, with some 
of his courtiers, he would in the evening walk disguised all about the tov»m. It 
so Ibrtimed, as he was walking late one night, he found a country fellow dead 
drunk, snorting on a bulk; ^he caused his followers to bring him to his palace, 
and there stripping him of his old clothes, and attiring him after the court 
fashion, when he waked, he and they were all ready to attend upon his excel- 
lency, persuading him he was some great duke. The poor fellov/ admiring how 
became there, was served in state all the day long; after supper he saw them 
dance, heard music, and the rest of those court-like pleasures : but late at 
night, when he was vv'ell tippled, and again fast asleep, they put on his old 
robes, and so conveyed him to the place where they first found him. ISow the 
fellowhad notmadethem sogoodsport the day before as he did when he returned 
to himself; all the jest was, to see hov/ he ^looked upon it. In conclusion, after 
some little admiration, the poor man told his friends he had seen a vision, 
constantly believed it, would not otherwise be persuaded, and so the jest ended. 
^ Antiochus Epiphanes would oi'ten disguise himself, steal from his court, and 
go into merchants', goldsmiths', and other tradesmen's shops, sit and talk with 
them, and sometimes ride or walk alone, and fall aboard with any tinker, 
clown, serving man, carrier, or whomsoever he met first. Sometimes he did 
ex hisjjerato give a poor fellow money, to see how he would look, or on set 

^ Nemo desidet otiosus, ita nemo asinino more ad seram noctemlaborat; nam eaplusquam servilis aerumna, 
qua; opificum vita est, exceptis Utopiensibus, qui diem iu 24 horas dividunt, sex duntaxat operi deputant, 
reliquum a somno et cibo cujusque arbitrio permittitur. e Rerum Burgund. lib. 4. f Jussit liominem 
deferri ad palatium et lecto ducali collocavi, &c. mirari homo ubi se eo loci videt. s Quid interest, inquit 
Lodovicus Vives, (epist. ad Francisc. Bardiicem) inter diem illias et nostros aliquot anuos? uibil peniiiis, 
nisi quodj &c. h Hen, btepliuu. prtblat. Ueroduti. 



348 Cure of Udaiicliolij. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

purpose lose liis purse as lie went, to watch who found it, and withal how he 
would be affected, and with such objects he was much delighted. Many such 
tricks are ordinarily put in practice by great men, to exhilarate themselves and 
others, all which are harmless jests, and have their good uses. 

But amongst those exercises, or recreations of the mind within doors, there 
is none so general, so aptly to be applied to all sorts of men, so fit and proper 
to expel idleness and melancholy, as that of study : Studia senectutem ohlectant, 
adolescentiam alunt, secundas res ornant, adversis perfagium et solatiwni prce- 
hent, domi delectant, d'c, find the rest in Tulbj pro A^^chia Poeta} What so full 
of content, as to read, walk, and see maps, pictures, statues, jewels, marbles, 
which some so much magnify, as those that Phidias made of old so exquisite 
and pleasing to be beheld, that as ^^Chrysostom thinketh, "if any man be sickly, 
troubled in mind, or that cannot sleep for grief, and shall but stand over against 
one of Phidias' images, he will forget all care, or whatsoever else may molest 
him, in an instant f There be those as much taken with Michael Angelo's, 
Kaphael de XJ rhino's, Francesco Francia's pieces, and many of those Italian 
and Dutch painters, which were excellent in their ages ; and esteem of it as a 
most pleasing sight, to view those neat architectures, devices, escutcheons, coats 
of arms, read such books, to peruse old coins of several sorts in a fair gallery ; 
artificial works, perspective glasses, old relics, Koman antiquities, variety of 
colours. A good picture is falsa Veritas, et muta poesis : and though (as^Vives 
saith) artificialia delectant, sed mox fastidimus, artificial toys please but for a 
time; yet who is he that will not be moved with them for the present? When 
Achilles was tormented and sad for the loss of his dear friend Patroclus, his 
mother Thetis brought him a most elaborate and curious buckler made by 
Vulcan, in which were engraven sun, moon, stars, planets, sea, land, men 
fighting, running, riding, women scolding, hills, dales, towns, castles, brooks, 
rivers, trees, &c., with many pretty landscapes, and perspective pieces: with 
yight of which he was infinitely delighted, and much eased of his grief. 

" m Continuo eo spectaculo captus delenito moerore 

Oblectabatur, in maiiibus tenens dei spleudida dona." 

Who will not be affected so in like case, or to see those well-furnished cloisters 
and galleries of the E-oman cardinals, so richly stored with all modern pictures, 

old statues and antiquities ? Cujn se spectando recreet simul et legendo, to 

see their pictures alone and read the description, as ''JBoissardus well adds, 
whom will it not afi'ect'? which Bozius, Pomponius Lsetus, Marlianus, Schottus, 
Cavelerius, Ligorius, &c., and he himself hath well performed of late. Or in 
some prince's cabinets, like that of the great dukes in Florence, of Felix Pla- 
terus in Basil, or noblemen's houses, to see such variety of attires, faces, so 
many, so rare, and such exquisite pieces, of men, birds, beasts, &c., to see 
those excellent landscapes, Dutch works^ and curious cuts of Sadlier of Prague, 
Albertus Durer, Goltzius Yrintes, &c., such pleasant pieces of perspective, 
Indian pictures made of feathers, China works, frames, thaumaturgical motions, 
exotic toys, &c. Who is he that is now wholly overcome with idleness, or other- 
wise involved in a labyrinth of worldly cares, troubles and discontents, that will 
not be much lightened in his mind by reading of some enticing story, true or 
feigned, where as in a glass he shall observe what our forefathers have done, 
the beginnings, ruins, falls, periods of commonwealths, private men's actions 
displayed to the life, &c. ° Plutarch therefore calls them, secundas imnsas et, 



' " study is the deliglit of old age, the support of youth, the ornament of prosperity, the solace and refuge 
of adversity, the comfort of domestic life," &c. ^ Orat. 12. siquis animo fuerit atflictus aut agger, nee 

somnum admittens, is milii videtur e regione stans talis imyginis, ohlivisci omnium posse, quos humancC vit« 
atrociact difficiliaaccideresolent. i 3. De auima. m Iliad. 19. n Topogr. Kom. part. 1. 

o tiuod heroum couviviis legi solitas. 



Mem. 4.] Exercise rectified. 349 

hellaria, tlie second course and junkets, because tliey were usually read at 
noblemen's feasts. Wbo is not earnestly affected witli a passionate speech, 
well penned, an elegant poem, or some pleasant bewitching discourse, like that 
of PHeliodorus, M6i ohlectatio qucedam placide fuit cum hilaritate conjuncta? 
Julian the Apostate was so taken with an oration of Libanius, the sophister, 
that, as he confesseth, he could not be quiet till he had read it all out. Legi 
orationem tuam, magna ex parte, Itesternd die ante prandium,pransusvero, sine 
ulld intermissione totam absolvi."^ argumenta! compositionem I I may 
say the same of this or that pleasing tract, which will draw his attention 
along with it. To most kind of men it is an extraordinary delight to study. 
For what a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts, and sciences, to 
the sweet content and capacity of the reader? In arithmetic, geometry, per- 
spective, optics, astronomy, architecture, sculpture, painting, of which so many 
and such elaborate treatises are of late written : in mechanics and their mys- 
teries, military matters, navigation, 'riding of horses, ^fencing, swimmiug, 
gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, falconry, hunting, 
fishing, fowling, (kc, with exquisite pictures of all sports, games, and what not? 
In music, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy, philology, in policy, 
heraldry, genealogy, chronology, &c., they afford great tomes, or those studies 
of 'antiquity, &c., et "^ quid suhtilius Arithmeticis inventionibus, quid jucimdius 
Musicis rationibus, quiddivinius Astronomicis, quid rectius Geometricis demon- 
strationibus ? What so sure, what so pleasant 1 He that shall but see that 
geometrical tower of Garezenda at Bologna in Italy, the steeple and clock at 
Strasburg,.will admire the effects of art, or that engine of Archimedes, to 
remove the earth itself, if he had but a place to fasten his instrument : Archi- 
medis Cochlea, and rare devices to corrivate waters, musical instruments, and 
tri-sy liable echoes again, again, and again repeated, with myriads of such. What 
vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice, 
speculation, in verse or prose, &c. ! their names alone are the subject of 
whole volumes, we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libraries 
full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates ; 
and he is a very block that is affected with none of them. Some take an infi- 
nite delight to study the very languages wherein these books are written, 
Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, &c. Methinks ilrwould please any 
man to look upon a geographical map, "^suavi animum delectatione alUcere, oh 
incredibilem rerum varietatem et jucuyiditatem, et ad pleniorem sui cognitionem 
excitare, chorographical, topographical delineations, to behold, as it were, all 
the remote provinces, towns, cities of the world, and never to go forth of the 
limits of his study, to measure by the scale and compass their extent, distance, 
examine their site. Charles the Great, as Platina writes, had three fair silver 
tables, in one of which superficies was a large map of Constantinople, in the 
second E-ome neatly engraved, in the third an exquisite description of the whole 
world, and much delight he took in them. What greater pleasure can there 
now be, than to view those elaborate maps of Ortelius,^Mercator,Hondius, &;c. ? 
To peruse those books of cities, put out by Braunus and Hogenbergius ? To 
read those exquisite descriptions of Maginus, Munster, Herrera, Laet, Merula, 
Boterus, Leander, Albertus, Camden, Leo Afer, Adricomius, ISTic. Gerbelius, 
&c. ! Those famous expeditions of Christoph. Columbus, Americus Vespucius, 



p Melanctlion de Heliodoro. <) I read a considerable part of your speech before dinner, but after I had 
dined I tinished it completely. Oh what arguments, what eloquence ! rpi^vines. 'Thibault. 

* As in travelling the rest go forward and look before them, an antiquary alone looks round about him, 
seeing things past, &c., hath a complete horizon. Janus Bifrons. "Cardan. " What is more subtle 

than arithmetical conclusions; what more agreeable than musical harmonies; what more divine than 
astronomical, what more certain than geometrical demonstrations ? " =' Hondius, prjefat. Merca- 

toris. "It allures the mind by its agreeable attraction, on account of the incredible variety aud pleiisant- 
ucss of the subjects, and excites to a farther step in knowledge." y Atlas Geog. 



3 JO Cure f>f Md.tne]to!,y. [Part 



^eo, L'. 



Marcus Polus tlie Yenetian, Lod. Yertomannns, Aloysius Ciulamustns, &c. ? 
Those accurate diaries of Portuguese, Hollanders, of Bartison, Oliver ^ Nort, (feu. 
Hakluyt's voj^ages, Pet. Martyr's Decades, Benzo, Lerius, Linschoten's rela- 
tions, those Hodseporiconsof Jod.a Meggen,Brocard the monk,Bredenl)achius, 
Jo. Dublinius, Sands, &c., to Jerusalem, Egypt, and other remote places of 
the world? those pleasant itineraries of Paulus Hentzerus, Jodocus Sincerus, 
Dux Polonus, &c., to read Bellonius' observations, P. Gillius his surveys; those 
parts of America, set out, and curiously cut in pictures, by Fratres a Bry. To 
see a well-cut herbal, herbs, trees, flowers, plants, all vegetables expressed in 
their proper colours to the life, as that of Matthiolus upon Dioscorides, Dela- 
campius, Lobel, Bauhinus, and that last voluminous and mighty herbal of 
Beslar of Nuremburg, v/herein almost every plant is to his own bigness. To 
see birds, beasts, and fishes of the sea, spiders, gnats, serpents, flies, &c., all 
creatures set out by the same art, and truly expressed in lively colours, with an 
exact description of their natures, virtues, qualities, &c., as hath been accu- 
rately performed by^iian, Gesner, Ulysses Aldrovandus, Bellonius, Rondole- 
tius,Hippolytus Salvianus, &c. '^Arcana cceli,natur(je seer eta, ordmem universi 
scire majoris felicitatis et didcedinis est, quam cogitatione quis assequi jjossit, aid 
ino7'talis spe~rare. What more pleasing studies can there be than the mathe- 
matics, theoretical or practical parts'? as to survey land, make maps, models, 
dials, &c., with which I was ever much delighted myself Talis est Mathematmn 
pulchritudo (saith * Plutarch) ut his indignum sit divitiarum phaleras istas et 
bullas,et puellaria spectacida comparari ; such is the excellency of these studies, 
that all those ornaments and childish bubbles of wealth, are not worthy to be 
compared to them: credi mihi (""saith one) extingui didce erit Mathematicarum 
artium studio, I could even live and die with such meditations, °and take more 
delight, true contentof mind in themj than thou hast in all thy wealth and sport, 
how rich soever thou art. And as "^Cardan well seconds me, Honorijiyani 
onagis est et gloriosiim hcec intelligere, quam proviriciis jyra^esse, formosiim aut 
ditem juveneni esse.^ The like pleasure there is in all other studies, to such 
as are truly addicted to them, ^ea suavitas (one holds) ut cum quis ea degusta- 
verit, quasi poculis Circeis captus, non possit unquam ah illis divelli; the like 
sweetness, which as Circe's cup bewitcheth a student, he cannot leave ofij as 
well may witness* those many laborious hours, days and nights, spent in tlie 
voluminous treatises written by them ; the same content. ^Julius Scaliger 
was so much afiected with jioetry, that he brake out into a pathetical protesta-. 
tion, he had rather be the author of twelve verses *in Lucan, or such an ode in 
^Horace, than emperor of Germany. 'Nicholas Gerbelius, that good old man, 
was so much ravished with a few Greek authors restored to light, with hope 
and desire of enjoying the rest, that he exclaims forthwith, ^ra&i^ws atquelndis 
omnibus erimus ditiores, we shall be richer than all the Arabic or Indian 
princes; of such '^esteem they were with him, incomparable worth and value. 
Seneca prefers Zeno and Chrysippus, two doting stoics (he was so much ena- 
moured of their works), before any prince or general of an army; andOrontius, 
the mathematician, so far admires Archimedes, that he calls him, Dlvinum et 
homine majorem, a petty god, more than a man; and well he might, for 
aught I see, if you respect fame or worth. Pindarus, of Thebes, is as much 
■renowned for his poems, as Epaminondas, Pelopidas, Hercules or Bacchus, his 
fellow citizens, for their warlike actions; et sifamamrespicias,7ion pauciores 

z Cardan. " To learn the mysteries of the heavens, the secret workings of nature, the order of the universe, 
is a greater happiness and gratification than any mortal can think or expect to obtain." »Lib. de cupid. 
divitiarum. b Leon. Diggs. prtefat. ad perpet. prognost. " I'lus capio voluptatis, &c. "^ In 

Hippcrchen. divis. 3. « " It is more honourable and glorious to understand these truths than to govern 

■provinces, to be beautiful, or to be young." f Cardan, prtefat. rerum variet. sPoetices lib. ^ Lib. 3. 
Ode 9 Donee, gratus eram tibi, &c. • De Pelopones. lib. 6. descript. Graec. ^ Quos si integros 

haberemus, Dii boni, quas opes, quos thesauros teneremus ! 



JMem. 4.] Exercise rectified. 3:)! 

Aristotelh quam Alexandri meminerunt (as Cardan notes), Aristotb is more 
known than Alexander; for we have a bare relation of Alexander's deeds, 
hut Aristotle, totus vivit in monumentis, is whole in his works : yet I stand 
not upon this ; the delight is it, which I aim at, so great pleasure, such sweet 
content there is in study. ^King James, 1605, when he came to see our 
University of Oxford, and amongst other edifices now went to view that famous 
library, renewed by Sir Thomas Bodley, in imitation of Alexander, at his 
departure brake out into that noble speech. If I w'ere not a king, I v/ould be a 
university man: "°'and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might 
have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library, and to 
be chained together with so many good authors et mortuis magistris" So 
sweet is the delight of study, the more learning they have (as he that hath a 
dropsy, the more he drinks the thirstier he is) the more they covet to learn, 
and the last day is prior is discipulus ; harsh at first learning is, radices amarce, 
\mtfructus dulces, accordhig to that of Isocrates, pleasant at last; the longer 
they live, the more they are enamoured with the Muses. Heinsius, the keeper 
of the library at Ley den in Holland, was mewed up in it all the year longh- 
and that which to thy thinking should have bred a loathing, caused in him a 
greater lil^iing. " °I no sooner (saith he) come into the library, but I bolt the 
door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse 
is idleness, the mother of ignorance, a.nd melancholy herself, and in the very 
lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat, with so lofty 
a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones, and rich men that 
know not this happiness." I am not ignorant in the meantime (notwith- 
standing this which I have said) hov/ barbarously and basely, for the most 
j)art, our ruder gentry esteem of libraries and books, how they neglect and 
contemn so great a treasure, so inestimable a benefit, as ^sop's cock did the 
jewel he found in the dunghill; and all through error, ignorance, and want 
of education. And 'tis a wonder, withal, to observe how much they will 
vainly cast away in unnecessary expenses, quotmodis i:)ereant (saith ■" Erasmus) 
magnatibus pecunice, quantum absumant cdea, scorta, compotationes, profectiones 
non necessarice, pompce, hella qucesita, ambitio, colax, morio, ludio, (&c., what 
in hawks, hounds, law.suits, vain building, gormandising, drinking, sports, 
plays, pastimes, &c. If a well-minded man to the Muses would sue to some 
of them for an exhibition, to the farther maintenance or enlargement of such 
a work, be it college, lecture, library, or whatsoever else may tend to the 
advancement of learning, they are so unwilling, so averse, that they had rather 
see these which are already, with such cost and care erected, utterly ruined, 
demolished or otherwise en^ ployed; for they repine many and grudge at such 
gifts and revenues so bestowed: and therefore it were in vain, as Erasmus 
well notes, vel ab his, vel a negotiator ibus qui se Mammonce dediderunt, impro- 
bumfortasse tcd.e officiiim exigere, to solicit or ask any thing of such men that 
are likely damned to riches ; to this purpose, Eor my part I pity these men, 
stidtos jubeo esse libenter, let them go as they are, in the catalogue of Ignora- 
mus. How much, on the other side, are all we bound that are scholars, to 
those munificent Ptolomies, bountiful Meecenates, heroical patrons, divine 
spirits, 

"pqai lioLis haec otia fecerunt, namque erit ille mihi semper Dens " 

"These blessings, friend, a Deity bestow'd, 
For never can I deem him less than God." 

That have provided for us so many well-furnished libraries, as well as in our 

1 Isaack Wake musfe regnantes. '" Si unquam mihi in fatis sit, ut captivus ducar, si milii daretur optio, 
hoe cuperem carcere concludi, his catenis illigari, cum hisce captivis concatenatis astatem agere. "Epist. 
Primiero. Plerunque in qua siraul ac pedem posui, foribus pessulum obdo; ambitionem autem, amorem, 
libidinem, etc. exclude, quorum parens est ignavia, imperitia nutrix, et in ipso leternitatis gremio, inter tot 
illustres aniraas sedem mihi sumo, cum ingenti quidem animo, ut subinde magnatum me misereat, qui 
felicitatem hanc ignorant. <> Chil. 2. Cent. 1. Adag. 1. p Virg. eclog. 1. 



3.)2 Ours of Mdanclioly. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

public academies in most cities, as in our private colleges? How sliall I 
remember "^Sir Thomas Bodlej, amongst the rest, ""Otho Nicholson, and the 
Right Keverend John Williams, Lord Bishop of Lincoln (with many other 
pious acts), who besides that at St. John's College in Cambridge, that in 
Westminster, is now likewise in Fieri v/ith a library at Lincoln (a noble 
precedent for all corporate towns and cities to imitate), quam te memorem 
(vir illustrissime), quibus elogiis ? But to my task again. 

Whosoever he is therefore that is overrun with solitariness, or carried away 
with pleasing melancholy and vain conceits, and for want of employment knows 
not how to spend his time, or crucified with worldly care, I can prescribe him 
no better remedy than this of study, to compose himself to the learning of some 
art or science. Provided always that this malady proceed not from overmuch 
study; for in such case he adds fuel to the fire, and nothing can be more per- 
nicious; let him take heed he do not overstretch his wits, and make a skeleton 
of himself; or such inamoratos as read nothing but play-books, idle poems, 
jests, Amadis de Gaul, the Knight of the Sun, the Seven Champions, Palmerin 
de Oliva, Huon of Bourdeaux, &c. Such many times prove in the end as 
mad as Don Quixote. Study is only prescribed to those that are otherwise 
idle, troubled in mind, or carried headlong with vain thoughts and imaginations, 
to distract their cogitations (although variety of study, or some serious subject}, 
would do the former no harai), and divert their continual meditations another 
way. Nothing in this case better than study ; semper aliquid msmoriter edis- 
cant, saith Piso, let them learn something without book, transcribe, translate, 
&c. Read the Scriptures, which Hyperius, lib. 1. de quotid. script, lect. fol. 77. 
holds available of itself, " ^the mind is erected thereby from all worldly cares, 
and hath much quiet and tranquillity." For as * Austin well hath it, 'tis sci~ 
entia scientiarum, omnl melle dulcior, oinni pane suavior, (mini vino hilarior : 
'tis the best nepenthe, surest cordial, sweetest alterative, presentest diverter : 
for neither as ''Chrysostom well adds, " those boughs and leaves of trees which 
are plashed for cattle to stand under, in the heat of the day, in summer, so 
much refresh them v/ith their acceptable shade, as the reading of the Scripture 
doth recreate and comfort a distressed soul, in sorrow and affliction." Paul 
bids "pray continually;" quod cibus corpor% lectio animm facit, saith Seneca, 
as meat is to the body, such is reading to the soul. " ''To be at leisure with- 
out books is another hell, and to be buried alive." ^Cardan calls a library 
the physic of the soul ; " ^divine authors fortify the mind, make men bold and 
constant; and (as Hyperius adds) godly conference will not permit the mind to 
be tortured with absurd cogitations." Rhasis enjoins continual conference to 
such melancholy men, perpetual discourse of some history, tale, poem, news, 
&c., alternos sermones edere ac bibere, ceque jucundum quam cibus, sive potuSy 
which feeds the mind as meat and drink doth the body, and pleaseth as much : 
and therefore the said Rhasis, not without good cause, would have somebody 
still talk seriously, or dispute with them, and sometimes "^to cavil and wrangle 
(so that it break not out to a violent 2>erturbation), for such altercation is like 
stirring of a dead fire to make it burn afresh," it whets a dull spirit, " and 
will not sufier the mind to be drowned in those profound cogitations, which 
melancholy men are commonly troubled with." ^ Ferdinand and Alphonsus, 
kings of Arragon and Sicily, were both cured by reading the history, one of 
Curtius, the other of Livy, when no prescribed physic would take place. Came- 

q Founder of our public library in Oxon. "• Ours in Christ Church, Oxon. » Animus levatur hide 

a curis multa quiete et tranquillitate fruens. ' Ser. 38. ad Fratres Erem. » Horn. 4. de pcenitentia. 

Nam neque arborum comae propecorum tuguriis factie, meridie per «statem, optabilem exhibentes umbram 
oves ita reflciunt, ac scripturarum lectio afflictas angore animas solatur et recreat. ^ Otium sine Uteris 

mors est, et vivi hominis sepultura. Seneca. y Cap. 99. 1. 57. de rer. var. ^ Fortem reddunt aninium 

et constantem; et pium colloquium non permittit animum absurda cogitatione torqueri. aAltercationibus 
utantur, quae non permittunt animum submergi profundis cogitationibus, de quibus otiose cogitat et tiista- 
tur in lis. '' Bodin. prefat. ad meth. hist. 



Mem. 4.] Exercise rectified. 353 

rariiis "" relates as mucli of Lorenzo cle' Medici. Heatlien pliilosophers are so 
fall of divine precepts in this kind, tliat, as some think, tliej alone are able to 
settle a distressed mind. ^Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolor em, &c. 
Epictetus, Plutarch, and Seneca; qucdis ille, quce tela, s£iitli Lipsius, adversus 
omnes animi casus administrat, et ipsam mortem, quoinodo vitia eripit, infert 
viriutes? when I read Seneca, '•' ''methinks I am beyond all human fortunes, 
on the top of a hill above mortality." Plutarch saith as much of Homer, for 
which cause belike Mceratus, in Xenophon, was made by his parents to con 
Homer's Iliads andOdysseys, without book, ut in virum bonum evaderet, as well 
to make him a good and honest man, as to avoid idleness. If this comfort be 
got from philosophy, what shall be had from divinity? What shall Austin, 
Cyprian, Gregory, Bernard's divine meditations afford us? 

" Qui quid sit pulclivum, quid turpe, quid utile, quidnon, 
Plenius et melius Chrysippo et Craatore dicunt." ^ 

Nay, what shall the Scripture itself? Which is like an apothecary's shop, 
wherein are all remedies for all infirmities of mind, purgatives, cordials, altera- 
tives, corroboratives, lenitives, &c. "Every disease of the soul," saith ^Austin, 
"hath a peculiar medicine in the Scripture; this only is required, that the 
sick man take the potion which God hath already tempered." ^ Gregory calls 
it "a glass wherein we may see all our infirmities," ignitum colloquium, 
Psalm cxix. 140, ' Origen a charm. And therefore Hierom prescribes Rus- 
ticus the monk, "^continually to read the Scripture, and to meditate on that 
which he hath read ; for as mastication is to meat, so is meditation on that 
which we read." I would for these causes wish him that is melancholy to use 
both human and divine authors, voluntarily to impose some task upon himself, 
to divert his melancholy thoughts : to study the art of memory, Cosmus Rosse- 
lius, Pet. Ravennas, Scenkelius' Detectus, or practise Brachygraphy, &c., that 
will ask a great deal of attention : or let him demonstrate a proposition in 
Euclid, in his fi.ve last books, extract a square root, or study Algebra : than 
which, as ^ Clavius holds, " in all human disciplines nothing can be more ex- 
cellent and pleasant, so abstruse and recondite, so bewitching, so miraculous, so 
ravishing, so easy withal and full of delight," omnem hunumum captum supe- 
rare videticr. By this means you may define ex ungue leonem, as the diverb is, 
by his thumb alone the bigness of Hercules, or the true dimensions of the 
great ™ Colossus, Solomon's temple, and Domitian's amphitheatre out of a little 
part. By this art you may contemplate the variation of the twenty-three letters, 
which may be so infinitely varied, that the words complicated and deduced 
thence will not be contained within the compass of the firmament ; ten words 
may be varied 40,320 several ways : by this art you may examine how many 
men may stand one by another in the whole superficies of the earth, some say 
148,450,800,000,000, assignando singulis j^ccssum quadratum (assigning a 
square foot to each), how many men, supposing all the w^orld as habitable as 
Prance, as fruitful and so long-lived, may be born in 60,000 years, and so may 
you demonstrate with "Archimedes how many sands the mass of the whole 
world might contain if all sandy, if you did but first know how much a small 
cube as big as a mustard-seed might hold, with infinite such. But in all nature 
whatis there so stupendous as to examineand calculate the motion of the planets, 
their magnitudes, apogees, perigees, eccentricities, how far distant from the 

e Opcrum subcis. cap. 15. ^ Hor. « Fatenduin est cacumine Olympi constitutus supra ventos et 

procellas, et omnes res humanas. f " Who explain what is fair, foul, useful, -worthless, more fully and 

faithfully than Chrysippiis and Grantor ?"' g In Ps. xxxvi. omnis morbus animi in scripturii habet medici- 
nam; tantum opus est ut qui sit teger, non recusetpotionem quam Deus temperavit. *» In moral, speculum 
quo nos intueri possimus. i Horn. 23. Ut incantatione viris fugatur, ita lectione malum. ^ Iterum 

atque iterum moneo, ut animam sacne scripturre lect'one occupes. Masticat divinum pabulum meditatio. 
'Ad 2. deflnit. 2. elem. In disciplinis humanis nihil prajstantius reperitur : quippe miracula qutedam 
nuinerorum eruit tam abstrusa et recondita, tanta nihilo minus facilitate et voluptate, ut, &c. "> Which 
Contained 1,030,000 wei^i'lits of brass. "> Vide Clavium in com. de Sacrobosco. 

2 A 



354 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

earth, tlie bigness, thickness, compass of the firmament, each star, with their 
diameters and circumference, apparent area, superficies, by those curious helps 
of glasses, astrolabes, sextants, quadrants, of which Tjcho Brahe in his me- 
chanics, optics (^divine optics), arithmetic, geometry, and such like arts and 
instruments'? What so intricate and pleasing withal, as to peruse and prac- 
tise Heron Alexandrinus's works, c^e spiritalibus, de machinis hellicis, de machind 
se move7ite, Jordani Nemorarii de ponderibus proposit. 1 3, that pleasant tract 
of Machometes Bragdedinus de suiJerficierum divisionibus, Apollonius's Conies, 
or Commandinus's labours in that kind, de centra gravitatis, with many such 
geometrical theorems and problems'? Those rare instruments and mechanical 
inventions of Jac. Bessonus, and Cardan to this purpose, with many such 
experiments intimated long since by Boger Bacon, in his tract de ^Secretis artis 
et naturcE, as to make a chariot to move sine animali, diving boats, to walk on 
the water by art, and to fly in the air, to make several cranes and pulleys, qui- 
bus homo trahat ad se mille homines, lift up and remove great weights, mills to 
move themselves, Archita's dove, Albertus's brazen head, and such thauma- 
turgical works. But especially to do strange miracles by glasses, of which 
Proclus and Bacon writ of old, burning glasses, multiplying glasses, perspec- 
tives, ut unus homo appareat exercitus, to see afar off, to represent solid bodies 
by cylinders and concaves, to walk in the air, ut veraciter videant (saith Bacon) 
aui'um et argentwm et quicquid aliud volunt, et quumveniant ad locum visionis, 
nihil inveniant, which glasses are much perfected of late by Baptista Porta and 
Galileo, and much more is promised byMaginus and Midorgius,to be performed 
in this kind. Otocousticons some speak of, to intend hearing, as the other do 
sight ; Marcellus Yrencken, a Hollander, in his epistle to Burgravius, makes 
mention of a friend of his that is about an instrument, quo videbit qu(E in altera 
horizonte sint. But our alchymists, methinks, and Bosicrucians afford most 
rarities, and are fuller of experiments : they can make gold, separate and alter 
metals, extract oils, salts, lees, and do more strange works than Geber, Lullius, 
Bacon, or any of those ancients. Crollius hath made after his master Para- 
celsus, aurwn fulminans, or aurum volatile, which shall imitate thunder and 
lightning, and crack louder than any gunpowder; Cornelius Drible a perpetual 
motion, inextinguishable lights, linum non ardens, with many such feats ; see his 
book de naturd elementorum, besides hail, wind, snow, thunder, lightning, &c., 
those strange fire- works, devilish petards, and such like warlike machinations 
derived hence, of which read Tartalea and others. Ernestus Burgravius, a 
disciple of Paracelsus, hath published a discourse, in which he specifies a lamp 
to be made of man's blood, Lucerna vitce et mortis index, so he terms it, which 
chemically prepared forty days, and afterwards kept in a glass, shall show all 
the accidents of this life ; si lamj)as hie clarus, tunc homo hilaris et sanus cor- 
py)re et animo; sinebulosus et depressus, male afficitur, et sic pro statu hominis 
variatur, uade sumptus sanguis; ^and which is most wonderful, it dies with 
the party, cum homine perit, et evanescit, the lamp and the man whence the 
blood was taken, are extinguished together. The same author hath another 
tract of Mumia (all out as vain and prodigious as the first) by which he will 
cure most diseases, and transfer them from a man to a beast, by drawing blood 
from one, and applying it to the other, vel in plantam derivare, and an Alexi- 
pharmacum, of which Roger Bacon of old in his Tract, de retardanda senectute, 
to make a man young again, live three or four hundred years. Besides pana- 
ceas, martial amulets, unguentum armarium, balsams, strange extracts, elixirs, 
and such like magico-magnetical cures. Now what so pleasing can there be 
as the speculation of these things, to read and examine such experiments, or 

Distantias coelonim sola Optica dijiidicat. p Cap. 4. et 5. <i " If the lamp burn brightly, then 

the man is cheerful and healthy in mind and body; if, on the other hand, he from whom the blood is taken 
be melancholic or a sx)endthrift, then it will burn dimly, and flicker in the socket." 



Mem. 4.] Exercise rectified. S55 

if a man be more mathematically given, to calculate, or peruse Napier's Loga- 
rithms, or those tables of artificial 'sines and tangents, not long since set out 
by mine old collegiate, good friend, and late fellow-student of Christ-church in 
Oxford, ^Mr. Edmund Gunter, which will perform that by addition and sub- 
traction only, which heretofore Kegiomontanns's tables did by multiplication 
and division, or those elaborate conclusions of his * sector, quadrant, and 
cross-staff. Or let him that is melancholy calculate spherical triangles, square 
a circle, cast a nativity, which howsoever some tax, I say with "Garcseus. 
dabimus hoc petulantibus ingeniis, we will in some cases allow : or let him 
make an epiiemerides, read Suisset, the calculator's works, Scaliger de emen- 
datione temjoorum, and Petavius his adversary, till he understand them,, 
peruse subtle Scotus and Suarez's metaphysics, or school divinity, Occam, 
Thomas, Entisberus, Durand, &c. If those other do not affect him, and his 
means be great, to employ his purse and fill his head, he may go find the 
philosopher's stone ; he may apply his mind, I say, to heraldry, antiquity, 
invent impresses, emblems; make epithalamiums, epitaphs, elegies, epigrams, 
palindroma epigrammata, anagrams, chronograms, acrostics, upon his friends' 
names ; or write a comment on Martianus Capella, TertuUian de pallio, the 
Nubian geography, or upon ^lia Lselia Crispis, as many idle fellows have 
essayed; and rather than do nothing, vary a "" verse a thousand ways with 
Putean, so torturing his wits, or as Painnerus of Luneburgh, ^2150 times 
in his Proteus Poeticus, or Scaliger, Chrysolithus, Cleppissius, afid others, 
have in like sort done. If such voluntary tasks, pleasure and delight, or 
crabbedness of these studies, will not yet divert their idle thoughts, and 
alienate their imaginations, they must be compelled, saith Christophorus ^ 
Yega, cogi debent, I. 5. c. 14, upon some mulct, if they perform it not, quod 
ex officio incumhat, loss of credit or disgrace, such as our public University 
exercises. For, as he that plays for nothing will not heed his game; no 
more will voluntary employment so thoroughly affect a student, except he be 
very intent of himself, and take an extraordinary delight in the study, about 
which he is conversant. It should be of that nature his business, which 
volens nolens he must necessarily undergo, and without great loss, mulct, 
shame, or hinderance, he may not omit. 

Now for women, instead of laborious studies, they have curious needle- 
works, cut-works, spinning, bone-lace, and many pretty devices of their own 
making, to adorn their houses, cushions, carpets, chairs, stools (" for she eats 
not the bread of idleness," Prov. xxxi. 27. qucesivit lanam et linum), con- 
fections, conserves, distillations, &c., which they show to strangers. 

"* Ipsa comes praesesque operis venientibus ultro 1 " Which to her guests she shows, with all her pelf, 
Hospitibus monstrare solet, non segniter horas Thus far my maids, but this I did myself." 

Contestata suas, sed nee sibi deperiis se." | 

This they have to busy themselves about, household offices, &c., "neat gardens, 
full of exotic, versicolour, diversely varied, sweet-smelling flowers, and plants 
in all kinds, which they are most ambitious to get, curious to preserve and 
keep, proud to possess, and much many times brag of. Their meny meetings 
and frequent visitations, mutual invitations in good towns, I voluntarily omit, 
which are so much in use, gossipping among the meaner sort, &c., old folks 
have their beads ; an excellent invention to keep them from idleness, that are by 
nature melancholy, and past all affairs, to say so many paternosters, avemarias, 
creeds, if it were not profane and superstitious. In a word, body and mind 
must be exercised, not one, but both, and that in a mediocrity; otherwise it 



•"Printed at London, Anno 1620. "Once astronomy reader at Gresham College. t Printed at London 
by William Jones, 1623. "Prsefat. Meth. Astrol. ^Tot tibi sunt dotes virgo, quot sidera coelo. 

y Da pie Christe urbi bona sit pax tempore nostro. «Chalonerus, Lib. 9. de Rep. Angel. "iiortua 

corouarius medlcu^i et culinarius, &c. 



^5G Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

will cause a great inconveuieuce. If tlie body be overtired, it tires tlie mind. 
The mind oppresseth the body, as with students it oftentimes falls out, who 
(as ^Plutarch observes) have no care of the body, " but compel that which is 
mortal to do as much as that which is immortal : that which is earthly, as 
that which is ethereal. But as the ox tired, told the camel (both serving 
one master), that refused to carry some part of his burden, before it were long 
he should be compelled to carry all his pack, and skin to boot (which by and 
by, the ox being dead, fell out), the body may say to the soul, that will give 
him no respite or remission: a little after, an ague, vertigo, consumption, 
seizeth on them both, all his study is omitted, and they must be compelled to 
be sick together:" he that tenders his own good estate, and health, must let 
them draw with equal yoke, both alike, " Hhat so they may happily enjoy 
their wished health." 



MEMB. Y. 

Waking and terrible Dreams rectified. 

As waking that hurts, by all means must be avoided, so sleep, which so 
much helps, by like ways, ""^must be procured, by nature or art, inward or 
outward medicines, and be protracted longer than ordinary, if it may be, as 
being an especial help." It moistens and fattens the body, concocts, and 
helps digestion (as we see in dormice, and those Alpine mice that sleep all 
winter), which Gesner speaks of, when they are so found sleeping under the 
snow in the dead of winter, as fat as butter. It expels cares, pacifies the 
mind, refresheth the weary limbs after long work : 

" e Somne, quies rerum, placidissime somne deorum, I " Sleep, rest of things, pleasing deity, 
Pax animi, quem cura fugit, qui corpora duris I Peace of the soul, which cares dost crucify, 

Fessa ministeriis mulces reparasque labori." | Weary bodies refresh and mollify." 

The chiefest thing in all physic, ^Paracelsus calls it, omnia arcana gemma- 
rum superans et metallorum. The fittest time is "^two or three hours after 
supper, when as the meat is now settled at the bottom of the stomach, and 'tis 
good to lie on the right side first, because at that site the liver doth rest under 
the stomach, not molesting any way, but heating him as a fire doth a kettle, 
that is put to it. After the first sleep 'tis not amiss to lie on the left side, 
that the meat may the better descend; " and sometimes again on the belly, but 
never on the back. Seven or eight hours is a competent time for a melancholy 
man to rest, as Crato thinks ; but as some do, to lie in bed and not sleep, a 
day, or half a day together, to give assent to pleasing conceits and vain imagi- 
nations, is many ways pernicious. To procure this sweet moistening sleep, it's 
best to take away the occasions (if it be possible) that hinder it, and then to 
use such inward or outward remedies, which may cause it. Constat hodie (saith 
Boissardus in his tract dem^agid, cap. 4.) multos ita fascinari ut nodes integras 
exigant insomnes, summd inquietudine animorwm et corporum; many cannot 
sleep for witches and fascinations, which are too familiar in some places ; they 
call it, dare alicui malain noctem. But the ordinary causes are heat and dryness, 
which must first be removed: ^a hot and dry brain never sleeps well: grief, 
fears, cares, expectations, anxieties, great businesses, 'In aurem utramque 

^Tom. 1. de sanit. tuend. Qui rationem corporis nonhabent, sed cogunt mortalem immortali, terrestrem 
scthereae aequalem prastare iudustriam: Ca^terum ut Camelo usu venit, quod ei bos prcedixerat, cura eidem 
servirent domino et parte oneris levare Ilium Camelus recusasset, paulo post et ipsius cutem, et totum onus 
cogeretur gestare (quod mortuo bove impletum), Ita animo quoque contingit, dum defatigato corpori, &c. 
cUt pnlchram illam et amabilem sanitatem prasstemus. ^ Interdicendse vigili*, somni paulo longiores 

conciliandi. Altomarus, cap. 7. Somnus supra modum prodest, quovismodo conciliandus, Piso. eQvid. 

''In Hippoc. Aphorism. 8 Crato, cons. 21. lib. 2. duabus aut tribus horis post coenam, quum jam cibus ad 
fun dum ventriculi resederit, primum super latere dextro quiescendum, quod in tali decubitu jecur sub ven- 
triculo quiescat, non gravans sed cibum calfaciens, perinde ac ignis lebetem qui illi admovetur ; post 
primum somnum quiescendum latere sinistro, &c. i^Ssepius accidit melancholicis, ut nimimn exsiccate 

cerebro vigil.is attenuentur. Ficinus, lib. 1. caj?. 29. ' Ter. " That you may sleep calmly on either ear.". 



Mem. 5.] Waking and dreams reef iji-d. 3-j7 

otiose ut dormias, and all violent perturbations of the mind, must in some sort 
be qualified, before we can hope for any good repose. He that sleeps in the 
day time, or is in suspense, fear, any way troubled in mind, or goes to bed 
upon a full ''stomach, may never hope for quiet rest in the night; nee enim 
meritoria somnos admittiint,^sih.Q^\)OQtiim.ih.; inns and such like troublesome 
places are not for sleep; one calls ostler, another tapster, one cries and shouts, 
another sings, whoops, halloos, 

. aTjsentem cantat nmicam, 



MuM prolutus vappa nauta atque viator." 

^Yho not accustomed to such noises can sleep amongst them 1 He that will 
intend to take his rest must go to bed animo securo, quieto et libero, with a 
"secure and composed mind, in a quiet place : omnia noctes erunt placida com- 
posta quiete: and if that will not serve, or may not be obtained, to seek then 
such means as are requisite. To lie in clean linen and sweet ; before he goes 
to bed, or in bed, to hear "° sweet music," which Ficinus commends, lib. 1. 
cap. 2L or as Jobertus, med. praet. lib. 3. cap. 10, "^to read some pleasant 
author till he be asleep, to have a bason of AVciter still dropping by his bed- 
side," or to lie near that j)leasant murmur, lene sonantis aquoi. Some flood- 
gates, arches, ftdls of water, like London Bridge, or some continuate noise 
which may benumb the senses, lenis motus, silentium et tenebra, turn et ipsa 
voluntas somnos faciunt ; as a gentle noise to some procures sleep, so, which 
Bernardinus Tilesius, lib. de somno, well observes, silence, in a dark room, and 
the will itself, is most available to others, Piso commends frications, Andrew 
Borde a good draught of strong drink before one goes to bed ; I say, a nutmeg 
and ale, or a good draught of muscadine, with a toast and nutmeg, or a posset 
of the same, which many use in a morning, but methinks, for such as have 
dry brains, are much more proper at night ; some prescribe a "^sup of vinegar as 
they go to bed, a spoonful, saith -5^]tius Tetrabib. lib. 2. ser. 2. cap. 10. lib. 6. 
cap. 10, jEgineta, lib. 3. cap. 14, Piso, "a little after meat, "^ because it rare- 
fies melancholy, and procures an appetite to sleep," Donat. ab Altomar. cap. 7. 
and Mercurialis approve of it, if the malady proceed from the ^spleen. Salust. 
Salvian. lib. 2. caj:). 1. de remed., Hercules de Saxonia m Fa7i. jElinus, Mon- 
taltus de morb. capitis, cap. 28, de melan. are altogether against it. Lod. 
Mercatus, de inter. Morb. cau. lib. 1. cap. 17, in some cases doth allow it. 
*Phasis seems to deliberate of it, though Simeon commend it (in sauce perad- 
venture) he makes a question of it : as for baths, fomentations, oils, potions, 
simples or compounds, inwardly taken to this purpose, "I shall speak of them 
elsewhere. If, in the midst of the night, when they lie awake, which is usual 
to toss and tumble, and not sleep, ^Ranzovius would have them, if it be in 
warm weather, to rise and walk three or four turns (till they be cold) about 
the chamber, and then go to bed again. 

Against fearfid and troublesome dreams, Incubus and such inconveniences, 
wherewith melancholy men are molested, the best remedy is to eat a light 
supper, and of such meats as are easy of digestion, no hare, venison, beef, 
&C-, not to lie on his back, not to meditate or think in the day-time of any 
terrible objects, or especially talk of them before he goes to bed. For, as 
he said in Lucian after such conference, Hecates somniare mihi videor, I can 
think of nothing but hobgoblins : and as TuUy notes, " ^for the most part our 

k ut sis nocte levis, sit tibi cosna brevis. i Juven. Sat. 3. .m Hor. Ser. lib. 1. Sat. 5. " The tipsy sailor 
and his travelling companion sing the praises of their absent sweethearts." " Sepositis curis omnibus 

qu- ntiim fieri potest, una cum vestibus, &c. Kirkst. <> Ad horam sorani aures suavibus cantibus et sonis 
deliuire. p Lectio jucunda, aut sermo, ad quern attentior animus convertitur, aut aqua ab alto in 

subjectam pelvim delabatur, &c. Ovid. q Aceti sorbitio. '^ Attenuat melancholiam, et ad conciliandura 
somnum juvat. ^ Quod lieni acetum conveniat. t Cont. 1. tract. 9. meditandum de aceto. n Sect. 5. 
Merab. 1. Subsect. 6. ^ Lib. de sanit. tuenda. y In Som. Scip. fit enim fere ut cogitationes nostras et 
sei-mones pariant aliquid in somno, quale de Homero scribit Ennius, de quo videlicet sajpissime vigilaua 
solebat cogitare et loqui. 



358 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

speeches in fhe day-time cause our fantasy to work upon the like in our sleep," 
which Eunius writes of Homer : Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat : as a 
dog dreams of a hare, so do men on such subjects they thought on last. 

" * Somnia quae mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris, 
Nee delubi-a deum, nee ab ^there numina mittunt, 
Sed sibi quisque facit," &c. 

For that cause when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had posed the seventy interpreters 
in order, and asked the nineteenth man what would make one sleep quietly in 
the night, he told him, "* the best way was to have divine and celestial medi- 
tations, and to use honest actions in the day-time." ^Lod. Yives wonders how- 
schoolmen could sleep quietly, and were not terrified in the night, or walk in 
the dark, they had such monstrous questions, and thought of such terrible 
matters all day long." They had need, amongst the rest, to sacrifice to god 
Morpheus, whom ''Philostratus paints in a white and black coat, with a horn 
and ivory box full of dreams, of the same colours, to signify good and bad. If 
you will know how to interpret them, read Artemidorus,Sambucus and Cardan; 
but how to help them, "^I must refer you to a more convenient place. 



MEMB. YI. 

SuBSECT. I. — Pertm^hations of the mind rectified. From himself, hj resisting 
to the utmost, confessing his grief to a friend, (kc. 

Whosoever he is that shall hope to cure this malady in himself or any 
other, must first rectify these passions and perturbations of the mind : the 
chiefest cure consists in them. A quiet mind is that voluptas, or summum 
honum of Epicurus; non dolere, curis vacare, animo tranquillo esse, not to grieve, 
but to want cares, and to have a quiet soul, is the only pleasure of the world, as 
Seneca trulyrecites his opinion, not that of eating and drinking, which injurious 
Aristotle maliciously puts upon him, and for which he is still mistaken, male 
audit et vapulat, slandered without a cause, and lashed by all posterity. " " Fear 
and sorrow, therefore, are especially to be avoided, and the mind to be miti- 
gated with mirth, constancy, good hope; vain terror, bad objects are to be 
removed, and all such persons in whose companies they be not well pleased.'* 
Gualter Bruel, Eernelius, consil. 43, Mercurialis, consil. 6, Piso, Jacchinus, 
cap. 15. hi 9. Phasis, Capivaccius, Hildesheim, &c., all inculcate this as an 
especial means of their cure, that their " ^minds be quietly pacified, vain con- 
ceits diverted, if it be possible, with terrors, cares, ^ fixed studies, cogitations, 
and v/hatsoever it is that shall any way molest or trouble the soul," because 
that otherwise there is no good to be done. "^The body's mischiefs," as 
Plato proves, " proceed from the soul : and if the mind be not first satisfied, 
the body can never be cured." Alcibiades raves (saith 'MaximusTyrius) and 
is sick, his furious desires carry him from Lyceus to the pleading place, thence 
to the sea, so into Sicily, thence to Lacedsemon, thence to Persia, thence to 
Samos, then again to Athens ; Critias tyranniseth over all the city ; Sardana- 
palus is love-sick; these men are ill-affected all, and can never be cured, till 
their minds be otherwise qualified. Crato, therefore, in that often-cited Counsel 

« Aristae hist. " Neither the shiines of the gods, nor the deities themselves, send down from the 
heavens those dreams which mock our minds Avith these flitting shadows,— we cause them to ourselves." 
a Optimum de coelestibus et honestis meditari, et ea facere. ^ Lib. 3. de causis corr. art. tam mira mon- 
stra qu^stionum srepe nascuntur inter eos, ut mirer eos interdum in somniis non terreri, aut de illis in 
tenebris audere verba facere, adeo res sunt monstrosse. « Icon. lib. 1. ^ Sect. 5. Memb. 1. Subs. 6, 

e Animi perturbationes summe fugiends, metus potissimum et tristitia : eorumque loco animus demulcendus 
hilaritate, animi coiistantia, bona spe; removendi terrores, et eorum consortium quos non probant. 
f Fliantasiag eorum placide subvertendse, terrores ab animo removendi. s Ab omni fixa cogitatione quo- 
vismodo avertantur. •» Cuncta mala corporis ab animo procedimt, quae nisi curentur, corpus curari 

minime potest, Charmid. > Disputat. An inorbi graviores corporis an animi. Ilenoldo interpret, ut parum 
absit a furore, rapitur a Lyceo iu conciouem, a condone ad mare, a mari in Siciliam, <fcc. 



Mem. 6. Subs. 1.] Passions rectified. 359 

of his for a nobleman his patient, when he had sufficiently informed him in 
diet, air, exercise, Yenus, sleep, concludes with these as matters of greatest 
moment. Quod reliquum est, animce accidentia corrigantur, from which alone 
proceeds melancholy; they are the fountain, the subject, theliinges whereon 
it turns, and must necessarily be reformed. " Tor anger stirs choler, heats 
the blood and vital spirits; sorrow on the other side refrigerates the body, 
and extinguisheth natural heat, overthrows appetite, hinders concoction, dries 
up the temperature, and perverts the understanding:" fear dissolves the 
spirits, infects the heart, attenuates the soul : and for these causes all passions 
and perturbations must, to the utmost of our power and most seriously, be 
removed, ^lianus Montaltus attributes so much to them, " Hhat he holds the 
rectification of them alone to be sufficient to the cure of melancholy in most 
patients." Many are fully cured when they have seen or heard, &c., enjoy 
their desires, or be secured and satisfied in their minds; Galen, the common 
master of them all, from whose fountain they fetch water, brags, lib. 1. desan. 
tuend., that he, for his part, hath cured divers of this infirmity, solum animis 
ad rectum institutis, by right settling alone of their minds. 

Yea, but you will here infer, that this is excellent good indeed if it could 
be done; but how shall it be efiected, by whom, what art, what means? hie 
labor, hoc opus est. 'Tis a natural infirmity, a most powerful adversary, all 
men are subject to passions, and melancholy above all others, as being distem- 
pered by their innate humours, abundance of choler adust, weakness of parts, 
outward occurrences; and how shall they be avoided? the wisest men, greatest 
philosophers of most excellent wit, reason, judgment, divine spirits, cannot 
moderate themselves in this behalf; snch as are sound in body and mind, 
Stoics, heroes, Homer's gods, all are passionate, and furiously carried some- 
times; and how shall we that are already cvSiZQd., fracti animis, sick in body, 
sick in mind, resist? we cannot perform it. You may advise and give good 
precepts, as who cannot? But how shall they be put in practice? I may not 
deny but our passions are violent, and tyrannise of us, yet there be means to 
curb them; though they be headstrong, they may be tamed, they may be 
qualified, if he himself or his friends will but use their honest endeavours, or 
make use of such ordinary helps as are commonly prescribed. 

Pie himself (I say) ; from the patient himself the first and chiefest remedy 
must be had; for if he be averse, peevish, waspish, give way wholly to his 
passions, will not seek to be helped, or be ruled by his friends, how is it pos- 
sible he should be cured ? But if he be willing, at least, gentle, tractable, and 
desire his own good, no doubt but he may magnam morbi deponere partem, be 
eased at least, if not cured. He himself must do his utmost endeavour to 
resist and withstand the beginnings. Frincipiis obsta, " Give not water pas- 
sage, no not a little," Ecclus. xxv. 27. If they open a little, they will make a 
greater breach at length. Whatsoever it is that runneth in his mind, vain 
conceit, be it pleasing or displeasing, which so much affects or troubleth him, 
" " by all possible means he must withstand it, expel those vain, false, frivo- 
lous imaginations, absurd conceits, feigned fears and sorrows; from which," 
saith Piso, " this disease primarily proceeds, and takes his first occasion or 
beginning, by doing something or other that shall be opposite unto them, 
thinking of something else, persuading by reason, or howsoever to make a sud- 
den alteration of them." Though he have hitherto run in a full career, and 
precipitated himself, following his passions, giving reins to his appetite, let him 

^Ira bilem movet, sanguinem adurit, vitales spiritus accendit, moestitia universurn corpus infrigidat, 
calorem innatura extinguit, appetitum destruit, concoctionem impedit, corpus exsiccat, intellectum pervertit. 
Quamobrem litec omnia prorsus vitanda sunt, et pro virili fugienda. 'De inel. cap. 26. ex illis solum reme- 
dium; muiti ex visis, auditis, &c. sanati sunc. mPro viribus annitendum in praedictis, tum in aliis, a quibus 
malum velut h primaria causa occasionem nactum est, imaginationes absurdse falsseque et moestitia quas- 
cunque subierit propulsetur, aut aliud agendo, aut ratione persuadendo earum mutationem subitb facere. 



3G0 



Cure of Mdanclioly. 



[Part. 2. Sec. 2. 



*'p Tu tamen interea effiigito quce tristia mentem 
Solicitant, procul esse jubecurasque metumque 
Pallentem, ultrices iras, sint omnia Luta." 



now stop upon a sudden, curb himself in; and as "Lemnius advisetli, "strive 
against with all his power, to the utmost of his endeavour, and not cherish 
those fond imaginations, which so covertlj creep into his mind, most pleasing 
and amiable at first, but bitter as gall at last, and so headstrong, that by no 
reason, art, counsel, or persuasion, they may be shaken off." Though he be far 
gone, and habituated unto such fantastical imaginations, yet as °Tully and 
Plutarch advise, let him oppose, fortify, or prepare himself against them, by 
premeditation, reason, or as we do by a crooked staff, bend himself another 
way. 

" In the meantime expel them from thy mind, 
Pale fears, sad cares, and griefs which do it grind, 
Revengefnl anger, pain and discontent, 
Let all thy soul be set on merriment." 

Curas tolle graves, irasci crede 'profanum. If it be idleness hath caused this 
infirmity, or that he perceive himself given to solitariness, to walk alone, and 
please his mind with fcmd imaginations, let him by all means avoid it ; 'tis a 
bosom enemy, 'tis delightful melancholy, a friend in show, but a secret devil, 
a sweet poison, it will in the end be his undoing; let him go presently, task or 
set himself a work, get some good company. If he proceed, as a gnat flies about 
a candle so long till at length he burn his body, so in the end he will undo 
himself: if it be any harsh object, ill company, let him presently go from it. 
If by his ovv^n default, through ill diet, bad air, want of exercise, &c., let him 
now begin to reform himself. " It would be a perfect remedy against all cor- 
ruption, if," as *^ Roger Bacon hath it, " we could but moderate ourselves in 
those six non-natural things." " ''If it be any disgrace, abuse, temporal loss, 
calumny, death of friends, imprisonment, banishment, be not troubled with it, 
do not fear, be not angry, grieve not at it, but with all courage sustain it." 
(Gordonius, Uh. \. c. 15. de conser. vit). Tu contra audentior ito. ^If it be sick- 
ness, ill success, or any adversity that hath caused it, oppose an invincible 
courage, " fortify thyself by God's word, or otherwise," mala bonis persuadenda, 
set prosperity against adversity, as we refresh our eyes by seeing some plea- 
sant meadow, fountain, picture, or the like : recreate thy mind by some contrary 
object, with some more pleasing meditation divert thy thoughts. 

Yea, but you infer again, facile consilium damns aliis, we can easily give 
counsel to others ; every man, as the saying is, can tame a shrew but he that 
hath her; si Mc esses, aliter sentires; if you were in our misery, you would find 
it otherwise, 'tis not so easily performed. We know this to be true; we should 
moderate ourselves, but we are furiously carried, we cannot make use of such 
l^recepts, we are overcome, sick, Quale sani, di^stempered and habituated to these 
courses, we can make no resistance; you may as well bid him that is diseased 
not to feel pain, as a melancholy man not to fear, not to be sad : 'tis within his 
blood, his brains, his whole temperature, it cannot be removed. But he may 
choose whether he will give way too far unto it, he may in some sort correct 
himself. A philosopher was bitten with a mad dog, and as the nature of that 
disease is to abhor all waters, and liquid things, and to think still they see the 
picture of a dog before them : he went for all this, reluctaiite se, to the bath, 
and seeing there (as he thought) in the water the picture of a dog, with reason 
overcame this conceit, quid cani cum halneo 2 what should a dog do in a bath? 
a mere conceit. Thou thinkest thou hearest and seest devils, black men, &c., 

"Lib. 2. c. 16. de occult, nat. Quisquis huicmalo obnoxius est, acriter obsistat, etsnmmacuraobluctetur, 
nee ullo modo foveat imaginationes tacite obrepentes animo, blandas ab initio et amabiles, sed quae adeo 
convalescunt, ut nulla ratione excuti queant. 03 Tusc. ad Apollonium. p Fracastorius. ^Epist. 
de secretis artis et nature cap. 7. de retard, sen. Remedium esset contra corrnptionem propriara, si quilibet 
exerceret regimen sanitatis, quod consistit in rebus sex non naturalibus. ""Pro aliquo vituperio non indig- 
neris, nee pro amissione aliciyus rei, pro morte alicujus, nee pro carcere, nee pro exilio, nee pro alia re, nee 
i'-ascaris, nee timeas, nee doleas, sed cum summa prsesentia hiec sustineas. « Quodsi incomraoda adver- 

•&i;atis infortunia hoc malum invexerint, his iufractmn auimum opponas, Dei verbo ej usque fiducia te 
suffulcius, &c. LemniuSj lib. 1. c. Iti. 



Mem. 6. Subs. 1.] Passions rcctifitd. 3G1 

'tis not so, 'tis tliy corrupt fantasy ; settle thine imagination, thou art well. 
Thou thinkest thou hast a great nose, thou art sick, every man observes thee, 
laughs thee to scorn ; persuade thyself 'tis no such matter : this is fear only, 
and vain suspicion. Thou art discontent, thou art sad and heavy; but why? 
upon what ground? consider of it: thou art jealous, timorous, suspicious; for 
what cause? examine it thoroughly, thou shalt find none at all, or such as is 
to be contemned, such as thou wilt surely deride, and contemn in thyself, when 
it is past. E-ule thyself then with reason, satisfy thyself, accustom thyself, 
wean thyself from such fond conceits, vain fears, strong imaginations, restless 
thoughts. Thou mayest do it ; Est in nobis assuescere (as Plutarch saith), we 
may frame ourselves as we will. As he that useth an upright shoe, may cor- 
rect the obliquity, or crookedness, by wearing it on the other side; we may 
overcome passions if we will. Quicqicid sibi imperavit animus obtinuit (as 
* Seneca saith) nvlli tamferi ajfectas, ut non disciplindperdomeutur,w\iSitsoeYer 
the will desires, she may command : no such cruel affections, but by discipline 
they may be tamed ; voluntarily thou wilt not do this or that, which thou 
oughtest to do, or refrain, <fec., but when thou art lashed like a dull jade, thou 
wilt reform it; fear of a whip will make thee do, or not do. Do that volun- 
tarily then which thou canst do, and must do by compulsion : thou mayest 
refrain if thou wilt, and master thine affections. " " As in a city (saith 
Melancthon) they do by stubborn rebellious rogues, that will not submit 
themselves to political judgment, compel them by force; so must we do 
by our affections. If the heart will not lay aside those vicious motions, and 
the fantasy those fond imaginations, we have another form of government to 
enforce and refrain our outward members, that they be not led by our pas- 
sions. If appetite will not obey, let the moving faculty overrule her, let her 
resist and compel her to do otherwise." In an ague the appetite would drink ; 
sore eyes that itch would be rubbed; but reason saith no, and therefore the 
moving faculty will not do it. Our fantasy would intrude a thousand fears, 
suspicions, chimeras upon us, but we have reason to resist, yet we let it be 
overborne by our appetite ; '•' "^ imagination enforceth spirits, which, by an 
admirable league of nature, compel the nerves to obey, and they our several 
limbs:" we give too much way to our passions. And as to him that is sick 
of an ague, all things are distasteful and unpleasant, non ex cibi vitio, saith 
Plutarch, not in the meat, but in our taste : so many things are offensive to 
us, not of themselves, but out of our corrupt judgment, jealousy, suspicion, 
and the like; we pull these mischiefs upon our own heads. 

If then our judgment be so depraved, our reason overruled, will precipi- 
tated, that we cannot seek our own good, or moderate ourselves, as in this 
disease commonly it is, the best way for ease is to impart our misery to some 
friend, not to smother it up in our own breast; aliticrvitium crescitque tegendo, 
&c., and that which was most offensive to us, a cause of fear and grief, quod 
nunc te coquit, another hell; for ^ Strang ulat indusus dolor atque excestuat 
intus, grief concealed strangles the soul ; but when as we shall but impart it 
to some discreet, trusty, loving friend, it is ' instantly removed, by his counsel 
happily, wisdom, persuasion, advice, his good means, which we could not 
otherwise apply unto ourselves. A friend's counsel is a charm, like man- 
drake wine, curas sopit; and as a * bull that is tied to a fig-tree becomes 
gentle on a sudden (which some, saith ^ Plutarch, interpret of good words), 

t Lib. 2. de Ira. " Cap. 3. de affect, anim. Ut in civitatibus contumaces qui non cedunt politico 

impei\o vi coercendi sunt; ita Deus nobis ind.dit alteram imper.i formam ; si cor non deponit vitiosum 
affectum, membra foras coercenda sunt, ne ruant in quod atfectus impellat ; et locomotiva, quie herili 
imperio obtemperat, alteri resistat. ^ Imaginati.) impellit spiritus, et inde nervi moventur, &c. et 

obtemperant imaginationi et appetitui mirabili foedere, ad exequendam quod jubeut. y Ovid. Trist. 

lib. 5. ^Farticipes inde calamitatis nostriB sunt, et velut exonerata in eos sarcina onerc levamur. 

Ai-ist. Eth. lib. 9. » Camerarius, Embl. 26. cent. 2. b Sympos. lib. G. cap. 10. 



362 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

so is a savage, obdurate heart mollified hj fair speeches. "All adversity finds 
ease in complaining (as ° Isidore holds), and 'tis a solace to relate it," 
^ ^Ayadr; ds -ra^a/^ac/g s^riv srai^ov. Friends' confabulations are comfortable 
at all times, as fire in winter, shade in summer, quale sopor fessis in gramiae, 
meat and drink to him that is hungry or abhirstj Democritus's collyrium is 
not so sovereign to the eyes as this is to the heart; good words are cheerful 
and powerful of themselves, but much more from friends, as so many props, 
mutually sustaining each other like ivy and a wall, which Camerarius hath 
well illustrated in an emblem. Lenit ardmum simplex vel scepe narratio, the 
simple narration many times easeth our distressed mind, and in the midst of 
greatest extremities ; so diverse have been relieved, by ^ exonerating them- 
selves to a faithful friend : he sees that which we cannot see for passion and 
discontent, be pacifies our minds, he will ease our pain, assuage our anger; 
quanta inde voluptas, quanta securitas, Chrysostom adds, what pleasure, what 
security by that means ! " ^ Nothing so available, or that so much refresheth 
the soul of man." TuUy, as I remember, in an epistle to his dear friend 
Atticus, much condoles the defect of such a friend. " ^ I live here (saith he) 
in a great city, where I have a multitude of acquaintance, but not a man of 
all that company with whom I dare familiarly breathe, or freely jest. Where- 
fore I expect thee, I desire thee, I send for thee ; for there be many things 
which trouble and molest me, which had I but thee in presence, I could 
quickly disburden myself of in a walking discourse." The like, peradventure, 
may he and he say with that old man in the comedy, 

**Nemo est meorum amicomm hodie, 
Apud quern expromere occulta mea audeam," ^ 

and much inconvenience may both he and he suffer in the meantime by it. 
lie or he, or whosoever then labours of this malady, by all means let him 
get some trusty friend, 'Semper hahens Pylademque aliquem qui curet Orestem, a 
Pylades, to whom freely and securely he may open himself. For as in all other 
occurrences, so it is in this. Si quis in ccelum ascendisset, &c., as he said in 
^ Tully, if a man had gone to heaven, " seen the beauty of the skies," stars 
errant, fixed, &c., insuavis erit admiratio, it will do him no pleasure, except 
he have somebody to impart to what he hath seen. It is the best thing in the 
world, as ^ Seneca therefore adviseth in such a case, " to get a trusty friend, 
to whom we may freely and sincerely pour out our secrets; nothing so de- 
lighteth and easeth the mind, as when we have a prepared bosom, to which 
our secrets may descend, of whose conscience we are assured as^ our own, 
whose speech may ease our succourless estate, counsel relieve, mirth expel 
our mourning, and whose very sight may be acceptable unto us." It was 
the counsel which that politic "" Commineus gave to all princes, and others 
distressed in mind, by occasion of Charles Duke of Burgundy, that was much 
perplexed, " first to pray to God, and lay himself open to him, and then to 
some special friend, whom we hold most dear, to tell all our grievances to 
liim; nothing so forcible to strengthen, recreate, and heal the wounded soul 
of a miserable man." 

c Epist. 8. lib. 3. Adversa fortuna habot in querelis leTamentum ; et malorum relatio, &c. <> Alloquium 
cliai 1 juvat, et solamen amici. Emblem. 54. cent. I . « As David did to Jonathan, 1 Sam. ^x. J beneca, 
eSs 67. « Hie in civitate magna et turba magna nerainem reperire possumus .^^ocum suspu-are farm. 
Siriter aut jocari libera possimus. Quare te expectamus, te desideramus, te arcessmius. Multa sunt f mm 
qSmesolicitantetangunt,qu^mibi videor aures tuas nactus, unius ambulatioms sermone exhaume 
posse. h"i have nota single friend this day to whom I dare disclose my secrets. 'r'.i^f^^i; 

amicitia. i De tranquil, c. 7. Optimum est amicum fidelem nancisci m quern secreta ^^tra infunda- 

Zs nihil »que oblectat animum, quam ubi sint pr^^parata pectora, in qu^ *^^^J'''n?riii''htraS 
quorum conscientia *que ac tua : quorum sermo solitudinem leniat sententia «°"«^' X..amus et peSarts 
tristitiam dissipet, conspectusque ipse delectet. - Comment. 1. 7. Ad Deum f i^^^Sf '"^f> ^f P"^^^^'^ 

veniara preceniur, inde ad amicos, et cui plurimum tribuiraus, nos patefaciamus totos, et animi vulnub quo 
afiiigimur : nihil ad reficieudum animum efficacius. 



Mem. 6. Subs. 2.] 3Ilnd rectified. 303 



SuBSECT. II. — Help from friends hy counsel, coinf>rt, fair and foul rtieans^ 
witty devices^ satisfaction, alteration of Ids course of life, removing objects., d'c. 

When tlie patient of himself is not able to resist, or overcome these heart- 
eating passions, his friends or physician must be ready to supply that which i.s 
wanting. /Su(^ erit humanitatis et sapientice (which °Tully enjoineth in like 
case) siquid erratum, curare, aut improvisum, sua diligentid corrigere. Tliey 
must all join; nee satis medico, saith "Hippocrates, suumfecisse oflciam, nisi 
suum quoqae cegrotus, suum astantes, &c. First, they must especially beware, 
a melancholy discontented person (be it in what kind of melancholy soever) 
never be left alone or idle : but as pliysicians prescribe physic, cum custodid, 
let them not be left unto themselves, but with some company or other, lest by 
that means they aggravate and increase their disease ; non oporlet cegros hu- 
jusmodi esie solos val inter ignotos, vel inter eos quos non amant aut negligunt, 
as Kod. a Eonseca, torn. 1. consul. 35. prescribes. Lugentes custodire solemus 
(saith P Seneca) ne solitudine male utantur; we watch a sorrowful person, lest 
he abuse his solitariness, and so should we do a melancholy man ; set him about 
some business, exercise or recreation, which may divert his thoughts, and still 
keep him otherwise intent; for his fantasy is so restless, operative and quick, 
that if it be not in perpetual action, ever employed, it will work upon itself, 
melancholise, and be carried away instantly, with some fear, jealousy, discon- 
tent, suspicion, some vain conceit or other. If his weakness be such that he 
cannot discern what is amiss, correct, or satisfy, it behoves them by counsel, 
comfort, or persuasion, by fair or foul means, to aliena,te his mind, by some 
artificial invention, or some contrary persuasion, to remove all objects, causes, 
companies, occasions, as may any ways molest him, to humour him, please 
him, divert him, and if it be possible, by altering his course of life, to give 
him security and satisfaction. If he conceal his grievances, and will not 
be known of them, " '^they must observe by his looks, gestures, motions, 
fantasy, what it is that offends," and then to apply remedies unto him : many 
are instantly cured, when their minds are satisfied. 'Alexander makes mention 
of a woman, " that by reason of her husband's long absence in travel, was 
exceeding peevish and melancholy, but when she heard her husband was re- 
turned, beyond all expectation, at the first sight of him, she was freed from 
ail fear, without help of any other physic restored to her former health.'* 
Trincavellius, consil. 12. lib. 1. hath such a story of a Venetian, that being much 
troubled with melancholy, "*and ready to die for grief, when he heard his wife 
was brought to bed of a son, instantly recovered." As Alexander concludes, 
"'If our imaginations be not inveterate, by this art they may be cured, 
especially if they proceed from such a cause." No better way to satisfy, than 
to remove the object, cause, occasion, if by any art or means possible we may 
find it out. If he grieve, stand in fear, be in suspicion, suspense, or any way 
molested, secure him, Solvitur malum, give him satisfaction, the cure is ended; 
alter his course of life, there needs no other physic. If the party be sad, or 
otherwise affected, "consider (saith "Trallianus) the manner of it, all circum- 
stances, and forthwith make a sudden alteration," by removing the occasions, 
avoid all terrible objects, heard or seen, '""monstrous and prodigious aspects," 
tales of devils, spirits, ghosts, tragical stories ; to such as are in fear they 
strike a great impression, renewed many times, and recall such chimeras 

n Ep. Q. frat. ° Aphor. prim. p Epist. 10. q Observando motus, gestus, manus, pedes, oculos, 

phantasiam, Piso. ^ Mulier melancholia correpta ex longa viri peregrinatione, et iracuude omnibus 

respondens, quum maritus domum reversus, prjEter spem, &c. ' Prse dolore moriturus qunm nunciatura 
esset uxorem peperisse flliura subito recuperavit. » Nisi affectus longo tempore infestaverit, tali artificio 
imaginationes curare oportet, pra?sertim ubi malum ab his velut a primaria causa occasionem habiierit. 
" Lib. 1. cap. 16. Si ex tristitia aut alio atfectu coeperit, speciem coiisidera, aut aliud q^uid eorum, quae subi- 
tam alterationem facere possuut. * Evitandi monstritici aspectus, &c. 



3G4 Cure of Melamhdy. [] 

and terrible fictions into their minds. "''Make not so nracli as mention of 
them in private talk, or a dumb show tending to that purpose : such things 
(saith Galateus) are offensive to their imaginations." And to those that are 
now in sorrow, ''Seneca "forbids all sad companions, and such as lament; a 
groaning companion is an enemy to quietness." *0r if there be any such party," 
at whose presence the patient is not well pleased, he must be removed : gentle 
speeches, and fair means, must first be tried; no harsh language used, or 
uncomfortable words ; and not expel, as some do, one madness with another ; 
lie that so doth, is madder than the patient himself : " all things must be 
quietly composed ; eversa non evertenda,sed erigenda, things down must not be 
dejected, but reared, as Crato counselleth ; " ^he must be quietly and gently 
used," and we should not do any thing against his mind, but by little and little 
effect it. As a horse that starts at a drum or trumpet, and will not endure the 
shooting of a piece, may be so manned by art, and animated, that he can not 
only endure, but is much more generous at the hearing of such things, much 
more courageous than before, and much delighteth in it : they must not be re- 
formed, ex ahrupto, but by all art and insinuation, made to such companies, 
aspects, objects they could not formerly away with. Many at first cannot 
endure the sight of a green wound, a sick man, which afterward become good 
chirurgeons, bold empirics : a horse starts at a rotten post afar off, which coming 
near he quietly passeth. 'Tis much in the manner of making such kind of 
persons, be they never so averse from company, bashful, solitary, timorous, 
they may be made at last with those Koman matrons, to desire nothing more 
than in a public show, to see a full company of gladiators breathe out their last. 
If they may not otherwise be accustomed to brook such distasteful and dis- 
pleasing objects, the best way then is generally to avoid them. Montanus, 
consil. 229. to the Earl of Montfort, a courtier, and his melancholy patient, 
adviseth him to leave the court, by reason of those continual discontents, crosses, 
abuses, " ^ cares, suspicions, emulations, ambition, anger, jealousy, which that 
place afibrded, and which surely caused him to be so melancholy at the first : " 
Maxima qumque domus servis est plena superhis ; a company of scoffers and 
proud jacks are commonly conversant and attendant in such places, and able to 
make any man that is of a soft, quiet disposition (as many times they do) ex stuUo 
insanum, if once they humour him, a veryidiot, or starkmad. Athingtoo much 
practised in all common societies, and they have no better sport than to make 
themselves merry by abusing some silly fellow, or to take advantage of another 
man's weakness. In such cases as in a plague, the best remedy is cito, lorige, 
tarde : (for to such a party, especially if he be apprehensive, there can be no 
greater misery) to get him quickly gone farenough off, and not to be over-hasty 
in his return. If he be so stupid that he do not apprehend it, his friends should 
take some order, and by their discretion supply that which is wanting in him, 
as in all other cases they ought to do. If they see a man melancholy given, 
solitary, averse from company, please himself with such private and vain 
meditations, though he delight in it, they ought by all means seek to divert 
him, to dehort him, to tell him of the event and danger that may come of it. 
If they see a man idle, that by reason of his means otherwise will betake him- 
self to no course of life, they ought seriously to admonish him, he makes a 
noose to entangle himself, his want of employment will be his undoing. If he 
have sustained any great loss, suffered a repulse, disgrace, &c., if it be possible, 

y Neque enim tam actio, aut recordatio rerum Imjusmodi displicet, sed iis vel gestas alterius Imaginationi 
adumbrare, vehementer malestum. Galat. de mor. cap. 7. ^Tranquil. PriBcipue vitentur tristes, et 

omnia deplorantes; tranquiUitati inimicus est comes perturbatus, omnia gemens. » Illorum quoquc 

liominura, a quorum consortio abhorrent, priesentia amovenda, nee sermonibus ingratis obtundendi ; si quis 
insaniam ab insania sic curari sestimet, et proterve utitur, magis quam aeger insanit. Crato, consil. 184. 
. Scoltzii. •> Molliter ac suaviter seger tractetur, nee ad ea adigatur qu e non curat. 'Ob suspicioncs, 

curas, aemulationem, aiiibitionem, iras, &c. quas locus iUe ministrat, et quae fycissent melanchoiicuin. ■, 



Mem. G. Subs. 2.] Mind rectified. 3G5 

relieve him. If lie desire auglit, let him be safcisaed ; if in suspense, fear, 
suspicion, let him be secured : and if it may conveniently be, give him his 
heart's content; for the body cannot be cured till the mind be satisfied. 
^Socrates, in Plato, would prescribe no physic for Charmides' headache, " till 
first he had eased his troubled mind; body and soul must be cured together, 
as head and eyes." 

" e Oculura non curabis sine toto capite, 
Nee caput sine toto corpore, 
Nee totum corpus sine anima." 

If that may not be hoped or expected, yet ease him with comfort, cheerful 
speeches, fair promises, and good words, persuade him, advise him. " Many," 
saith ^G-alen, " have been cured by good counsel and persuasion alone." "Hea- 
viness of the heart of man doth bring it down, but a good word rejoiceth it," 
Prov. xii. 25. " And there is he that speaketh words like the pricking of a 
sword, but the tongue of a wise man is health," ver. 18. Oratio namque 
saucii animi est 7'emedium, a gentle speecli is the true cure of a wounded soul, 
as ^Plutarch contends out of ^schylus and Euripides: "if it be wisely 
administered it easeth grief and pain, as diverse remedies do many other 
diseases." 'Tis incantationis instar, a charm, cestuantis animi refrigerium, that 
true Nepenthe of Homer, which was no Indian plant, or feigned medicine, 
which Epidamna, Thonis' wife, sent Helena for a token, as Macrobius,7.*S'a^wr- 
nal., Goropius Hermat. lib. 9., Greg. ISTazianzen, and others suppose, but oppor- 
tunity of speech : for Helena's bowl, Medea's unction, Venus's girdle, Circe's 
cup, cannot so enchant, so forcibly move or alter as it doth. A letter sent or 
read will do as much ; multum cdlevor quum tu:ts literas lego, I am much eased, 
as ^TuUy wrote to Pomponius Atticus, when I read thy letters, and as Julian us 
the Apostate once signified to Maximus the philosopher; as Alexander slept 
with Homer s works, so do I with thine epistles, tcmquam Fceoniis medicamentis, 
easque assidue tanquam recentes et novas iteramus; scribe ergo, et assidue 
scribe, or else come thyself; ami'ius ad aniicum venies. Assuredly a wise and 
well-spoken man may do what he will in such a case; a good orator alone, as 
' TuUy holds, can alter affections by power of his eloquence, " comfort such as 
are afflicted, erect such as are depressed, expel and mitigate fear, lust, anger,'* 
&c. And how powerful is the charm of a discreet and dear friend? Ille I'cgit 
dictis aninios et temperat iras. What may not he eflecf? As '^Chremes told 
Menedemus, " Fear not, conceal it not, O friend ! but tell me what it is that 
troubles thee, and I shall surely help thee by comfort, counsel, or in the matter 
itself." ^ Arnoldua, lib. 1. breviar. cap. 18. speaks of a usurer in his time, that 
upon a loss, much melancholy and discontent, was so cured. As imagination, 
fear, grief, cause such passions, so conceits alone, rectified by good hope, 
counsel, &c., are able again to help : and 'tis incredible how much they can do 
in such a case, as ""Trincavellius illustrates by an example of a patient of his ; 
Porphyrins, the philosopher, in Plotinus's life (written by him), relates, that 
being in a discontented humour through insufierable anguish of mind, he was 
going to make away himself: but meeting by chance his master Plotinus, who 
perceiving by his distracted looks all was not well, urged him to confess his 
grief: which when he had heard, he used such comfortable speeches, that he 
redeemed him efaucibus Erebi, pacified his unquiet mind, insomuch that he 

dNisi prius animum turbatissimum curasset; oculi sine capite, nee corpus sine animi curari potest, 
e E Grteco. " You shall not cure the eye, unless you cure the whole head also ; nor the head, unless the wliole 
body; nor the whole body, unless the soul besides." '"Et nos non paucos sanaviinus, animi motibus ad 

debitum revocatis, lib. 1. de sanit. tuend. gConsol. ad Apollonium. Si quis sapienter et suo tempore 

adhibeat, Remedia morbis diversis diversa sunt; dolentem sermo benignus sublevat. ^ Lib. 12. Epist. 

'De nat. deorum consolatur afflictos, deducit perterritos a timore, cupiditates imprimis, et iracundias com- 
prirait. ^ Heauton. Act. 1. Seen. I. Nc metue, ne verere, crede inquam mihi, aut consolando, aut 

consilio, autre juvero. 'Novi fceneratorem avarum apud meos sic curatam, qui mulcam pecuuliim 

amiserat. >"Lib. 1. consil. 12. Incredibile dictu quantum juvent. ■* 



3GG Cure of Melancholy, [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

was easily reconciled to himself, and much abashed to think afterwards tliat 
he should ever entertain so vile a motion. Bj all means, therefore, fair pro- 
mises, good words, gentle persuasions, are to be used, not to be too rigorous at 
first, "°or to insult over them, not to deride, neglect, or contemn, but rather," 
as Lemnius exhorteth, " to pity, and by all plausible means to seek to redress 
them :" but if satisfaction may not be had, mild courses, promises, comfortable 
speeches, and good counsel will not take place ; then as Christopherus a Vega 
determines, lib. 3. cap. 14. de Mel. to handle them more roughly, to threaten 
and chide, saith " Altomarus, terrify sometimes, or as Salvianus will have them, 
to be lashed and whipped, as we do by a starting horse, ^that is affrighted 
without a cause, or as *^E.hasis adviseth, "one while to speak fair and flatter, 
another while to terrify and chide, as they shall see cause." 

When none of these precedent remedies will avail, it will not be amiss, 
which Savanarola and -^lian Montaltus so much commend, clavum clavo 
pellere, " '"to drive out one passion with another, or by sdme contrary passion," 
as they do bleeding at nose by letting blood in the arm, to expel one fear with 
another, one grief with another. * Christopherus ^ Vega accounts it rational 
physic, nan alienum a ratione : and Lemnius much approves it, " to use a hard 
wedge to a hard knot," to drive out one disease with another, to pull out a 
tooth, or wound him, to geld him, saith ^Platerus, as they did epileptical 
patients of old, because it quite alters the temperature, that the pain of the 
one may mitigate the grief of the other; " "and I knew one that was so cured 
of a quartan ague, by the sudden coming of his enemies upon him." If we may 
believe ''Pliny, whom Scaliger calls mendaciorum patrem, the father of lies, 
Q. Fabius Maximus, that renowned consul of Rome, in a battle fought with 
the king of the AUobroges, at the river Isaurus, was so rid of a quartan ague. 
Valesius, in his controversies, holds this an excellent remedy, and if it be 
discreetly used in this malady, better than any physic. 

Sometimes again by some ^feigned lie, strange news, witty device, artificial 
invention, it is not amiss to deceive them. '""As they hate those," saith 
Alexander, " that neglect or deride, so they will give ear to such as will soothe 
them up. If they say they have swallowed frogs or a snake, by all means grant 
it, and tell them you can easily cure it; 'tis an ordinary thing. Philodotus, 
the physician, cured a melancholy king, that thought his head was off, by 
putting a leaden cap thereon; the weight made him perceive it, and freed him 
of his fond imagination. A woman, in the said Alexander, swallowed a serpent 
as she thought ; he gave her a vomit, and conveyed a serpent, such as she 
conceived, into the basin; upon the sight of it she was amended. The plea- 
santest dotage that ever I read, saith *Laurentius, was of a gentleman at 
Senes in Italy, who was afraid to piss, lest all the town should be drowned ; 
the physicians caused the bells to be rung backward, and told him the town was 
on fire, whereupon he made water, and was immediately cured. Another sup- 
posed his nose so big, that he should dash it against the wall if he stirred ; his 
physician took a great piece of flesh, and holding it in his hand, pinched him by 
the nose, making him believe that flesh was cut from it. Forestus, obs. lib. 1. 
had a melancholy patient, who thought he was dead, " ^ he put a fellow in a 

n Nemo istiusmodi conditionis hominibus insultet, aut in illos sit severior, vernra miseriae potius indo- 
lescat, vicemquedeploret. lib. 2. cap. 16. "Cap. 7. Idem Piso Laurentius, cap. 8. P Quod timet nihil 

est, ubi cogitur et videt. ^ Una vice blandiantur, una vice iisdem terrorem incutiant. "^Si vero 

fuerit ex novo maJo audito, vel ex anirai accidente, aut de amissione merciura, aut morte amici, introdii- 
cantur nova contraria his quee ipsum ad gaudia moveant; de hoc semper niti debemus, »fec. » Lib. 3 

cap. 14. * Cap. 3. Castratio dim k veteribus usa in morbis desperatis, &c. " Lib. 1. cap. 5. sic 

morbum morbo, ut clavum clavo, retundimus, et malo nodo malum cuneum adhibemus. Novi ego qui ex 
subito hostium incursu et inopi nato timore quartanam depulerat. ^ Lib. 7. cap. 50. In acie pugnans 

febre quartana liberatus est. yJacchinus, c. 15. in 9. Rhasis, Mont. cap. 26. * Lib. I. cap. 16. aversantar 
eos qui eorum affectus rident, contemnunt. Si ranas et viperas comedisse se putant, concedere debemus, 
et spem de cura facere. * Cap. 8. de mel. '■ Cistam posuit ex Mcdicorura consilio prope eum, in qaeia 
alium se mortuum fingentem posuit; hie in cista jacens, &c. 



Mem. G. Subs. 3.] Perturhatlons redifi^J. 367 

chest, like a dead man, by his bedside, and made him rear himself a little, 
and eat : the melancholy man asked the counterfeit, whether dead men use 
to eat meat? He told him yea; whereupon he did eat likewise and was cured." 
Lemnius, lib. 2. cap. 6. de 4. complex, hath many such instances, and Jovianus 
Pontanus, lib. 4. cap. 2. of Wisd. of the like : but amongst the rest I find one 
most memorable, registered in the Trench chronicles of an advocate of Paris 
before mentioned, who believed verily he was dead, &c. I read a multitude 
of examples of melancholy men cured by such artificial inventions. 

SuBSECT. III. — Music a remedy. 

Many and sundry are the means which philosophers and physicians have 
prescribed to exhilarate a sorrowful heart, to divert those fixed and intent 
cares and meditations, which in this malady so much offend; but in my 
judgment none so present, none so powerful, none so apposite as a cup of 
strong drink, mirth, music, and merry company. Ecclus. xl. 20. " Wine and 
music rejoice the heart." "^Rhasis, cont. 9. Tract. 15, Altomarus, cap. 7, 
^lianus Montaltus, c. 2Q, Ficinus, Bened. Victor. Faventinns are almost 
immoderate in the commendation of it; a most forcible medicine ^Jacchinus 
calls it: Jason Pratensis, "a most admirable thing, and worthy of consider- 
ation, that can so mollify the mind, and stay those tempestuous affections of 
it." Musica est mentis medicina mcestce, a roaring-meg against melancholy, 
to rear and revive the languishing soul; "^affecting not only the ears, but 
the very arteries, the vital and animal spirits, it erects the mind, and makes 
it nimble." Lemnius, instit. cap. 44. This it will effect in the most dull, 
severe and sorrowful souls, " ^ expel grief with mirth, and if there be any 
clouds, dust, or dregs of cares yet lurking in our thoughts, most powerfully it 
wipes them all away," Salisbur. polit. lib. 1. cap. 6, and that which is more, 
it will perform all this in an instant : " ^ Cheer up the countenance, expel 
austerity, bring in hilarity (Girald. Camb. cap. 12. Topog. ^i5er.), inform our 
manners, mitigate anger;" Athenseus {Bipnosophist. lib. 14. cap. 10.), calleth 
it an infinite treasure to such as are endowed with it : Dulcisonum rejlcit 
tristia corda melos, Eobanus Hessus. Many other properties ' Cassiodorus, 
epist. 4. reckons up of tliis our divine music, not only to expel the greatest 
griefs, but "it doth extenuate fears and furies, appeaseth cruelty, abateth 
heaviness, and to such as are watchful it causeth quiet rest; it takes away 
spleen and hatred," be it instrumental, vocal, with strings, wind, ^Qucg a 
spiritu, sine manuum dexteritate gubernetur, &c. it cures all irksomcness and 
heaviness of the soul. 'Labouring men that sing to their work, can tell as 
much, and so can soldiers when they go to fight, whom terror of death cannot 
so much affright, as the sound of trumpet, drum, fife, and such like music 
animates ; metus enim mortis, as ^ Censorinus informeth us, musica depellitur. 
*' It makes a child quiet," the nurse's song, and many times the sound of a 
trumpet on a sudden, bells ringing, a carman's whistle, a boy singing some 
ballad tune early in the street, alters, revives, recreates a restless patient that 
cannot sleep in the night, &c. In a word, it is so powerful a thing that it 
ravisheth the soul, regina sensiium, the queen of the senses, by sweet pleasure 
(which is a happy cure), and corporal tunes pacify our incorporeal soul, siiie 
ore loquens, domiuatwu in animam exercet, and carries it beyond itseit) helps, 

'^ Serres. 1550 d In 9. Rliasis. Magnam vim habet musica. ^ Cap. de Mania. Admiranda profecto 

res est, et digna expensionc, quod sonorum concinnitas mentem emolliac, sistatque procellosas ipsius affec- 
tlones. t Languens animus inde eiigitur et reviviscit, nee tara aures afflcit, sed et sonitu per arterias 

nndique diffuse, spiritus tum vitales tuin animales excitat, mentem reddens agilem. &c. e Musica 

venustate sua mentes severiores capit, &c. ^ Animos tristes subito exhilarat, nubilos vultus serenat, 

austeritatem reponit, jucunditatem exponit, barbariemquo faeit deponere gentes, mores instituit, iracundiain 
mitigat. 'Cithara tristitiam jucundat. timidos furores attenuat, cruentam sevitiam blande reficit, lau- 

guorem, &c. k Pet Aretine. ' Castillo de aulic lib. 1. fol. 27. «• Lib. de Natali, cap. 12. 



3GS Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

elevates, extends it. Scaliger, exercit. 302, gives a reason of these effects, 
" ° because the spirits about the heart take in that trembling and dancing air 
into the body, are moved together, and stirred up with it," or else the mind, 
as some suppose harmonically composed, is roused up at the tunes of music. 
And 'tis not only men that are so affected, but almost all other creatures. 
You know the tale of Hercules Gallus, Orpheus, and Amphion, fmlices animas 
Ovid calls them, that could saxa movere sono testudinis, &c. make stocks and 
stones, as well as beasts and other animals, dance after their pipes : the dog 
and hare, wolf and lamb; vicinumque lupo prcehuit agna lotus; clamosus 
graculus, stridula comix, et Jovis aquila, as Philostratus describes it in his 
images, stood all gaping upon Orpheus ; and ° trees pulled up by the roots 
came to hear him, Et comitem qicercum 2nnus arnica irahit. 

Arion made fishes follow him, vv^hich, as common experience evinceth, ^ are 
much afiected with music. All singing birds are much pleased with it, 
especially nightingales, if we may believe Calcagninus; and bees amongst 
the rest, though they be flying away, when they hear any tingling sound, 
will tarry behind. " "^ Harts, hinds, horses, dogs, bears, are exceedingly de- 
lighted with it." Seal, exerc. 302. Elephants, Agrippa adds, lib. 2. caio. 24, 
and in Lydia in the midst of a lake there be certain floating islands (if ye 
will believe it), that after music will dance. 

But to leave all declamatory speeches in praise 'of divine music, I will 
confine myself to my proper subject: besides that excellent power it hath to 
expel many other diseases, it is a sovereign remedy against ^despair and 
melancholy, and will drive away the devil himself Canus, a Rhodian fiddler, 
in 'Philostratus, when ApoUonius was inquisitive to know what he could do 
with his pipe, told him, " That he would make a melancholy man merry, and 
him that was merry much merrier than before, a lover more enamoured, a 
religious man more devout." Ismenias the Theban, " Chiron the centaur, is 
said to have cured this and many other diseases by music alone: as now they 
do those, saith ^Bodine that are troubled with St. Yitus's Bedlam dance. 
^'Timotheus, the musician, compelled Alexander to skip up and down, and 
leave his dinner (like the tale of the Friar and the Boy), whom Austin, de civ. 
Del, lib. 17. cap. 14. so much commends for it. Who hath not heard how 
David's harmony drove away the evil spirits from king Saul, 1 Sam. xvi. and 
Elisha when he was much troubled by importunate kings, called for a minstrel, 
"and when he played, the hand of the Lord came upon him," 2 Kings iii? 
Censorinus de natali, cap. 12. reports how Asclepiades the physician helped 
many frantic persons by this means, phreneticorum mentes morho turbatas — 
Jason Pratensis, cap. de Mania, hath many examples, how Clinias and 
Empedocles cured some desperately melancholy, and some mad, by this our 
music. Which because it hath such excellent virtues, belike ^Horner brings 
in Phemius playing, and the Muses singing at the banquet of the gods. 
Aristotle, Polit. I. 8. c. 5, Plato 2. de legibus, highly approve it, and so do all 
politicians. The Greeks, Romans, have graced music, and made it one of the 
liberal sciences, though it be now become mercenary. All civil Common- 
wealths allow it,: Cneius Manlius (as ^Livius relates) anno ab urb, cond. 567. 
brought first out of Asia to Borne singing wenches, players, jesters, and all 

n Quod spiritus qui in corde agitant tremulum et subsaltantem recipiunt aerem in pectus, et inde excitantur, 
k spiritu musculi moventur, &c. <> Arbores radicibus avulsse, &c. P M. Carew of Anthony, in descnpt. 
Cornwall, saith of whales, that they will come and show themselves dancing at the sound of a trumpet, tol. 
35. 1. et fol. 154. 2 book. ^De cervo, equo, cane, urso idem compertum; musica afficiuntur. fNumen 
inest numeris. » Ssepe graves morbos modulatum carmen abegit, Et desperatis conciliavit opem. 

♦ Lib. 5. cap. 7. Moerentibus moerorem adimam, la;tantem vero seipso reddam hilariorem, amantem calidiorem, 
religiosum divine numine covreptum, et ad Deos colendos paratiorem. " Natalis Comes Myth. lib. 4. cap. 
12. ^Lib. 5. de rep. Curat Musica furorem Sancti Viti. y Exilire e convivio. Cardan, subtil, liu- lo. 

»■ Iliad. 1. a Libro 9. cap. I . Psaltrias, sambucisiriasque et convivalia ludorum obkctameuta addaa 

epulis ex Asia invexit in urbem. 



Mem. 6. Subs. 4.] Mind rectified by Mirth. &69 

kind of music to their feasts. Your princes, emperors, and persons of any 
quality, maintain it in their courts; no mirth without music. Sir Thomas 
More, in his absokite Utopian commonwealth, allows music as an appendix to 
every meal, and that throughout, to all sorts. Epictetus calls mensam mutam 
prcesepe, a table without music a manger; for "the concert of musicians at a 
banquet, is a carbuncle set in gold; and as the signet of an emerald well 
trimmed with gold, so is the melody of music in a pleasant banquet." Ecclus, 
xxxii. 5, 6. ^ Louis the Eleventh, when he invited Edward the Fourth to 
come to Paris, told him that as a principal part of his entertainment, he should 
hear sweet voices of children, Ionic and Lydian tunes, exquisite music, he 

should have a , and the cardinal of Bourbon to be his confessor, which he 

used as a most plausible argument : as to a sensual man indeed it is, ''Lucian 
in his book, de saltatio7ie,is not ashamed to confess that he took infinite delight 
in singing, dancing, music, women's company, and such like pleasures : '' and 
if thou (saith he) didst but hear them play and dance, I know thou wouldst 
be so well pleased with the object, that thou wouldst dance for company thy- 
self, without doubt thou wilt be taken with it." So Scaliger ingenuously 
confesseth, exercit. 274. " "^I am beyond all measure affected with music, I do 
most willingly behold them dance, I am mightily detained and allured with 
that grace and comeliness of fair women, I am well pleased to be idle amongst 
them." And what young man is not? As it is acceptable and conducing to 
most, so especially to a melancholy man. Provided always, his disease proceed 
not originally from it, that he be not some light inamorato, some idle phan- 
tastic, who capers in conceit all the day long, and thinks of nothing else, but 
how to make jigs, sonnets, madrigals, in commendation of his mistress. In 
such cases music is most pernicious, as a spur to a free horse will make him 
run himself blind, or break his wind; Incitamentuni enim amoris musica, for 
music enchants, as Menander holds, it will make such melancholy persons mad, 
and the sound of those jigs and hornpipes will not be removed out of the 
ears a week after. ^ Plato for this reason forbids music and wine to all 
young men, because they are most part amorous, ne ignis addatur igni, lest 
one fire increase another. Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but 
it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth ; and therefore to such as are dis- 
content, in woe, fear, sorrow, or dejected, it is a most present remedy : it 
expels cares, alters their grieved minds, and easeth in an instant. Otherwise, 
saith ^Plutarch, Musica magis dementat quam vinum ; music makes some 
men mad as a tiger; like Astolphos' horn in Ariosto; or Mercury's golden 
wand in Homer, that made some wake, others sleep, it hath divers efi'ects: 
and ^Theophrastus right well prophesied, that diseases were either procured 
by music or mitigated. 

SuBSECT. I Y. — Mirth and merry company, fair objects, remedies. 

Mirth and merry company may not be separated from music, both con- 
cerning and necessarily required in this business. " Mirth " (saith ^Yives) 
" purgeth the blood, confirms health, causeth a fresh, pleasing and fine colour," 
prorogues life, whets the wit, makes the body young, lively and fit for any 
manner of employment. The merrier the heart the longer the life ; " A 
merry heart is the life of the flesh," Prov. xiv. 30. " Gladness prolongs his 
days," Ecclus. xxx. 22 ; and this is one of the three Salernitan doctors, Dr. 

fe Comineus. « Ista libenter et magna cum voluptate speetare soleo. Et scio te illecebris hisce cap turn 
iri et insuper tripudiaturum, haud dubie demulcebere. ^l-a. musicis supra om3iem fidem capior et 

oblector ; choreas libciitissime aspicio, pulchrarum foeminarum venustate detineor, otiari inter has solutus 
euris possum. « 3. De legibus. ^ Sympos. quest. 5. Musica multos magis dementat quam vinum, 

F Aninii morbi vel tx musica curantur vel inferuntur. ^ Lib. 3. de anima. Lietitia purgat sangainem,, 

valetudinem conservat, colorem inducit floreajtem, nitidum, gratum. ^ 



370 Cure of Melanchohj. [Ptirt. 2. Sec. 2. 

Merryman, Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, ' which cure all diseases Mens hilaris, 

requies, moderata dieta. ^ Goniesius, prcefat lib. 3. desal. gen. is a great mag- 
nifier of honest mirth, by which (saith he) "v/e cure many passions of the mind 
in ourselves, and in our friends; " which ^ Galateus assigns for a cause why we 
love merry companions : and well they deserve it, being that as "^ Magriinus 
holds, a merry companion is better than any music, and as the saying is, comes 
jucundas in via pro vehiculo, as a waggon to him that is wearied on the way. 
Jucunda confahulatio, sales, joci, pleasant discourse, jests, conceits, merry tales, 
melliti verhorum globuli, as Petronius, " Pliny, °Spondanus, PCselius, and many 
good authors plead, are that sole Nepenthes of Homer, Helena's bowl, Venus's 
girdle, so renowned of old "^to expel grief and care, to cause mirth and glad- 
ness of heart, if they be rightly understood, or seasonably applied. In a word, 

" ' Amor, voluptas, Venus, gaudium, I " Gratification, pleasure, love, joy, 

Jocus, ludaSjSermo suavis, suaviatio." | Mirth, sport, pleasant words and no alloy." 

are the true Nepenthes. For these causes our physicians generally prescribe 
this as a principal engine to batter the walls of melancholy, a chief antidote, 
and a sufficient cure of itself. " By all means (saith ^ Mesne) procure mirth to 
these men in such things as are heard, seen, tasted or smelled, or any way 
perceived, and let them have all enticements and fair promises, the sight of 
excellent beauties, attires, ornaments, delightsome passages to distract their 
minds from fear and sorrow, and such things on which they are so fixed and 
intent. *Let them use hunting, sports, plays, jests, merry company," as 
Rhasis prescribes, " which will not let the mind be molested, a cup of good 
drink now and then, hear music, and have such companions with whom they 
are especially delighted ; '^ merry tales or toys, drinking, singing, dancing, and 
whatsoever else may procure mirth : and by no means, saith Guianerius, suffer 
them to be alone. Benedictus Victorius Faventinus, in his empirics, accounts 
it an especial remedy against melancholy, '' "^ to hear and see singing, dancing, 
maskers, mummers, to converse with such merry fellows and fair maids." "For 
the beauty of a woman cheereth the countenance," Ecclus. xxxvi. 22. ^ Beauty 
alone is a sovereign remedy against fear, grief, and all melancholy fits ; a 
charm, as Peter de la Seine and many other writers affirm, a banquet itself; 
he gives instance in discontented Menelaus, that was so often freed by Helena's 
fair face : and ^ TuUy 3 Tusc. cites Epicurus as a chief patron of this tenet. 
To expel griet^ and procure pleasure, sweet smells, good diet, touch, taste, 
embracing, singing, dancing, sports, plays, and above the rest, exquisite beau- 
ties, quibus oculijucunde moventur et animi, are most powerful means, obv'ia 
forma^ to meet or see a fair maid pass by, or to be in company with her. He found 
it by experience, and made good use of it in his own person, if Plutarch belie 
him not ; for he reckons up the names of some more elegant pieces; *Leontia, 
Boedina, Hedieia, Nicedia, that were frequently seen in Epicurus' garden, andj 
very familiar in his house. Neither did he try it himself alone, but if we may ; 
give credit to ^ Atheneus, he practised it upon others. For when a sad and 
sick patient was brought unto him to be cured, " he laid him on a down bed, 

• Spiritus temper at, calorem excitat, natnralem virtutera corroborat, juvenile corpus diu servat, vitara 
prorogat, ingenium acuit, et hominem negotiis quibuslibet aptiorem reddit. Schola Salern. ''Dura 

contumelia vacant et festiva lenitate mordent, mediocres animi segritudines sanari solent, &c. ' De mor. 
fol. 57. Amamus ideo eos qui sunt faceti et jucundl. ^ Kegim. sanit. part. 2. Nota quod amicus bonus et 
dilectus socius, narrationibus suis jucundis superat omnem melodiam. " Lib. 21. cap. 27. » Comment, 
in 4. Od\ ss. p Lib. 26. c. 15. qHomericum illud Nepenthes quod moerorem tollit, et cuthimiam, et 

hilaritatem parit. '■Plaut. Bacch. ^ De tegritud. capitis. Omni modo generet Letitiam in lis, de iis qu.e 
audiuntur et videntur, aut odorantur, aut gustantur, aut quocunque modo sentiri possunt, et aspectu for- 
niarum multi decoris et ornatus, et negotiatione jucunda, et blandientibus ludis, et promissis distrahantur 
eorum animi, de re aliqua quam timent et dolent. ' Utantur venationibu*, ludis, jocis, amicorum 

consort is, qusenon sinunt animum turbari, vino et canta et loci mutatione, etbiberia, et gaudio, ex quibus 
priEcipue delectantur. ° Piso. ex fabulis et ludis quEerenda delectatio. His versetur qui maxime grati 

sunt, cantus et chorea ad Iretitiara prosunt. ^ Praecipue valet ad expellendam melancholiam stare in 

cantibus, ludis, et sonis, et habitare cum familiaribus, et priecipue cum puellis jucundis. yPar. 5. de 

avocamentis, lib. de absolvendo luctu. ^Corporum complexus, cantus, ludi, formse, <fec. * Circa 

Jiortos Epicuri frequentes. *> Dypnosoph. lib. 10. Coronavit tiorido serto inceudens odores, in culcitra 

plumea coUocavit dulciculam potiouera propiuans, psaltviam adduxit, &c. 



Mem. 6. Subs. 4. ' Mind rectified hy Mirth, 371 

crowned him with a garland of sweet-smelling flowers, in a fair perfumed closet 
delicately set out, and after a portion or two of good drink, which he adminis- 
tered, he brought in a beautiful young "^ wench that could play upon a lute, sing, 
and dance," &c,, Tully, 3 Tusc. scoifs at Epicurus, for this his profane physic 
(as well he deserved), and yet Phavorinus and Stobeus highly approve of it; 
most of our looser physicians in some cases, to such parties especially, allow of 
this; and all of them will have a melancholy, sad, and discontented person, 
make frequent use of honest sports, companies, and recreations, et incitandos 
ad Venerem, as '^.Rodericus a Fonseca will, aspectu et contactu pulcherrimm^um 
fceniinarum, to be drawn to such consorts whether they will or no. Not to be 
an auditor only, or a spectator, but sometimes an actor himself. Dulce est 
desipere in loco, to play the fool now and then is not amiss, there is a time for 
all things. Grave Socrates would be merry by fits, sing, dance, and take his 
liquor too, or else Theodoret belies him; so would old Cato, ®Tully by his own 
confession, and the rest. Xenophon, in his Sympos. brings in Socrates as a 
principal actor, no man merrier than himself, and sometimes he would " ^ride 

a cockhorse with his children," equitare in arundine longd (though 

Alcibiades scoffed at hirn for it), and well he might ; for now and then (saitli 
Plutarch) the most virtuous, honest; and gravest men will use feasts, jests, and 
toys, as we do sauce to our meats. So did Scipio and Lselius, 



*'* Qui ubi se a vulgo et scena in secreta remorant, 
Virtus Scipiad* et mitis sapientia Lfeli, 
Nugari cum illo, et disciucti ludere, donee 
Decoqueretur olus, soliti " 



" Valorous Scipio and gentle Laslius, 
Removed from the scene and rout so clamorous, 
Were wont to recreate themselves their robes laid by 
Whilst supper by the cook was making ready." 



Machiavel, in the eighth book of his Florentine history, gives this note of 
Cosmo de' Medici, the wisest and gravest man of his time in Italy, that he 
would "''now and then play the most egregious fool in his carriage, and was 
so much given to jesters, players and childish sports, to make himself merry, 
that he that should but consider his gravity on the one part, his folly and light- 
ness on the other, would surely say, there were two distinct persons in him." 
Now methinks he did well in it, though ' Salisburiensis be of opinion, that magis- 
trates, senators, and grave men, should not descend to lighter sports, ne res- 
2')uhlica ludere videatur : but as Themistocles, still keep a stern and constant 
carriage. I commend Cosmo de' Medici and Castruccius Castrucanus, than 
whom Italy never knew a worthier captain, another Alexander, if "^Machiavel 
do not deceive us in his life: "when a friend of his reprehended him for 
dcmcing beside his dignity" (belike at some cushion dance), he told him again, 
qui sapit interdiu, vix unquam noctu desipit, he that is wise in the day may 
dote a little in the night. Paulus Jovius relates as much of Pope Leo Decimus, 
that he was a grave, discreet, staid man, yet sometimes most free, and too open 
in his sports. And 'tis not altogether ^ unfit or misbeseeming the gravity of 
such a man, if that decorum of time, place, and such circumstances be observed. 
^Misce stuUitiam consiliis brevem; and as "he said in an epigram to his wife, 
I would have every man say to himself, or to his friend, 

*' Moll, once in pleasant company by chance, I Veil, if you will, your head, your soul reveal 

To him that only wounded souls can heal : 
Be in my house as busy as a bee, 
Having a sting for every one but me ; 
Buzzing in every corner, gath'ring honey : 
Let nothing waste, that costs or yieldeth money, 
o And when thou seest my heart to mirth incline. 
Thy tongue, wit, blood, warm with good cheer & wine : 
Then of sweet sports let no occasion 'scape, 
But be as wanton, toying as an ape." 



I wished that you for company would dance : 

Which you refused, and said, your years require, 

Now, matron-like, both manners and attire. 

Well, Moll, if needs you will be matron-like, 

Then trust to this, I will thee matron-like : 

Yet so to you my love may never lessen. 

As you for church, house, bed, observe this lesson : 

Sit in the church as solemn as a saint. 

No deed, word, thought, your due devotion taint. 



« Ut reclinata suaviter in lectum puella, &c. •* Tom. 2. consult. 85. « Epist. Fam. lib. 7. 22. 

epist. Heri demum bene potus, seroque redieram. ^ Valer. Max. cap. 8. lib. 8. Interposita arundine 

cruribus suis, cum ftliis ludens, ab Alcibiade risus est. e Hor. '^ Hominibus facetis, et ludis puerilibus 
ultra modum deditus, adeo ut si cui in eo tam gravitatem quam levitatem considerare liceret, duas personas 
distinctas in eo esse diceret. ' De nugis curial. lib. 1. cap. 4. Magistratus et viri graves, a ludis levioribus 
arcendi. ^ Machiavel vita ejus. Ab amico reprehensus, quod prteter dignitatem tripudiis operam daret, 

respondet, &c. ' There is a time for all things, to weep, laugh, mourn, dance, Eccles. iii. 4. "> Hor. 

. " Sir John Harrington, Epigr. 50. « Lucretia toto sis licet usque die, Thaida nocte volo. 



372 Citre of Melanclioty. [Part. 2. Sec. 2. 

Those old p Greeks had their Lubentiam Deam, goddess of pleasure, and the 
Lacedemonians, instructed from Lycurgus, did Deo Risui sacrijicare, after 
their wars especially, and in times of peace, which was used in Thessaly, as 
it appears by that of "^Apuleius, who was made an instrument of their laughter 
himself : " "" Because laughter and merriment was to season their labours and 
modester life." ^Risus enim divum atque hominwm est ceterna voluptas. 
Princes use jesters, players, and have those masters of revels in their courts. 
The Romans at every supper (for they had no solemn dinner) used music, 
gladiators, jesters, &c., as* Suetonius relates of Tiberius, Dion of Commodus, 
and so did the Greeks. Besides music, in Xenophon's Sympos. Fhilippus 
ridendi artifex, Philip, a jester, was brought to make sport. Paulus Jovius, 
in the eleventh book of his history, hath a pretty digression of our English 
customs, which howsoever some may misconstrue, I, for my part, will interpret 
to the best. " "The whole nation beyond all other mortal men, is most given 
to banquetting and feasts; for they prolong them many hours together, with 
dainty cheer, exquisite music, and facete jesters, and afterwards they fall a 
dancing and courting their mistresses, till it be late in the night." Volateran 
gives the same testimony of this island, commending our jovial manner of 
entertainment and good mirth, and methinks he saith well, there is no harm 
in it; long may they use it, and all such modest sports. Ctesias reports of a 
Persian king, that had 150 maids attending at his table, to play, sing, and 
dance by turns; and ''Lil. Geraldus of an Egyptian prince, that kept nine 
virgins still to wait upon him, and those of most excellent feature, and sweet 
voices, which afterwards gave occasion to the Greeks of that fiction of the nine 
Muses. The king of Ethiopia in Africa., most of our Asiatic princes have 
done so and do ; those Sophies, Mogors, Turks, &c., solace themselves after 
supper amongst their queens and concubines, quce jucundioris oblectamenti 
causa (^ saith mine author) coram rege psallere et saltare consueverant, taking 
great pleasure to see and hear them sing and dance. This and many such 
means to exhilarate the heart of men, have been still practised in all ages, as 
knowing there is no better thing to the preservation of man's life. What shall 
I say then, but to every melancholy man, 

" » Utere convivis, non tristibus utere amicis, I " Feast often, and use friends not still so sad, 

Quos nugae et risus, et joca salsa juvant." | Whose jests and merriments may make thee glad." 

Use honest and chaste sports, scenical shows, plays, games; ^Accedant 
juvenumque Chori, mistoique puellce. And as Marsilius Ficinus concludes an 
epistle to Bernard Canisianus, and some other of his friends, will I this tract 
to all good students, "''Live merrily, O my friends, free from cares, per- 
plexity, anguish, grief of mind, live merrily," Icetitim coelum vos creavit: 
" ''Again and again I request you to be merry, if any thing trouble your hearts, 
or vex your souls, neglect and contemn it, ''let it pass. ^And this I enjoin- 
you, not as a divine alone, but as a physician; for without this mirth, which 
is the life and quintessence of physic, medicines, and whatsoever is used and 
applied to prolong the life of man, is dull, dead, and of no force." I) am fata 
sinunt, vivite Iceti (Seneca), I say be merry. 

" *'Nec lusibus virentem 

Viduemus hanc juventam." 

It was Tiresias the prophet's counsel to ^Menippus, that travelled all the 

p Lil. Giraldus hist. deor. Syntag 1. <i Lib. 2. de aur. as. r Eo quod risus esset laboris et 

modesti victus condimentum. » Calcag. epig. » Cap. 61. In deliciis habuit scurras et adula- 

tores. " Universa gens supra mortales cseteros conviviorum studiosissima. Ea enim per varias et exqui- 
sitas dapes, interpositis musicis et joculatoribus, in multas saspius horaS extrahunt, ac subinde productis, 
choreis et araoribus foeminarum indulgent, &c. * Syntag. de Musis. y Atheneus, lib. 12. et 14. assiduis 
muUerum vocibus, cantuque symphoniie Palatium Persarum regis totum personabat. Jovius hist. lib. 18. 
* Eobanus Hessus. » Fracastorius. •> vivite ergo Iseti, amici, procul ab angustia, vivite la;ti. « Iterum 
precor et obtestor, vivite lasti : illud quod cor urit, negligite. "^ La;tus in prsesens animus quod ultra 

oderit curare. Hor He was both Sacerdos et Medicus. « Ha3c autem non tam ut sacerdos, amici, 

mando vobis, quam ut medicus; nam absque hac una tanquam medicinarum vita, medicinse omnes ad vitam 
produceudara adhibitas moriuntur : vivite laiti. ^ Locheus Anacreon. e Lucian. Necyomantia. Tom. 2. 



Mera. G. Subs. 4.] Mind rectified hy Mirth. 373 

world over, even down to hell itself to seek content, and his last forewell to 
Menippiis, to be merry. " ''Contemn the world (saith he), and count that is 
in it vanity and toys ; this only covet all thy life long ; be not curious, or 
over solicitous in any thing, but with a well composed and contested estate 
to enjoy thyself, and above all things to be merry." 

"SiNumerus iiti censet sine arnore jocisque, 
Nil est jucundum, vivas in amore jocisque."! 

Nothing better (to conclude with Solomon, Eccles. iii. 22.), " Than that a 
man should rejoice in his affairs." 'Tis the same advice which every phy- 
sician in this case rings to his patient, as Capivaccius to his, " ''avoid over- 
much study and perturbations of the mind, and as much as in thee lies, live 
at heart's-ease:" Prosper Calenus to that melancholy Cardinal CaBsius, 
"'amidst thy serious studies and business, use jests and conceits, plays and 
toys, and whatsoever ehemay recreate thy mind." Nothing better than mirth 
and merry coaipauy in this malady. "™It begins with sorrow (saith Mon- 
tanus), it must be expelled with hilarity." 

But see the mischief; many men, knowing that merry company is the only 
medicine against melancholy, will therefore neglect their business; and in 
another extreme, spend all their days among good fellows in a tavern or an 
ale-house, and know not otherwise how to bestow their time but in drinking; 
malt-worms, men-iishes, or water-snakes, "^Qui bihunt solum ranai'um more, 
nihil comedentes, like so many frogs in a puddle. 'Tis their sole exercise to 
eat, and drink; to sacrifice to Volupia, Rumina, Edulica, Potina, Mellona, is 
all their religion. They wish for Philoxenus' neck, Jupiter's trinoctium, 
and that the sun would stand still as in Joshua's time, to satisfy their lust, 
that they might dies noctesque pergrcecari et bibere. Flourishing wits, and 
men of good parts, good fashion, and good worth, basely prostitute themselves 
to every rogue's company, to take tobacco and drink, to roar and sing scur- 
rilous songs in base places. 

"o Invenies aliquem cum percussore jacentem, 
Permistum nautis, aut furibus, aut fugicivis." 

Which Thomas Erastus objects to Paracelsus, that he would lie drinking 
all day long with carmen and tapsters in a brothel-house, is too frequent 
amongst us, with men of better note : like Timocreon of Hhodes, raulta bibejis, 
et multa volens, &c. They drown their wits, seethe their brains in ale, con- 
sume their fortunes, lose their time, weaken their temperatures, contract filthy 
diseases, rheums, dropsies, calentures, tremor, get swoln jugulars, pimpled red 
faces, sore eyes, &c. ; heat their livers, alter their complexions, spoil their 
stomachs, overthrow their bodies; for drink drowns more than the sea and all 
the rivers that fall into it (meiie funges and casks), confound their souls, 
suppress reason, go from Scylla to Charybdis, and use that which is a help 
to their undoing. ^ Quid re/ert morbo an ferro pe7^eamve ruhid ? '^When the 
Black Prince went to set the exiled king of Castile into his kingdom, there 
was a terrible battle fought between the English and the Spanish : at last 
•the Spanish fled, the English followed them to the river side, where some 
drowned themselves to avoid their enemies, the rest were killed. Now tell 
me what difierence is between disowning and killing? As good be melancholy 

•> Omnia mundana nngas sestimp.. Hoc solum tota vita persequere, ut prwsentibas bene compositis, 
minime curiosus, aut uUa in re solicitus, quam plurimum potes vitam hilarem traducas. ' "If the world 
think that nothing can be happy without love and mirth, then live in love and jollity." ^ Hildesheim, 

spicel. 2. de Mania, fol. 161. Studia literarum et animi perturbationes fugiat, et quantum potest jucunde 
vivat. iLib. de atra bile. Gravioribus cuds ludos et facetias aliquando interpone, jocos, et quie solent 
animum relaxare. m Consil. 30. mala valetudo aucta et contracta est tristitia ac propterea exhilaratione 
animi removenda. » Athen. dypnosoph. lib. 1. oJuven. sat. 8. " You will tind him beside some 

cut-throat, along with sailors, or thie es, or runaways." pHor. " What does it signify whether I perish 

by disease or by the sword ! " i Frossard. hist. lib. 1. Hispani cum Anglorura vires fcrre non possent, 

in fugaui se dederuut, &c. Praecipites in tiuvium se dederuiit, ne iu hostium manus venirent. 



374 Cure of Melancholy, [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

still, as drunken beasts and beggars. Company a sole comfort, and an only 
remedy to all kind of discontent, is their sole misery and cause of perdition. 
As Hermione lamented in Euripides, maloe mulieres mefecerunt malam. Evil 
company marred her, may they justly complain, bad companions have been 
their bane. For, ^malus malum vult ut sit sui similis; one drunkard in a 
company, one thief, one whoremaster, will by his goodwill make all the rest 
as bad as himself, 

Nocturnos jures te formidare vapores," 

be of what complexion you will, inclination, love or hate, be it good or bad, 
if you come amongst them, you must do as they do : yea, * though it be to 
the prejudice of your health, you must drink venenum pro vino. And so 
like grasshoppers, whilst they sing over their cups all summer, they starve 
in winter; and for a little vain merriment shall find a sorrowful reckoning 
in the end. 



SECT. III. MEMB. I. 
SuBSECT. I. — A Consolatory Digression, containing the Remedies of all manner 

of Discordents. 
Because in the preceding section I have made mention of good counsel, 
comfortable speeches, persuasion, how necessarily they are required to 'lie cure 
of a discontented or troubled mind, how present a remedy they yield, and 
many times a sole sufficient cure of themselves; I have thought fit in this fol- 
lowing section, a little to digress (if at least it be to digress in this subject), 
to collect and glean a few remedies, and comfortable speeches out of our best 
orators, philosophers, divines, and fathers of the church, tending to this pur- 
pose. I confess, many have copiously written of this subject, Plato, Seneca, 
Plutarch, Xenophon, Epictetus, Theophrastus, Xenocrates, Crantor, Lucian, 
Boethius: and some of late, Sadoletus, Cardan, Budseus, Stella, Petrarch, 
Erasmus, besides Austin, Cyprian, Bernard, &c. And they so well, that as 
Hierome in like case said, si nostrum, areret ingeydum, de illorum posset f on- 
tibus irrigari, if our barren wits were dried up, they might be copiously irri- 
gated from those well-springs : and I shall but actum agere; yet because these 
tracts are not so obvious and common, I will epitomise, and briefly insert 
some of their divine precepts, reducing their voluminous and vast treatises to 
my small scale ; for it were otherwise impossible to bring so great vessels into 
so little a creek. And although (as Cardan said of his book de consol.) " " I 
know beforehand, this tract of mine many will contemn and reject; they that 
are fortunate, happy, and in flourishing estate, have no need of such consolatory 
speeches ; they that are miserable and unhappy, think them insuflicient to ease 
their grieved minds, and comfort their misery; yet I will go on; for this 
must needs do some good to such as are happy, to bring them to a moderation, 
and make them reflect and know themselves, by seeing the inconstancy of 
human felicity, others' misery : and to such as are distressed, if they will but 
attend and consider of this, it cannot choose but give some content and comfort." 
" "^'Tis true, no medicine can cure all diseases, some affections of the mind are 
altogether incurable; yet these helps of art, physic, and philosophy must not be 
contemned." Arrianus and Plotinus are stiff in the contrary opinion, that such 
precepts can do little good. Boethius himself cannot comfort in some cases, they 
will reject such speeches like bread of stones, Insana stultce mentis hcec solatia.'^ 

""Ter. *Hor. " Although you swear that you dread the night air." *'H Trt^i ^) airi^i, "either drink 

or depart." " Lib. de lib. propriis. Hos libros scio multos spernere, nam felices his se nou indigere 

putant, infelices ad solationem miseri* non sufHcere. Et tamen felLcibus rnoderationem, dum inconstan- 
tiam humanse felicitatis docent, prasstant; infelices si omnia recte asstimare velint, felices redderepossunt. 
■w.NuUum medicamentum onmes sanare potest; suntaffectus animi quiprorsussunt insanabiles; nontamea 
4itis opus sperai debet, aut medicinse, aut pliilpsophiie. x " The insane consolations of a foolish mind." .. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Memedies against Discontents. 375 

Words add no courage, which ^Catiline once said to his soldiers, "a cap- 
tain's oration doth not make a coward a valiant man:" and as Job '^ feelingly- 
said to his friends, "you are but miserable comforters all." 'Tis to no purpose 
in that vulgar phrase to use a company of obsolete sentences, and familiar 
sayings: as^PliniusSecundus, being now sorrowful and heavyfor the departure 
of his dear friend Cornelius Paifus, a Roman senator, wrote to his fellow Tiro 
in like case, ad/iibs solatia, sed nova aliqua, sedfortia, quce audierim nunquam^ 
legerim nunquam : nam quce, audivi, quoi legi omnia, tanto dolore superantur, 
either say something that I never read nor heard of before, or else hold thy 
peace. Most men will here except trivial consolations, ordinary speeches, and 
known persuasions in this behalf will be of small force; what can any man say 
that hath not been said? To what end are such parseuetical discourses? you 
may as soon remove Mount Caucasus, as alter some men's affections. Yet sure 
I think they cannot choose but do some good, and comfort and ease a little, 
though it be the same again, I will say it, and upon that hope I will adventure. 
^Non mens hie sermo,'t\s not my speech this, but of Seneca, Plutarch, Epictetus, 
Austin, Bernard, Christ and his Apostles. If I make nothing, as ''Montaigne 
said in like case, I will mar nothing ; 'tis not my doctrine but my study, I hope 
T shall do nobody wrong to speak what I think, and deserve not blame in 
imparting my mind. J f it be not for thy ease, it may for mine own ; so 
Tully, Cardan, and Boethius wrote de consol. as well to help themselves as 
others ; be it as it may I will essay. 

Discontents and grievances are either general or particular; general are 
wars, plagues, dearths, famine, fires, inundations, unseasonable weather, epi- 
demical diseases Avliich afflict whole kingdoms, territories, cities : or peculiar 
to private men, ^ as cares, crosses, losses, death of friends, poverty, want, sick- 
ness, orbities, injuries, abuses, &c. Generally all discontent, ^homines qua- 
timur fortuncE salo. No condition free, quisque suos patimur manes. Even 
in the midst of our mirth and jollity, there is some grudging, some complaint^ 
as ^he saith, our wdiole life is a glucupricon, a bitter-sweet passion, honey and 
gall mixed together, we are all miserable and discontent, who can deny it? If 
all, and that it be a common calamity, an inevitable necessity, all distressed, 
then as Cardan infers, "^who art thou that hopest to go free? Why dost thou 
not grieve thou art a mortal man, and not governor of the world?" Ferre 
qiHi'ni sorlem patiuntur omnes. Nemo recuset, ''^If it be common to all, why 
should one man be more disquieted than another ? " If thou alone wert dis- 
tressed, it were indeed more irksome, and less to be endured; but when the 
calamity is common, comfort thyself with this, thou hast more ieWowa, Solamen 
miseris socios habuisse doloris; 'tis not thy sole case, and why shouldst thou be 
so impatient ? " 'Ay, but alas we are more miserable than others, what shall 
we do ? Besides private miseries, we live in perpetual fear and danger of 
common enemies : we have Bellona's whips, and pitiful outcries, for epithala- 
miums; for pleasant music, that fearful noise of ordnance, drums, and warlike 
trumpets still sounding in our ears; instead of nuptial torches, we have firing 
of towns and cities ; for triumphs, lamentations ; for joy, tears." "''So it is 



y Salust. Verba virtitteTn non aciaunt,nec imperatoris oratio facilfe timido fortern. « Job cap. 16. 

» Episl. 13. lib. 1. b ilor. ^Lib. 2. Essays, cap. G. <^ Alimn paupertas, allum ovbitas, hunc. raorbi, 

ilium timor, alium injuriaj, hunc insidice, ilium uxor, filii distiahunt, Cardan. ' Boethius, 1.1. met. o. 

f Apuleius, 4. florid. Nihil honiini tarn prospere datum divinitus, quinei admixtum sit aliquid difficultatis, 
in amplissima quaque Itetitia subest qucedam querimonia, conjugatione quadam inellis et fellis. s Si 

omnes premantur, quis tu es qui solus evade; e cupis ab ea lege qu£e nerainem prajterit ? cur te mortalem 
factum et universi non orbis regem tieri non doles ? *> pi^teanus, ep. 75. Neque cuiquam prsecipuedolendum 
eo quod accidit universis. ' Lorchan. Gallobelgicus, lib 3. Anno 1-598. de Belgis. Euge! sed eheu inquis 
quid agemus? ubi pro Epithalamio BelloniB flagellum,pro musica harmoniaterribilem lituorum et tubarum 
audias clangorem, pro taidis nuptialibus, villarura, pagorum, urb um videas incendia ; ubi pro jubilo lamenta, 
pro risu Actus aerem conipkut. iv Ita est protecto, et quisquis ha>c videre abnuis, huic scculo paruiu 

aptus es, aut potius nostrorum omnium conditionem ignoras, quibus I'eciproco quodaoi ngxu lata tristibua, 
tristia la;tis, iiivicem succedunt. 



376 Cure oj Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

and so it was, and so it ever will be. He that refusetli to see and hear, to 
suffer this, is not fit to live in this world, and knows not the common condition 
of all men, to whom so long as they live, with a reciprocal course, joys and 
sorrows are annexed, and succeed one another." It is inevitable, it may not 
be avoided, and why then shouldst thou be so much troubled? Grave nihil 
est humini quod/ert necessitas, as 'Tully deems out of an old poet, "that which 
is necessary cannot be grievous." If it be so, then comfort thyself in this, 
*'"that whether thou wilt or no, it must be endured:" make a virtue of 
necessity, and conform thyself to undergo it. "^Si longa est, levis est; si gravis 
est, hrevis est. If it be long, 'tis light ; if grievous, it cannot last. It will 
away, dies dolorem minuit, and if nought else, time will wear it out ; custom 
will ease it ; "oblivion is a common medicine for all losses, injuries, griefs, and 
detriments whatsoever, "^and when they are once past, this commodity comes 
of infelicity, it makes the rest of our life sweeter unto us:" "^Atque hcec olim 
meniinisse juvahit, " recollection of the past is pleasant : " " the privation 
and want of a thing many times makes it more pleasant and delightsome than 
before it was." We must not think, the happiest of us all, to escape here with- 
out some misfortunes, 

"■■ Usque adeb nulla est sincera voluptas, 

Solicit umque aliquid Isetis intervenit " 

Heaven and earth are much unlike : " * Those heavenly bodies indeed are 
freely carried in their orbs without any impediment or interruption, to continue 
their course for innumerable ages, and make their conversions : but men are 
urged with many difficulties, and havediversehindrances, oppositions still cross- 
ing, interrupting their endeavours and desires, and no mortal man is free from 
this law of nature." We must not therefore hope to have all things answer 
our own expectation, to have a continuance of good success and fortunes, For- 
tuna nunquam perpetub est bona. And as Minutius Felix, the Roman consul, 
told that insulting Coriolanus, drunk with his good fortunes, look not for that 
success thou hast hithei-to had ; "*It never yet happened to any man since the 
beginning of the world, nor ever will, to have all things according to his desire, 
or to whom fortune was never opposite and adverse." Even so it fell out to 
him as he foretold. And so to others, even to that happiness of Augustus : 
though he were Jupiter's almoner, Pluto's treasurer, Neptune's admiral, it 
could not secure him. Such was Alcibiades' fortune, Narsetes, that great 
Gonsalvus, and most famous men's, that as "" Jovius concludes, " it is almost 
fatal to great princes, through their own default or otherwise circumvented 
with envy and malice, to lose their honours, and die contumeliously." 'Tis so, 
still hath been, and ever will be, Nihil est ah omni parte beatum, 

" There's no perfection is so absolute, 
That some impurity doth not pollute." 

Whatsoever is under the moon is subject to corruption, alteration ; and so long 
as thou livest upon earth look not for other. " "*^Thou shalt not here find 
peaceable and cheerful days, quiet times, but rather clouds, storms, calumnies; 
such is our fate." And as those errant planets in their distinct orbs have their 
several motions, sometimes direct, stationary, retrograde, in apogee, perigee, 

iTn Tusc. fe vetere poeta. "■■ Cardan, lib. 1. de consol. Est consolationis genus non leve, quod 'h 

necessitate fit; sive feras, sive non feras, ferendum est tamen. "Seneca. oOmnidolori 

tempus est medicina ; ipsum luctum extinguit, injurias delet, omnis mali oblivionem adfert. p Habet 

hoc'quoque conimodum omnis infelicitas, suaviorem vitam cum abierit relinquit. i Virg. rOvid. 

" For tliere is no pleasure perfect, some anxiety always inters'enes." * Lorchan. Sunt namque infera 

superis, humana terrenis longe disparia. Etenim beatse mentes feruntur libere, et sine uUo impedimento, 
Stella?, aithereique orbes cursuset conversiones suas jam sseculis innumerabilibus constantissime conflciunt; 
verum homines magnis angustiis. Neque hac naturae lege est quisquam mortalium solutus. « Dionysius 
Halicar. lib. 8. non enim uiiquam contigit, nee post homines uatos invenies quentiuam, cui omnia ex animi 
sententia successerint, ita ut nulla in re fortuna s;t ei adversata. "Vit. Gonsalvi lib. ult. Ut ducibus fatale 
sit clarissimis a culpa sua, secus circumveniri cum malitia et invidia, imminutaque dignitateper contumeliam 
mori. * In terris purura ilium setherem non invenies, et ventos serenos ; nimbos potius, procellas, caluni- 
nias. Lips. cent. misc. ep. 8. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Remedies against Discontents. 377 

oriental, occidental, combust, feral, free, and as our astrologers will, have 
their fortitudes and debilities, by reason of those good and bad irradiations, 
conferred to each other's site in the heavens, in their terms, houses, case, 
detriments, &c. So we rise and fall in this world, ebb and flow, in and out, 
reared and dejected, lead a troublesome life, subject to many accidents and 
casualties of fortunes, variety of passions, infirmities as well from ourselves 
as others. 

Yea, but thou thinkest thou art more miserable than the rest, other men 
are happy but in respect of thee, their miseries are but flea-bitings to thine, 
thou alone art unhappy, none so bad as thyself Yet if, as Socrates said, 
" ^ All men in the world should come and bring their grievances together, of 
body, mind, fortune, sores, ulcers, madness, epilepsies, agues, and all those 
common calamities of beggary, want, servitude, imprisonment, and lay them 
on a heap to be equally divided, wouldst thou share alike, and take thy 
portion '? or be as tliou art 1 " Without question thou wouldst be as thou 
art. If some Jupiter should say, to give us all content. 



y Jam faciam quod vultis; eris tu, qui moclb miles, 
Mercator ; tu consultus modo, vusticus ; Line vos, 
Vos hinc mutatis discedite partibus ; eia 
Quidstatis? nolint." 



" Well be't so then : you master soldier 
Shall be a merchant; you sir lawyer 
A counti-y gentleman ; go you to this, 
That side you ; why stand ye ? It's well as 'tis ' 



■"Every man knows his own, but not others' defects and miseries j and 'tis 
the nature of all men still to reflect upon themselves, their own misfortunes," 
not to examine or consider other men's, not to compare themselves with others : 
To recount their miseries, but not their good gifts, fortunes, benefits, which 
they have, or ruminate on their adversity, but not once to think on their pros- 
perity, not what they have, but what tiiey want : to look still on them that go 
before, but not on those infinite numbers that come after. " * Whereas many 
a man would think himself in heaven, a petty prince, if he had but the least 
part of that fortune which thou so much repinest at, abhorrest, and accountest 
a most vile and wretched estate." How many thousands want that which 
thou hast? how many myriads of poor slaves, captives, of such as work day and 
night in coal-pits, tin-mines, with sore toil to maintain a poor living, of such as 
labour in body and mind, live in extreme anguish and pain, all which thou art 
free from 1 fortunatos nimium bona si sua norint : Thou art most happy if 
thou couldst be content, and acknowledge thy happiness ; ^Rem carendo non 
fruendo cognoscimus, when thou shalt hereafter come to want that which thou 
now loathest, abhorrest, and art weary of, ^nd tired with, when 'tis past thou 
wilt say thou wert most happy : and after a little miss, wish with all thine 
heart thou hadst the same content again, mightest lead but such a life, a world 
for such a life : the remembrance of it is pleasant. Be silent then, "^rest satis- 
lied, desine, intuensque in aliorum in/ortunia solare mentem, comfort thyself 
with other men's misfortunes, and as the moldiwarp in ^sop told the fox, com- 
plaining«for want of a tail, and the rest of his companions, tacete, quando ine 
ocidii' captum videtis, you complain of toys, but I am blind, be quiet. I say 
to thee, be thou satisfied. It is "^recorded of the hares, that with a general con- 
sent they went to drown themselves, out of a feeling of their misery; but when 
they saw a company of frogs more fearful than they were, they began to take 
courage and comfort aj,ain. Compare thine estate with others. Similes 
aliorum respice casus, mitius isia feres. Be content and rest satisfied, for thou 
art well in respect to others : be thankful for that thou hast, that God hath 
done for thee, he hath not made thee a monster, a beast, a base creature, as 

'Si omnes homines sua mala suasque curas in unura cumulum conferrent, oequis divisura portionibus, &c. 
T llor. ser. lib. 1. ^ Quod unusquisque propria mala novit, aliorum nesciat, in CaUsa est, ut se inter alios 

miserura putet. Cardan, lib. 3. de consol. Plutarch, deconsol. ad ApoUonium. "Quara multos putas 

qui se coelo proximos putarent, totidem regulos, si de fortunfe tuje reliquiis pars iis minima contingat. 
Boeth. de consol. lib. 2. pros. 4. *>" Xoa know the value of a th.ng from wanting more than from 

enjoying it." •= Hesiod. Esto quod es; quod sunt-alii, sine quemlibet esse; Quod non es, noils ; quod 

poles esse, velis. ''Jisopifab. 



378 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

lie might, but a man, a Christian, such a man ; consider aright of it, thou art 
full well as thou art. ^Quicquid vult, habere nemo potest, no man can have 
what he will, Illitd potest nolle quod non hahet, he may choose whether he will 
desire that which he hath not. Thy lot is fallen, make the best of it. " '^ If 
we should all sleep at all times (as Endymion is said to have done), who then 
were happier than his fellow ? " Our life is but short, a very dream, and while 
we look about, ^ immortalitas adest, eternity is at hand : "^our life is a pilgrim- 
age on earth, which wise men pass with great alacrity." If thou be in woe, 
sorrow, want, distress, in pain, or sickness, think of that of our apostle, " God 
chastiseth them whom he loveth : they that sow in tears shall reap in joy," 
Psal. cxxvi. 5. " As the furnace proveth the potter's vessel, so doth temptation 
try men's thoughts,'' Ecclus. xxv. 5, 'tis for ^ thy good, Periisses 7iisi periisses : 
hadst thou not been so visited, thou hadst been utterly undone : " as gold in 
the fire," so men are tried in adversity. Tribulatio ditat: and which Came- 
rarius hath well shadowed in an emblem of a thresher and corn. 

*'Si tritura absit paleis sunt abdita grana, I " As threshing separates from straw the corn, 
N OS crux mundanis separat a paleis ; " | By crosses from the world's chaff are we born." 

'Tis the very same which ^Chrysostom comments, horn. 2. in 3 Mat. " Corn 
is hot separated but by threshing, nor men from worldly impediments but by 
tribulation." 'Tis that which ' Cyprian ingeminates, Ser. 4. de immort. 'Tis 
that which ™ Hierom, which all the fathers inculcate, " so we are catechised 
for eternity." 'Tis that which the proverb insinuates. Nocumentum docu- 
Qnentum ; 'tis that which all the world rings in our ears, Deus unicum 
hahet filium sine peccato, nidlum sineflagello : God, saith "Austin, hath one 
son without sin, none without correction. "°An expert seaman is tried in 
a tempest, a runner in a race, a captain in a battle, a valiant man in adversity, 
a Christian in tentation and misery." Basil, hom. 8. We are sent as so 
many soldiers into this world, to strive with it, the flesh, the devil; our life is 
a warfare, and who knows it not ? "^Non est ad astra mollis e terris via : 
"■ ''and therefore peradveuture this world here is made troublesome unto us," 
that, as Gregory notes, " we should not be delighted by the way, and forget 
whither we are going." 

" "■ Ite nunc fortes, tibi celsa magni 

Ducit exempli via : cur inertes 

Terga nudatis? superata tellns 

Sidera domat." 

Go on then merrily to heaven. If the way be troublesome, and you in misery, 
in many grievances : on the other side you have many pleasant sports, objects, 
sweet smells, delightsome tastes, music, meats, herbs, flowers, &c. to recreate 
your senses. Or put case thou art now forsaken of the world, dejected, con- 
temned, yeb comfort thyself, as it was said to Agar in the wilderness, "^God 
sees thee, he takes notice of thee : " there is a God above that can vindicate 
thy cause, that can relieve thee. And surely * Seneca thinks he takes delight 
in seeing thee. " The gods are well pleased when they see great men con- 
tending with adversity," as we are to see men fight, or a man with a beast. 
But these are toys in respect, " " Behold," saith he, " a spectacle worthy of 
God ; a good man contented with his estate." A tyrant is the best sacrifice 

e Seneca. ^Si dormirent semper omnes, nullus alio fselicior esset. Card. e Seneca de Ira. 

'^ Plato, .Axiocho. An ignoras vitam hanc peregrinationem, &c. quam sapientes cum gaudio percurrunt ? 
'Sic expedit; medicus non dat qiiod patiens vult, sedquod ipse bonum scit. ^ Frunientum non egreditur 
nisi trituratum, &c. iNon est poena damnantis sed tlagellum corrigentis. '" Ad hsereditatem 

CBternam sic erudimur. " Confess. 6. °Naucleram tempestas, athletam stadium, ducem pugna, 

magnan;mum calamitas, Christianum vero tentatio probat et examinat. p Sen. Here. Fur. "The way 

from the earth to the stars is not so downy." ^ Ideo Deus asperum fecit iter, ne dum delectantur in via, 

obliviscantur eoruiii qu£e sv-nt in patria. ■■ Boethius, 1. fi. met. ult " Go now, brave fellows, whither 

the lofty patli of a great example leads. Why do you stupidly expose your backs ? The earth brings the 
stars to subjection." ^Boeth. pro. ult. Manet spectator cunctorum desuper prsescius deus, bonis proemia, 
malis supplicia dispcnsans. ' Lib. de provid. Voluptatem capiunt dii siquando magnos viros colluctantes 
. cum calumitate vident. u Ecce spectaculum Deo dignura. Yir fortis mala fortuna compositus. 



Mem. 2.] Remedies against Discontents. 379 

to Jupiter, as tlie ancients held, and lils best object "a contented mind." 
For thy part then rest satisfied, "cast all thy care on him, thy burthen on 
him, " rely on him, trust on him, and he shall nourish thee, care for thee, give 
thee thine heart's desire;" say with David, "God is our hope and strength, 
in troubles ready to be found," Psal. xlvi. 1, "for they that trust in the Lord 
shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed," Psal. cxxv. 1, 2. "as the 
mountains are about Jerusalem, so is the Lord about his people, from hence- 
forth and for ever.'* 



MEMB. II. 

Deformity of body, sickness, baseness of birth, peculiar discontents. 

Particular discontents and grievances, are either of body, mind, or for- 
tune, which as they wound the soul of man, produce tiiis melancholy, and 
many great inconveniences, by that antidote of good counsel and persuasion 
may be eased or expelled. Deformities and imperfections of our bodies, as 
lameness, crookedness, deafness, blindness, be they innate or accidental, tor- 
ture many men : yet this may comfort them, that those imperfections of the 
body do not a whit blemish the soul, or hinder the operations of it, but rather 
help and much increase it. Thou art lame of body, deformed to the eye, yet 
this hinders not but that thou mayest be a good, a wise, upright, honest man. 
" -' Seldom," saith Plutarch, " honesty and beauty dwell together," and often- 
times under a thread-bare coat lies an excellent understanding, scejye sub at- 
tritd latitat sapientia veste. ^ Cornelius Mussus, that famous preacher in Italy, 
when he came first into the pulpit in Venice, was so much contemned by 
reason of his outside, a little, lean, poor, dejected person, ^ they were all ready 
to leave the church; but when they heard his voice they did admire him, 
and happy was that senator could enjoy his company, or invite him first to 
his house. A silly fellow to look to, may have more wit, learning, honesty, 
than he that struts it out AmpvMis jactans, d'c., grandia gradiens, and is ad- 
mired in the world's opinion: Vilis scepe cadus nobile nectar habet, the best 
wine comes out of an old vessel. How many deformed princes, kings, em- 
perors, could I reckon up, philosophers, orators? Hannibal had but one eye, 
Appius Claudius, Timoleon, blind, Muleasse, king of Tunis. John, king of 
Bohemia, and Tiresias the prophet. "''The night hath his pleasure;" and 
for the loss of that one sense such men are commonly recompensed in the rest; 
they have excellent memories, other good parts, music, and many recreations; 
much happiness, great wisdom, as Tully well discourseth in his *" Tusculau 
questions: Homer was blind, yet who (saith he) made more accurate, lively, 
or better descriptions, with both his eyes? Deraocritus was blind, yet as 
Laertius writes of him, he saw more than all Greece besides, as ^ Plato con- 
cludes, Turn sane mentis ocidus acute incipit cernere, quum primiim corporis 
oculus deflorescit, when our bodily eyes are at worst, generally the eyes of 
our soul see best. Some philosophers and divines have evirated themselves, and 
put out their eyes voluntarily, the better to contemplate. Angelus Politianus 
had a tetter in his nose continually running, fulsome in company, yet no man 
so eloquent and pleasing in his works. -5ilsop was crooked, Socrates purblind, 
long-legged, hairy ; Demociitus withered ; Seneca lean and harsh, ugly to 
behold, yet shew me so many flourishing wits, such divine spirits : Horace, a 
little blear-eyed contemptible fellow, yet who so sententious and wise? Mar- 
cilius Ficinus, Faber Stapulensis, a couple of dwarfs; '^Melancthon a short 

*1 Pet. V. 7. Psal. Iv. 22. yRaro sub eodem larc honestas et forma habitant. « Josephus Mussus 

vita ejus. "Uomuncio brcvis, inacilentus, umbra lKi;ainis, &c. Aii stuporem ejus eruditionem et 

eioquentiam admirati sunt. ''Nox habeC suas voluptates. <^ Lib. 5. ad finem. caecus potest esse 

sapiens et beatUSj &c. "^In cou%ivio, lib 25. * Joacluuius Cumeravius, vit. ejus. 



380 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2, Sec. 3. 

hard-favonred man, parvus erat, sed magnus erat, &c., yet of incomparable 
parts all three. ^Ignatius Loyola, tlie founder of the Jesuits, by reason of a 
hurt he received in his leg, at the siege of Pampeluna, the chief town of 
Navarre in Spain, unfit for wars, and less serviceable at court, upon that ac- 
cident betook himself to his beads, and by those means got more honour than 
ever he should have done with the use of his limbs, and properness of person: 
^ Vulnus nonpenetrat animum, a wound hurts not the soul. Galba the emperor 
was crook-backed, Epictetus lame : that great Alexander a little man of stature; 
^Augustus Csesar of the same pitch; Agesilaus despicahili formd ; Boccharis 
a most deformed prince as ever Egypt had, yet as ' Diodorus Siculus records 
of him, in wisdom and knowledge fai- beyond his predecessors. A. Dom. 1306. 
^ Uladeslaus Cubitalis that pigmy king of Poland reigned and fought more 
victorious battles than any of his long-shanked predecessors. Nullam virtus 
resi^uit staturam, virtue refuseth no stature, and commonly your great vast 
bodies, and fine features, are sottish, dull, and leaden spirits. What's in 
them 1 ^ Quid nisi pondus iners stolidoique ferocia mentis, What in Osus and 
Ephialtes (Neptune's sons in Homer), nine acres long ? 

""Qui ut magnus Orion, [ " Like tall Orion stalking o'er the flood : 

Cum pedes incedit, medii per maxima ISTerei When with his brawny breast he cuts the waves, 

Stagna, viam findens humero supereminet undas." j His shoulder scarce the topmost billow laves." 

What in Maximinus, Ajax, Caligula, and the rest of tbose great Zanzum- 
mins, or gigantical Anakims, heavy, vast, barbarous lubbers 1 

■ si membra tibi dant grandia Parcse, 



Mentis eges ? " 

Their body, saitli ° Lemnius, " is a burden to them, and their spirits not so 
lively, nor they so erect and merry:" JVon est in magno corpore mica satis: 
a little diamond is more worth than a rocky mountain : which made Alexander 
Aphrodiseus positively conclude, " The lesser, the ° wiser, because the soul was 
more contracted in such a body." Let Bodine in his 5. c. method, hist, plead 
the rest : the lesser they are, as in Asia, Greece, they have generally the finest 
wits. And for bodily stature which some so much admire, and goodly pre- 
sence, 'tis true, to say the best of them, great men are proper, and tall, I grant, 

caput inter nuhila condunt (hide their heads in the clouds); but helli 

pysilli, little men are pretty : " Sed si bellus homo est Cotta, pusillus homo est."" 
Sickness, diseases, trouble many, but without a cause; "^It may be 'tis for 
the good of their souls : " Parsfatifuit, the flesh rebels against the spirit ; that 
which hurts the one, must needs help the other. Sickness is the mother of 
modesty, putteth us in mind of our mortality ; and when we are in the full 
career of worldly pomp and jollity, she pulleth us by the ear, and maketh us 
know ourselves. "^ Pliny calls it, the sum of philosophy, " If we could but 
perform that in our health, which we promise in our sickness." Quum infirmi 
sumus, ^ optimi sumus; for "what sick man" (as ^ Secundus expostulates with 
Rufus) " was ever lascivious, covetous, or ambitious? he envies no man, 
admires no man, flatters no man, dcspiseth no man, listens not after lies and 
tales," &c. And were it not for such gentle remembrances, men would have 
no moderation of themselves, they would be worse than tigers, wolves, and 
lions: who should keep them in awe? " princes, masters, parents, magistrates, 
judges, friends, enemies, fair or foul means cannot contain us, but a little sick- 
ness (as ' Chrysostom observes), will correct and amend us." And therefore 

^Riber. vit. ejus. eMacrobius. hSueton. c. 7. 9. sLib. 1. Corpore exili et despecto, sed 

ingenio et prudentia longe ante se reges caeteros pra;veniens. <« Alexander Gaguinis hist. PolandiiB. 

Corpore parvus eram, cubito vix altior uno, Sed tamen in parvo corpore magnus erara. ' Ovid. ™ Virg. 
iEnei. 10. * "If the fates give you large proportions, do you not require faculties?" "Lib. 2. cap. 20. 

Oiieri est illis corporis moles, et spiritus minus vividi. ©Corpore breves prudentiores quum coarctata sit 
anima. Ingenio pollet cui vim natura negavit. pMultis ad salutem anima; profuit corporis segritudo, 

Petrarch. i Lib. 7. Summa est totius Philosophiae, si tales, &c. ^ " When we are sick we are most 

amiable." « Plinius, epist. 7. lib. Quern infirmum libido solicitat, aut avaritia, aut honores ? nemini invidet, 
neminem miratur, neminem despicit, scrmone maligno non alitiu:. »Nou terret princeps, mayister, 

parens, judex; at aegntudo superveniens, omnia correxit. 



Mem. 2.] Eemedies against Discontents. 381 

with good discretion, " Jovianns Pontaniis caused tliis short sentence to be 
engraven on Ms tomb in l^aples : " Labour, sorrow, grief, sickness, want and 
woe, to serve proud masters, bear that superstitious yoke, and bury your 
dearest friends, &c., are the sauces of our life." If thy disease be continnate 
and painful to thee, it will not surely last : " and a light affliction which is 
but for a moment, causeth unto us a far more excellent and eternal weight 
of glory," 2 Cor. iv. 17. bear it with patience; women endure much sorrow 
in childbed, and yet they will not contain ; and those that are barren, wish 
for this pain; '•' be courageous, "" there is as much valour to be shewn in thy 
bed, as in an array, or at a sea fight:" aut vincetur, aut vincet, thou shalt be 
rid at last. In the mean time, let it take its course, thy mind is not any 
way disabled. Bihbaldus Pirkimerus, senator to Charles the Fifth, ruled all 
Germany, lying most part of his days sick of the gout upon his bed. The 
more violent thy torture is, the less it will continue : and though it be severe 
and hideous for the time, comfort thyself as martyrs do, with honour and 
immortality. ^'That famous philosopher Epicurus, being in as miserable pain 
of stone and cholic, as a man might endure, solaced himself with a conceit of 
immortality; " the joy of his soul for his rare inventions repelled the pain of 
his bodily torments." 

Basenes.s of birth is a great disparagement to some men, especially if they 
be wealthy, bear office, and come to promotion in a commonwealth; then (as 
*he observes), if their birth be not answerable to their calling, and to their 
fellows, they are much abashed and ashamed of themselves. Some scorn their 
own ftither and mother, deny brothers and sisters, with the rest of their kindred 
and friends, and will not sufter them to come near them, w^hen they are in 
their pomp, accounting it a scandal to their greatness to have such beggarly 
beginnings. Simon in Lucian, having now got a little wealth, changed his 
name from Simon to Simonides, for that there were so many beggars of his 
kin, and set the house on fire where he was born, because nobody should point 
at it. Others buy titles, coats of arms, and by all means screw^ themselves 
into ancient families, falsifying pedigrees, usurping scutcheons, and all because 
they would not seem to be base. The reason is, for that this gentility is so 
much admired by a company of outsides, and such honoui' attributed unto 
it, as amongst ° Germans, Frenchmen, and Yenetians, the gentry scorn the 
commonalty, and will not sufler them to match with them; they depress, and 
make them as so many asses, to carry burdens. In our ordinary talk and 
fallings out, the most opprobrious and scurrile name we can fasten upon a 
man, or first give, is to call him base rogue, beggarly rascal, and the like : 
whereas in my j udgment, this ought of all other grievances to trouble men 
least. Of all vanities and fopperies, to brag of gentility is the greatest; for 
what is it they crack so much of, and challenge such superiority, as if they 
were demi-gods? Birth? Tantanevos generis tenuitfidiiciavestrii^ Itisnon 
ens, a mere flash, a ceremony, a toy, a thing of nought. Consider the be- 
ginning, present estate, progress, ending of gentry, and then tell me what it 
is. " ^ Oppression, fraud, cozening, usury, knavery, bawdry, murder, and 
tyranny, are the beginning of many ancient families: "^one hath been a 
blood-sucker, a parricide, the death of many a silly soul in some unjust quar- 
rels, seditions, made many an orphan and poor widow, and for that he is made 

"Xat. Chytrseus Europ. deliciis. Labor, dolor, segritudo, luctns, servire snperbis dominis, jugum ferre 
superstitionis, quos habet chares sepelire, &c. condimenta vita; sunt. » Xon tarn mari quam proelio 

virtus, etiam lecto exhibetur : vincctm- aut vincet; aut tu febrem relinques. aut ipsa te. Seneca, y Tullius 
lib. 7. fam. ep. Vesica; morbo laborans, et urinte mittenda diliicultate tanta, ut vix incr>imentum caperet ; 
repellebat h*c omnia animi gaudium ob memoriam inventorum. z Boeth. lib. 2. pr. 4. Jiuic sensus 

exuperat, sed est pudori degener sanguis. » Gaspar. Ens polit thes. •> " Does such presumption in 

your origiia possess you? " c Alii pro pecuniaemunt nobilitatem, alii illam leuocinio, aii. veneticiis, alii 

pavricidiis; multis perditio nobilitate conciliat, plerique adulatione, detractione, calumniis, &c. Agrip. de 
Vanit. sclent. "^Ex liomicidio s^epe orta nobilitas et streuua carnificiaa. 



383 tJure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. ^. 

a lord or an earl, and his posterity gentlemen for ever after. Another hath 
been a bawd, a pander to some great men, a parasite, a slave, ^prostituted 
himself, his wife, daughter," to some lascivious prince, and for that he is 
exalted. Tiberius preferred many to honours in his time, because they were 
famous whore-masters and sturdy drinkers; ijiany come into this parchment- 
row (so ^one calls it), by flattery or cozening; search your old families, and 
you shall scarce find of a multitude (as ^neas Sylvius observes), qui sceleratam 
no)i habent ortum, that have not a wicked beginning; aut quiviet doloeofas- 
tigii non ascendunt, as that plebeian in ^Machiavel in a set oration proved to 
his fellows, that do not rise by knavery, force, foolery, villainy, or such indirect 
means. " They are commonly able that are wealthy; vii-tue and riches seldom 
settle on one man : who then sees not the beginning of nobility 1 spoils enrich 
one, usury another, treason a third, witchcraft a fourth, flattery a fifth, lying, 
stealing, bearing false witness a sixth, adultery the seventh," &c. One makes 
a fool of himself to make his lord merry, another dandles my young master, 
bestows a little nag on him, a third marries a cracked piece, &c. Now may 
it please your good worship, your lordship, who was the first founder of your 
■family? The poet answers, ''^^Aut Pastor fuit, aut illud quod dicere nolo."^ 
Are he or you the better gentleman 1 If he, then we have traced him to his 
form. If you, what is it of which thou boastest so much ? That thou art his 
son. It may be his heir, his reputed son, and yet indeed a priest or a serv- 
ing man may be the true father of him; but we will not controvert that now ; 
married women are all honest; thou art his son's son's son, begotten and born 
infra quatuor niaHa, &c. Thy great great great grandfather was a rich citizen, 

and then in all likelihood a usurer, a lawyer, and then a a courtier, and 

then a a country gentleman, and then he scraped it out of sheep, &c. 

And you are the heir of all his virtues, fortunes, titles; so then, what is 
your gentry, but as Hierom saith, Opes antiquce, inveteratce divitice, ancient 
wealth ? that is the definition of gentility. The father goes often to the devil, 
to make his son a gentleman. For the present, what is it? " It bd^gan (saith 
'Agrippa), with strong impiety, with tyranny, oppression," &c., and so it is 
maintained: wealth began it (no matter how got), wealth continueth and 
increaseth it. Those Boman knights were so called, if they could dispend 
per annum so much. ^In the kingdom of Naples and France, he that buys 
such lands, buys the honour, title, barony together with it; and they that can 
dispend so much amongst us, must be called to bear office, to be knights, or 
fine for it, as one observes, ^nohiliorum ex censu judicant, our nobles are mea- 
sured by their means. And what now is the object of honour? What main- 
tains our gentry but wealth ? "^JVobilitas sine re projectd vilior alga. Without 
means gentry is naught worth, nothing so contemptible and base. ° Disputare 
de nohilitate generis, sine divitiis, est disputare de nobilitate stercoris, saith 
Nevisanus the lawyer, to dispute of gentry without wealth, is (saving your 
reverence), to discuss the original of a mard. So that it is wealth alone that 
denominates, money which maintains it, gives esse to it, for which every man 
may have it. And what is their ordinary exercise? " °sit to eat, drink, lie 
down to sleep, and rise to play :" wherein lies their worth and sufficiency? in a 
few coats of arms, eagles, lions, serpents, bears, tigers, dogs, crosses, bends, 
fesses, &c., and such like baubles, which they commonly set up in their gal- 



^ Plures ob prostitutas Alias, uxores, nobiles facti ; multos venationes, rapinse, cnsdes, pr^sti^ia, &c. 
''Sat. Menip. sCum enim hos dici nob.les videmus, qui divitiis abimdant, diviti;B vero raro virtutis sunt 
comites, quis non videt ortum nobiiitatis degenerem ? hunc usui;e ciitaiunt, ilium spolia, proditiones; hie 
veneficiis ditatus, ille adulationibus, huic adulteria lucrum pr^ybsnt, uounuUis mendacia, quidam ex con- 
juge qua^stum faciunt, pleri.iueex natis, &c. Florent. hist. lib. 3. •> j^ven. "A shepherd, or sometliing 
that I should rather not tell." ' Kobusta improbitas a tyrannide incepta, &c. '^ (iasper Ens thesauro 

. polit. 1 Gresserus, Itinerar. fol. 266. m Hor. " Nobility without wealth is more worthless than sea-weed." 
"Syl. nup. lib. 4. num. 111. "Exod. xxxii. 



Mem. 2.] Remedies against Discontents. 383 

leries, porches, wiiidoNVS, on bowls, platters, coaches, in tombs, cburclies, men's 
sleeves, &c, "^If he can hawk and hunt, ride a horse, play at cards and 
dice, swagger, drink, swear," take tobacco with a grace, sing, dance, wear his 
clothes in fashion, court and please his mistress, talk big fustian, '^ insult, 
scorn, strut, contemn others, and use a little mimical and apish compliment 
above the rest, he is a complete, [Egregiam verb laudem) a well-qualified gen- 
tleman; these are most of their employments, this their greatest commendation. 
"What is gentry, this parchment nobility then, but as ''Agrippa defines it, " a 
sanctuary of knavery and naughtiness, a cloak for wickedness and execrable 
vices, of jDride, fraud, contempt, boasting, oppression, dissimulation, lust, glut- 
tony, malice, fornication, adultery, ignorance, impiety?" A nobleman there- 
fore, in some likelihood, as he concludes, is an " atheist, an oppressor, an epi- 
cure, a ^gull, a dizzard, an illiterate idiot, an outside, a glow-worm, a proud 
fool, an arrant ass," Ventris et inguinis mancipium, a slave to his lust and 
belly, soldque libidine fortis. And as Salvianus observed of his countrymen 
the Aquitanes in France, sicut titulis primi faere, sic et vitiis (as they were 
the first in rank so also in rottenness); and Cabinet du E-oy, their own writer, 
distinctly of the rest. " The nobles of Berry are most part lechers, they of 
Touraine thieves, they of Narbonne covetous, they of Guienne coiners, they of 
Provence atheists, they of Rheims superstitious, they of Lyons treacherous, of 
Normandy proud, of Picardy insolent," &c. We may generally conclude, the 
greater men, the more vicious. In fine, as *^iieas Sylvins adds, "they are 
most part miserable, sottish, and filthy fellows, like the walls of their houses, 
fair without, foul within." What dost thou vaunt of now 1 " "" What dost 
thou gape and wonder at 1 admire him for his brave apparel, horses, dogs, fine 
houses, manors, orchards, gardens, walks ? Why 1 a fool may be possessor 
of this as well as he ; and he that accounts him a better man, a nobleman for 
ha\ing of it, he is a fool himself" Now go and brag of thy gentility. This 
is it belike which makes the ^ Turks at this day scorn nobility, and all those 
huffing bombast titles, which so much elevate their poles : except it be such as 
have got it at first, maintain it by some supereminent quality, or excellent 
worth. And for this cause, the Ragusian commonwealth, Switzers, and the 
united provinces, in all their aristocracies, or democratical monarchies (if I 
may so call them), exclude all these degrees of hereditary honours, and will 
admit of none to bear ofiSce, but such as are learned, like those Athenian 
Areopagites, wise, discreet, and well brought up. The ^Chinese observe the 
same customs, no man amongst them noble by birth ; out of their philosophers 
and doctors they choose magistrates : their politic nobles are taken from such 
as be morcditer nohdes, virtuous noble; ?iohilitas ut olim ah officio, non a naturdy 
as in Israel of old, and their oflice was to defend and govern their country in 
war and peace, not to hawk, hunt, eat, drink, game alone, -as too many do. 
Their Loysii, Mandarini, literati, licentiati, and such as have raised themselves 
by their worth, are their noblemen only, though fit to govern a state; and why 
then should any that is otherwise of worth be ashamed of his birth ? why 
should not he be as much respected that leaves a noble posterity, as he that 
hath had noble ancestors? nay, why not more? iov p/ures solem orientem, we 
adore the sun rising most part ; and how much better is it to say, Ego meis 
majoribus virtute prcduxi (I have outshone my ancestors in virtues), to boast 

pOmTiiiiin nobiliam sufiScientia in eo probattir si venatica noverint, si aleam, si corporis vires ingentibiis 
poculis commonstrent, si naturiB robur numerosa venere probent, &c. <> Difficile est, ut non sit superbus 
dives, Austin, ser. 24. 'Xobilitas nihil aliud nisi improbitas, furor, rapina, latrocinium, homicidium, luxus, 
venatio, violentia, &c. ' The fool took away m}- lord in the maslv, 'twas apposite. *De miser, 

curial. "Miseri sunt, inepti sunt, turpes sunt,multi ut parietes Eediiini suarum speciosi. ''^ Miraris aureas 
vestes, equos, canes, ordinem famalorum, lautas mensas, cedes, villas, pr;i;dia, piscinas, sylvas, &c. ha3c 
omnia stultus assequi potest. Pandalas noster lenocinio nobiltatus est. .£neas Sylvius. * Bellonius, 

observ. lib. 2. J" Mat. Riccius, lib, 1. cap. 3. Ad. regendam reinp. soli doctores, aut licentiati adsciscuntur, 



384 Cure rf Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 5; 

himself of liis virtues, than of 1 lis birth? Cathesbeiiis, sultan of Egypt and 
Syria, was by his condition a. slave, but for worth, valour, and manhood second 
to no king, and for that cause (as ^ Jovius writes) elected emperor of the Mame- 
lukes. That poor Spanish Pizarro for his valour made by Charles the Fifth 
Marquess of Anatillo: the Turkey Pashas are all such. Pentinax, Phillippus 
Arabs, Maximinus, Probus, Aurelius, (fee, from common soldiers became 
emperors, Cato, Cincinnatus, &c.j consuls. Pius Secundus, Sixtus Quintus. 
Johan SecunduSj Nicholas Quintus, &c., popes. Socrates, Yirgil, Horace, 
lihertina parte natus. "" The kings of Denuiark fetch their pedigree, as some 
say, from one XJlfo, that was the son of a bear. ^ E tenui casa scepe vir 
magnus exit, many a worthy man comes out of a poor cottage. Hercules, 
Romulus, Alexander (by Olympia's confession), Themistocles, Jugurtha, King 
Arthur, William the Conqueror, Homer, Demosthenes, P. Lumbard, P.Comes- 
tor, Bartholus, Adrian the fourth Pope, &c., bastards; and almost in every 
kingdom, the most ancient families have been at first princes' bastards: their 
worthiest captains, best wits, greatest scholars, bravest spirits in all our annals, 
have been base. '^ Cardan, in his Subtleties, gives a reason why they are most 
part better able than others in body and mind, and so, per co7isequens, more 
fortunate. Castruccius Castrucanus, a poor child, found in the field, exposed 
to misery, became prince of Lucca and Senes in Italy, a most complete soldier 
and worthy captain ; Machiavel compares him to Scipio or Alexander. "And 
'tis a wonderful thing (''saith he) to him that shall consider of it, that all those, 
or the greatest part of them, that have done the greatest exploits here upon 
earth, and excelled the rest of the nobles of their time, have been still born in 
some abject, obscure place, or of base and obscure abject parents." A most 
memorable observation, " Scaliger accounts it, et non jorcetereundurii, maod- 
'inoTur)i virorimi plerosque patres iynoratos, niatres impudicas fuisse.^ " I 
could recite a great catalogue of them," every kingdom, every province will 
yield innumerable examples; and why then should baseness of birth be objected 
to any man? Who thinks worse of TuUy for being Arpinas, an upstart 1 Or 
Agathocles, that Sicilian king, for being a potter's son ? Iphicrates and 
Marius were meanly born. AVhat wise man thinks better of any person for his 
nobility? as he said in ^Machiavel, omnes eodem patre nati, Adam's sons, con- 
ceived all and born in sin, &c. " We are by nature all as one, all alike, if 
you see us naked ; let us wear theirs and they our clothes, and what is the 
difi[erence ? " To speak truth, as ^Bale did of P. Schalichius, " I more esteem 
thy worth, learning, honesty, than thy nobility; honour thee more that thou 
art a writer, a doctor of divinity, than Earl of the Pluns, Baron of Skradine, or 
hast title to such and such provinces," (fee. " Thou art more fortunate and great" 
(so ' Jovius writes to Cosmo de' Medici, then Duke of Florence) "for thy virtues, 
than for thy lovely wife, and happy children, friends, fortunes, or great duchy 
of Tuscany." So I account thee; and who doth not so indeed? ^ Abdolo- 
minus was a gardener, and yet by Alexander for his virtues made king of 
Syria. How much better is it to be born of mean parentage, and to excel in 



.Lib. l.hist. contlitione servus, cseterum acer bello, et animi magnitudine maximorum regnm nemini 
secundus : ob hsec aJIameluchis in regeni electus. " Glaus Magnus, lib. 18. Saxo Grammaticus, 

a quo rex Sueno et csetera Danorum regum stemmata. bgeneca de Ci.ntro. Philos. epist. ^ Corpora 

sunt et animo fortiores spurii, plerumque ob amoris vehementiam, seminis crass., (to. d Vita Castruccii. 
Kec prater rationem mirum videri debet, si quis rem considerare velit, omnes eos vel saltern maximam 
partem, qui in hoc terrarum orbe res prtestantiores iiggi'essi sunt, atque inter c:eteros ffivi sui heroas excel- 
luerunt, autobscuro, aut abjecto loco editos, et prognatos fuisse abjectia parentibus. Eoruni egoCatalo.um 
infinitum recensere possem. « Exercit. '265. ^ " It is a thing deserving of our notice, that most great 

men were born in obscurity, and of unchaste mothers." gFlor. hist. 1. 3. Quod si nudos nos conspici 

ontingat, omnium una eademque erit facies ; nam si ipsi nostras, nos eorum vestes induamus, nos, &c. 
Ut merito dicam, quod simplieiter sentiam, Faulum Schalichiura scriptorem, et doctorem, pluris facio 
quam comitem Hunnorum, et Baronem Skradinum ; Encyclopfediarn tuam et orbem disciplinarum omnihus 
provinc is antefero. Balseus, epist. nuncupat. ad 5 cent, ultimam script. Brit. iPrcefat. hist. lib. 1. 

virtute tua major, quam aut Hetrusci imperii fortuna, aut numerosce et decorte prolis felicitate beatior evadis. 
k Cmtiiis. 



Mem. 2.] Reniedies against Discontents. 385 

worth, to be morally noble, which is preferred before that natural nobility, by 
divines, philosophers, and ^politicians, to be learned, honest, discreet, well- 
qualified, to be fit for any manner of employment, in country and common- 
wealth, war and peace, than to be Degeneres Neoptolemi, as many brave nobles 
are, only wise because rich, otherwise idiots, illiterate, unfit for any manner of 
service? "* Udalricus, Earl of Cilia, upbraided John Huniades with the base- 
ness of his birth, but he replied, in te Ciliensis comitatns turpiter extinguiiur, in 
me gloriose Bistricensis exoritur, thine earldom is consumed v^^itli riot, mine 
begins with honour and renown. Thou hast had so many noble ancestors; 
what is that to thee? Vix ect nostra voco, "when thou art a dizzard thyself: 
quod prodest, Pontice, longo stemmate censeri? &c. T conclude, hast thou a 
sound body, and a good soul, good bringing up"? Art thou virtuous, honest, 
learned, well-qualified, religious, are thy conditions good? — thou art a true 

nobleman, perfectly noble, although born of Thersites — dum mxlo tu sis 

jEacid(E similis,nonnatus, sed /actus, nohle xar i^oyjtv, ""for neither sword, 
nor fire, nor water, nor sickness, nor outward violence, nor the devil himself 
can take thy good parts from thee." Be not ashamed of thy birth tlien, thou 
art a gentleman all the world over, and shalt be honoured, when as he, strip 
him of his fine clothes, ^ dispossess him of his wealth, is a funge (which "^Poly- 
nices in his banishment found true by experience, gentry was not esteemed) like 
a piece of coin in another country, that no man will take, and shall be con- 
temned. Once more, though thou be a barbarian, born at Tontonteac, a villain, 
a slave, a Saldanian negro, or a* rude Virginian in Dasamonquepec, he a French 
monsieur, a Spanish don, a seignior of Italy, I care not how descended, of 
what family, of what order, baron, count, prince, if thou be well qualified, and 
he not, but a degenerate Neoptolemus, I tell thee in a word, thou art a man, 
and he is a beast. 

Let no terrce jilius, or upstart, insult at this which I have said, no worthy 
gentleman take offence. I speak it not to detract from such as are well 
deserving, truly virtuous and noble : I do much respect and honour true gentry 
and nobility; I was born of worshipful parents myself, in an ancient family, 
but I am a younger brother, it concerns me not : or had I been some great 
heir, richly endowed, so minded as I am, I should not have been elevated at 
all, but so esteemed of it, as of all other human happiness, honours, &c., they 
have their period, are brittle and inconstant. As 'he said of that great 
river Danube, it riseth from a small fountain, a little brook at first, sometimes 
broad, sometimes narrow, now slow, then swift, increased at last to an incredible 
greatness by the confluence of sixty navigable rivers, it vanisheth in conclusion, 
loseth his name, and is suddenly swaliowed up of the Euxine sea: I may say 
of our greatest families, they were mean at first, augmented by rich marriages, 
purchases, offices, they continue for some ages, with some little alteration of 
circumstances, fortunes,^ places, &c., by some prodigal son, for some default, or 
for want of issue they are defaced in an instant, and their memory blotted out. 

So much in the meantime I do attribute to Gentility, that if he be well- 
descended, of worshipful or noble parentage, he will express it in his conditions, 



'nee enim feroces 



Progenerant aquilaj columbas." 

And although the nobility of our times be much like our coins, more in number 
and value, but less in weight and goodness, ^vith finer stamps, cuts, or outsides 

' BocVme de rep. lib. 3. cap. 8. "> ^neas Silvius, lib. 2. cap. 29, " " If children be proud, 

Iiauffhty, foolish, they defile the nobility of their kindred,'" Eccl. xxii. 8. o Cujus possessio nee furto 

eri]ii, nee incendio absunii, nee aquarum voragine absorberi, vel vi morbi destrui potest. p Send them 

both to some strange place naked, ad ignotos, as Aristippus said, you shall see the difference. Bacon's 
Essays. 'i Fainili:.'.? splendor nihil opis attulit, &c. >■ Kluvius hie illustris, humanaruni rerum imago, 

qiny parvis ductaj sub initiis, in iinmensum crescunt, et subito evanescunt. lixilis hie primo fluvius, in ad- 
mirandam magnitudinem excrescit, tandemque in mari Eiixino evanescit. I. Stuckius pereg. mar. Euxini. 
* " For fierce eagles do not procreate timid nng-doves." 

2c 



386 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3'. 

than of old ; yet if he retain those ancient characters of true gentry, he will be 
more affable, courteous, gently disposed, of fairer carriage, better temper, or a 
more magnanimous, heroical, and generous spirit, than that vulgus hominum, 
those ordinary boors and peasants, qui adeo improbi, agrestes, et inculti plerum- 
que sunt, ne dicam maliciosi, ut nemini idlum humanitatis ojicium prcestent, ne 
tpsi Deo si advenerit, as ®one observes of them, a rude, brutish, uncivil, wild, 
a currish generation, cruel and malicious, incapable of discipline, and such as 
have scarce common sense. And it may be generally spoken of all, which 
'Lemnius the physician said of his travel into England, the common people 
were silly, sullen, dogged clowns, sed mitior nobilitas, ad omne humanitatis 
qffijcium iiaratissima, the gentlemen were courteous and civil. If it so fall out 
(as often it doth) that such peasants are preferred by reason of their wealth, 
chance, error, &c,, or otherwise, yet as the cat in the fable, when she was 
tiu-ned to a fair maid, would play with mice ; a cur will be a cur, a clown will 
be a clown, he will likely savour of the stock whence he came, and that innate 
rusticity can hardly be shaken off. 

" " Licet supcrbiis arnltulet peciinia, 
Fortuna non mutat genus." 

And though by their education such men may be better qualified, and more 
refined ; yet there be many symptoms by which they may likely be descried, 
an affected fantastical carriage, a tailor-like spruceness, a peculiar garb in all 
their proceedings; choicer than ordinary in his diet, and as "Hierome well 
describes such a one to his JSTepotian ; '■' An upstart born in a base cottage, 
that scarce at first had coarse bread to fill his hungry guts, must now feed on 
kickshaws and made dishes, will have all variety of flesh and fish, the best 
oysters," &c. A beggar's brat will be commonly laore scornful, imperious, 
insulting, insolent, tljan another man of his rank : " Nothing so intolerable as 
a fortunate fool," as ^Tully found out long since out of his experience; Aspe- 
rius nihil est humili cum surgit in altmn, set a beggar on horseback, and he 
will ride a gallop, a gallop, &c. 

" * dessevit in omnes 



Dum se posse putat, nee bellua sasvior ulla est, 
Quam servi rabies in libera colla furentis ; " 

he forgets what he was, domineers, &c., and many such other symptoms he 
hath, by which you may know him from a true gentleman. Many errors and 
obliquities are on both sides, noble, ignoble, factis, natis; yet still in all 
callings, as some degenerate, some are well deserving, and most worthy of their 
honours. And as Bosbequius said of Solyman the Magnificent, he was tanto 
dignus imperio, worthy of that great empire. Many meanly descended are 
most worthy of their honour, politice nohiles, and well deserve it. Many of our 
nobility so born (which one said of Hephsestion, Ptolemeus, Seleucus, Anti- . 
gonus, &c., and the rest of Alexander's followers, they were all worthy to be 
monarchs and generals of armies) deserve to be princes. And I am so far forth 
of ^Sesellius's mind, that they ought to be preferred (if capable) before others, 
" as being nobly born, ingenuously brought up, and from their infancy trained 
to all manner of civility." For learning and virtue in a nobleman is more 
eminent, and, as a jewel set in gold is more precious, and much to be respected, 
such a man deserves better than others, and is as great an honour to his family 
as his noble family to him. In a word, many noblemen are an ornament to 
their order : many poor men's sons are singularly well endowed, most eminent, 
and well deserving for their worth, wisdom, learning, virtue, valour, integrity ; 

»Sabinus in 6. Ovid. Met. fab 4 «Lib. 1. de 4. Complexionibus. °IIor. ep. Od. 2. "And 

although he boast of his wealtli, Fortune has not changed his nature." « Lib. 2. ep. 15. Natus sordidc 
tuguriolo et paupere domo, qui vix milio rugientem ventrem, &c. y Nihil fortunate insipiente intolerabilius. 
» Claud. 1. 9. in Eutrop. " Lib. 1. de Rep. Gal. Quaniam et commodiore ut-nitur conditionej et honestiore 
loco nati, jam inde a parvulis ad morum civilitateru educati sunt, et tissuefacti. 



Mem. 3.] Remedies against Discontents. 38"7 

excellent members and pillars of a commonwealth. And therefore to con- 
clude that which I first intended, to be base by birth^ meanly born, is no 
such disparagement. Et sic demonstratur, quod erat demonstrandum. 



MEMB. III. 

Against Poverty and Want, with such other Adversities. 

One of the greatest miseries that can befal a man, in the world's esteem, is 
poverty or want, which makes men steal, bear false witness, swear, forswear, 
contend, murder and rebel, which breaketh sleep, and causeth death itself 
ohhv 'Xiviag (Saovrsi^ov ssri (popr/ov, no bnrden (saith ^Menander) so intolerable 
as poverty : it makes men desperate, it erects and dejects, census honores, census 
amicitias; money makes, but poverty mars, &c. and all this in the world's 
esteem : yet if considered aright, it is a great blessing in itself, a happy 
estate, and yields no cause of discontent, or that men should therefore account 
themselves vile, hated of God, forsaken, miserable, unfortunate. Christ him- 
self was poor, boi-n in a manger, and had not a house to hide his head in all 
his life, " ''lest any man should make poverty a judgment of God, or an odious 
estate." And as he was himself, so he informed his Apostles and Disciples, 
they were all poor. Prophets poor. Apostles poor (Acts iii. " Silver and gold 
have I none"). " As sorrowing (saith Paul) and yet always rejoicing ; as 
having nothing, and yet possessing all things," 1 Cor. vi. 10. Your great 
Philosophers have been voluntarily poor, not only Christians, but many others. 
Crates Thebanus was adored for a god in Athens, " '^ a nobleman by birth, 
many servants he had, an honourable attendance, much wealth, many manors, 
fine apparel ; but when he saw this, that all the wealth of the world was but 
brittle, uncertain and no whit availing to live well, he flung his burden into 
the sea, and renounced his estate." Those Curii and Fabricii will be ever re- 
nowned for contempt of these fopperies, wherewith the world is so much 
aifected. Amongst Christians I could reckon up many kings and queens, that 
have forsaken their crowns and fortunes, and wilfully abdicated themselves 
from these so much esteemed toys ; ®many that have refused honours, titles, 
and all this vain pomp and happiness, which others so ambitiously seek, and 
carefully study to compass and attain. Riches I deny not are God's good 
gifts, and blessings ; and honor est in honorante, honours are from God ; both 
rewards of virtue, and fit to be sought after, sued for, and may well be pos- 
sessed : yet no such great happiness in having, or misery in wanting of them. 
Dantur quideni bonis, saith ALUstin, 7ie quis mcda cestimet : malis autem ne quis 
nimis bona, good men have wealth that we should not think it evil ; and bad 
men that they should not rely on or hold it so good ; as the rain falls on both 
sorts, so are riches given to good and bad, sed bonis in bonum, but they are 
good only to the godly. But *^compare both estates, for naturtil parts they are 
not unlike ; and a beggar's child, as ^ Cardan well observes, " is no whit in- 
ferior to a prince's, most part better ; " and for those accidents of fortune, it 
will easily appear there is no such odds, no such extraordinary happiness in 
the one, or misery in the other. He is rich, wealthy, fat ; what gets he by 
it? pride, insolency, lust, ambition, cares, fears, suspicion, trouble, anger, 
emulation, and many filthy diseases of body and mind. He hath indeed 

b Nullum paupertate gravins onus. <=Ne quis irse divine judicium putaret, aut paupertas exosa foret. 
Gualr. in cap. 2. ver. 18. Lucas. a Inter proceres Thebanos numeratas, lectum liabuit genus, frequens 

famulitium, domus amplas, etc. Apuleius Florid. 1.4. e p. Blesensis, ep. 72. et 232. oblatos respui 

ho::oi-es ex onere metiens; motus a'.nbitiosos rogatus nonivi, &c. ^Sudat pauper foras in opere, dives in 
cogitatione; Iiic os aperit oscitatione, ille ructatione ; gravius ille fastidio, quam hie inedia cruciatur. 
13er. ser. s In ilysperchen. Natura lequa est, puerosque videmus mendicorum nulla ex parte regum filiis 
diasiiniles, pleruraque saniores. 



388 



Cure of Melancholy. 



[Part. 2. Sec. th 



variety of dishes, better fare, sweet wine, pleasant sauce, dainty music, gay 
clotlaes, lords it bravely out, &c., and all that which Misillus admired in 
^ Lucian ; but with them he hath the gout, dropsies, apoplexies, palsies, 
stone, pox, rheums, catarrhs, crudities, oppilations, 'melancholy, &c., lust enters 
in, anger, ambition, according to ^ Chrysostom, " the sequel of riches is pride, 
riot, intemperance, arrogancy, fury, and all irrational courses." 

" ' turpi fregenmt sascula luxu 

Divitiae moUes, " 

with their variety of dishes, many such maladies of body and mind get in, 
which the poor man knows not of As Saturn in ™ Lucian answered the 
discontented commonalty (which, because of their neglected Saturnal feasts 
in Rome, made a grievous complaint and exclamation against rich men), that 
they were much mistaken in supposing such happiness in riches ; " " you see 
the best (said he) but you know not their several gripings and discontents : " 
they are like painted walls, fair without, rotten within : diseased, filthy, 
crazy, full of intemperance's effects ; "°and who can reckon half? if you but 
knew their fears, cares, anguish of mind and vexation, to which they are 
subject, you would hereafter renounce all riches." 



" P si pateant pectora divitnm, 
Quantos intus sublimit agit 
Fortunametus ! Brutia Coro 



■ that their breasts were but conspicuous, 
How full of fear within, how furious ! 
The narrow seas arenot so boisterous." 



Pulsante fretum mitior unda est." 

Yea, but he hath the world at will that is rich, the good things of the earth : 
suave est de magno tollere acervo (it is sweet to draw from a great heap), he is 
a happy man, "^adored like a god, a prince, every man seeks to him, applauds, 
honours, admires him. He hath honours indeed, abundance of all things ; 
but (as I said) withal " ''pride, lust, anger, faction, emulation, fears, cares, 
suspicion enter with his wealth ; " for his intemperance he hath aches, 
crudities, gouts, and as fruits of his idleness, and fulness, lust, surfeiting and 
drunkenness, all manner of diseases : pecuniis augetur improbitas, the 
wealthier, the more dishonest. " ^He is exposed to hatred, envy, peril and 
treason, fear of death, degradation," &c., 'tis lubrica statio et proxima prcecipitioj 
and the higher he climbs, the greater is his fall. 

"* celsee graviore casu 

Decidunt turres, feriuntque summos 
Fulguramontes," 

the lightning commonly sets on fire the highest towers ; " in the more 
eminent place he is, the more subject to fall. 

"Rumpitur innumeris arbos uberrima pomis, 
Et subito nimise praecipitantur opes." 

As a tree that is heavy laden with fruit breaks her own boughs, with their 
own greatness they ruin themselves : which Joachimus Camerarius hath 
elegantly expressed in his 13 Emblem, cent. 1. Inoj^em se copia fecit. Their ^ 
means is their misery, though they do apply themselves to the times, to lie, 
dissemble, collogue and flatter their lieges, obey, second his will and com- 
mands, as much as may be, yet too frequently they miscarry, they fat them- 
selves like so many hogs, as ^^neas Sylvius observes, that when they are 
full fed, they may be devoured by their princes, as Seneca by Nero was served, 
Sejanus by Tiberius, and Haman by Ahasuerus : I resolve with Gregory, 
potestas culminis, est tempestas mentis ; et quo dignitas altior, casus gravior, 

h Gallo Tom. 2. iEt fe contubernio foedi atque olidi ventris mors tandem educit. Seneca, ep. 103. 

kDivitiarum sequela, luxus, intemperies, arrogantia, superbia, furor injustus, omnisque irratiouabilis 
motus. ' Juven. Sat. 6. " Efteminate riches have destroyed the age by the introduction of shameful 

luxury." ™ Saturn. Epist. » Vos quidem divites putatis felices, sed nescitis eorura miserias. ^ ^ Et 
quota pars hasc eorum qutB istos discruciant ? si nossetis metus et curas, quibus obnoxii sunt, plane fugi- 
endas vobis divitias existimaretis. p Seneca in Here, ffiteo. i Et diis similes stulta cogitatio facit. 

^Flammasimul libidinis ingreditur; ira, furor et superbia, divitiarum sequela. Chrys. » Omnium oculis, 
odio, insidiis expositus, semper solicitus, fortunae ludibrium. t Hor. 2. 1. od. 10. " Quid me felicem 

. toties jactastis, amici ? Qui cecidit, stabili non fuit ille loco. Boetli. ^ Ut postquam impinguati fueriut, 

devoreutur. 



Mem. 3.] 



Remedies agaliisl Disco i da ds. 



389 



honour is a tempest, the higher thej are elevated, the more greviously 
dej^ressed. For the rest of his prerogatives which wealth affords, as he hath 
more his expenses are the greater. " When goods increase, they are increased 
that eat them; and what good cometh to the owners, bat the beholding 
thereof with the eyes?" Eccles. iv. 10. 

" y ;Millia frumenti tua triverit area centum, 

Non tuus iiiuc capiet venter plus quam meus" 

"an evil sickness," Solomon calls it, "and reserved to them for an evil," 12 
verse. " They that will be rich fall into many fears and temptations, into 
many foolish and noisome lusts, which drown men in perdition." 1 Tim. vi. 9. 
" Gold and silver hath destroyed many," Ecclus. viii. 2. divitm scbcuU sunt 
laquei diaboli: so writes Bernard; worldly wealth is the devil's bait: and as 
the JMoon when she is fuller of light is still farthest from the Sun, the more 
wealth they have, the farther they are commonly from God. (If I had said 
this of myself, rich men would have pulled me to pieces; but hear who saith, 
and who seconds it, an Apostle) therefore St. James bids them " weep and 
howl for the miseries that shall come upon them; their gold shall rast and 
canker, and eat their flesh as fire," James v. 1, 2, 3. I may then boldly 
conclude with. ^Theodoret, quotiescunque divitiis affluentem, &c. " As often as 
you shall see a man abounding in wealth," qui gemmis bibit et Serrano dormit 
in ostro, " and naught withal, I beseech you call him not happy, but esteem 
him unfortunate, because he hath many occasions offered to live unjustly; 
on the other side, a poor man is not miserable, if he be good, but therefore 
happy, that those evil occasions are taken from him." 



" a Non possiclentem multa vocaveris 
Eecte beatum; rectius occupat 
Nomen beati, qui deorum 
Muneribus sapienter uti, 
Duramque callet pauperiem pati, 
Pej usque letho flagitium timet." 



" He is not happy that is rich, 

And hath the world at will, 
But he that wisely can God's gifts 

Possess and use them still : 
That sutfers and with patience 

Abides hard poverty, 
And chooseth rather for to die; 

Than do such villainy." 



Wherein now consists his happiness? what privileges hath he more than other 
men ? or rather what miseries, what cares and discontents hath he not more 
than other men? 



" b Non enim gazse, neque consularis 
Summovet lictormiseros turaultus 
Mentis, et curas laqueata circum 
Tecta volantes." 



" Nor treasures, nor majors officers remove 
The miserable tumults of the mind: 
Or cares that lie about, or fly above [bin'd." 

Their high-roofed houses, with huge beams com- 



'Tis not his wealth can vindicate him, let him have Job's inventory, sint Crossi 
et Crassi licet, non hos Pactolus aureas undas agens, eripiat unqumn e miseriis, 
Croesus or rich Crassus cannot now command health, or get himself a stomach. 
" ''His worship," as Apuleius describes him, in all his plenty and great pro- 
vision, is forbidden to eat, or else hath no appetite (sick in bed, can take no 
rest, sore grieved with some chronic disease, contracted with full diet and ease, 
or troubled in mind), when as, in the meantime, all his household are merry, 
and the poorest seiwant that he keeps doth continually feast." 'Tis Bracteata 
felicitas, as "^Seneca terms it, tinfoiled happiness, infelix felicitas, an unhappy 
kind of happiness, if it be happiness at all. His gold, guard, clattering of 
harness, and fortifications against outvv^ard enemies, cannot free him from 
inward fears and cares. 



" Reveraque metus hominum, cursque sequaces 
Nee metuunt fremitus armorum, aut ferrea tela, 
Audacterque inter reges, regumque potentes 
Versantur, neque fulgorem reverentur ab auro." 



"Indeed men still attending feai's and cares 
Nor armours clashing, nor fierce weapons fears : 
With kings converse they boldly, and kings' peers. 
Fearing no flashing that from gold appears." 



yHor. "Although a hundred thousand bushels of wheat may have been threshed in your granaries, 
your stomach will not contain more than mine." ^Cap. 6. de curat, grsec. affect, rap. deprovidentia; quo- 
tiescunque divitiis affluentem hominem videmus, eumque pessiraum, ne qua.-so huiic beatissimuui putenms, 
sed infelicem censeamus, &c. a Hor. 1. 2. Od. 2. ^Hor. lib. 2. <= Florid, lib. 4. r>ives illecibo 

interdicitur, et in omni copia sua cibum nou accipit, cum iuturea totum ejus servitium hilare sit, acque 
epuletur. ''Epist. 115. 



390 Cure cf Melancholy, [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

Look liow many servants he hath, and so many enemies he suspects ; for liberty 
he entertains ambition ; his pleasures are no pleasures ; and that which is 
worst, he cannot be private or enjoy himself as other men do, his state is a 
servitude. * A countryman may travel from kingdom to kingdom, province to 
province, city to city, and glut his eyes with delightful objects, hawk, hunt, and 
use those ordinary disports, without any notice taken, all which a prince or a 
great man cannot do. He keeps in for state, ne majestatis dignitas evilescat, 
as our China kings, of Borneo, and Tartarian Chams, those aurea niancipia, 
are said to do, seldom or never seen abroad, ut major sit hominum erga se ohser- 
vantia, which the ^Persian kings so precisely observed of old. A poor man 
takes more delight in an ordinary meal's meat, which he hath but seldom, than 
they do with all their exotic dainties and continual viands ; Quippe voluptatem 
comTYiendat rarior usus, 'tis the rarity and necessity that makes a thing accept- 
able and pleasant. Darius, put to flight by Alexander, drank puddle water to 
quench his thirst, and it was pleasanter, he swore, than any wine or mead. All 
exjcess, as ^Epictetus argues, will cause a dislike; sweet will be sour, which 
made that temperate Epicurus sometimes voluntarily fast. But they being 
always accustomed to the same ^dishes (which are nastily dressed by slovenly 
cooks, that after their obscenities never wash their bawdy hands), be they fish, 
flesh, compounded, made dishes, or whatsoever else, are therefore cloyed; 
nectars self grows loathsome to them, they are weary of all their fine palaces, 
they are to thetn but as so many prisons. A poor man drinks in a wooden 
dish, and eats his meat in wooden spoons, wooden platters, earthen vessels, 
and such homely stuff: the other in gold, silver, and precious stones; but 
with what success? in auro bibifur venerium, fear of poison in the one, security 
in the other. A poor man is able to write, to speak his mind, to do his own 
business himself; locuples mittit parasitum, saith ^ Philostratus, a rich man em- 
ploys a parasite, and as the major of the city, speaks by the town clerk, or 
by Mr. Recorder, when he cannot express himself ^Nonius the senator hath 
a purple coat as stiff with jewels as his mind is full of vices; rings on his 
fingers worth 20,000 sesterces, and as 'Perox the Persian king, an union in 
his ear worth one hundred pounds weight of gold : ^ Cleopatra hath whole 
boars and sheep served up to her table at once, drinks jewels dissolved, 
40,000 sesterces in value; but to what end? 

" ■ Num tibi cum fauces urit sitis, aurea quteris 
Pocula?" 

Doth a man that is adry desire to drink in gold? Doth not a cloth suit be- 
come him as well, and keep him as warm, as all their silks, satins, damasks, 
taffeti^s and tissues? Is not homespun cloth as great a preservative against 
cold, as a coat of Tartar lambs'- wool, dyed in grain, or a gown of giants' 
beards? Nero, saith ""Sueton., never put on one garment twice, and thou hast 
scarce one to put on ! what's the difference? one's sick, the other sound : such is 
the whole tenor of their lives, and that which is the consummation and upshot 
of all, death itself makes the greatest difference. One like a hen feeds on 
the dunghill all his days, but is served up at last to his Lord's table; the 
other as a falcon is fed with partridge and pigeons, and carried on his master's 
fist, but when he dies is fiung to the muckhill, and there lies. The rich man 
lives like Dives jovially here on earth, temulentus dlvitiis, make the best of 
it; and " boasts himself in the multitude of his riches," Psalm xlix. 6, 11. he 
thinks his house " called after his own name, shall continue for ever; " " but he 

e Hor. et mihi curto Ire licet mulo vel si libet usque Tarentum. f Brisonius. e Si modum excesseris, 
suavissima sunt molesta. h Et in cupidiis gulie, coqaus et pueri illotis manibus ab exoneratione ventris 
omnia tractant, &c. Cardan. 1. 8. cap. 46. de rerum vai'ietate. iEpist. kPlin. lib. 57. cap. 6. 

•.Zonaras 3, annal. mPlutarcli. vit. ejus. »llor. Ser. lib. 1. Sat. 2. » Cay. 30. nullam 

vestem bis induit. 



«.vlem. 3.] lieniedies ayai,ist Discontads. 391 

perislieth like a beast," verse 20. "his way utters his folly," verse 13. Qnale 
partamale dilahuntur; "like sheep they lie in the grave," verse 14. Puncto 
descendunt ad infernum, " they spend their days in wealth, and go suddenly 
down to hell," Job xxi. 13. For all physicians and medicines enforcing na- 
ture, a swooning wife, families' complaints, friends' tears, dirges, masses, 
Qienias, funerals, for all orations, counterfeit hired acclamations, eulogiums, 
epitaphs, hearses, heralds, black mourners, solemnities, obelisks, and Mauso- 
leum tombs, if he have them, at least, ^he, like a hog, goes to hell with a 
guilty conscience {propter hos dilatavit infernus os swum), and a poor man's 
curse : his memory stinks like the snuff of a candle when it is put out ; scur- 
rilous libels, and infamous obloquies accompany him. When as poor Lazarus 
is Dei sacrarium, the temple of God, lives and dies in true devotion, hath no 
more attendants but his own innocency, the heaven a tomb, desires to be 
dissolved, buried in his mother's lap, and hath a company of ^Angels ready 
to convey his soul into Abraham's bosom, he leaves an everlasting and a 
sweet memory behind him. Crassus and Sylla are indeed still recorded, but 
not so much for their wealth as for their victories : Croesus for his end, Solo- 
mon for his wisdom. In a word, """to get wealth is a great trouble, anxiety 
to keep, grief to lose it." 

"sQuid dignum stolidis mentibns imprecer? 
Opes, honores ambiant : 
Et cum falsa gravi moie paraverint, 
Turn vera cognoscant bona." 

But consider all those other unknown, concealed happinesses, which a poor 
man hath (I call them unknown, because they be not acknowledged in the 
world's esteem, or so taken), fortunatos nimiu7}i bona si sua norinl: happy 
they are in the meantime if they would take notice of it, make use, or apply 
it to themselves. " A poor man wise is better than a foolish king," Eccles. ii. 
13. " 'Poverty is the way to heaven, "the mistress of philosophy, ""the mother 
of religion, virtue, sobriety, sister of innocency, and an upright mind." How 
many such encomiums might I add out of the fathers, philosophers, orators? 
It troubles many that are poor, they account of it as a great plague, curse, a 
sign of God's hatred, ipsum scelus, damned villainy itself, a disgrace, shame 
and reproach; but to whom, or why? ''^If fortune hath envied me wealth, 
thieves have robbed me, my father hath not left me such revenues as others 

have, that I am a younger brother, basely born, cui sine luce genus, sui'- 

dumque pareyitum nomen, of mean parentage, a dirt-dauber's son, am I 

therefore to be blamed? an eagle, a bull, a lion is not rejected for his poverty, 
and why should a man?" 'Tis ^fortiince telum, non culpce, fortune's fault, not 
mine. "Good Sir, I am a servant (to use ** Seneca's words), howsoever your 
poor friend; a servant, and yet your chamber-fellow, and if you consider bet- 
ter of it, your fellow-servant." I am thy drudge in the world's eyes, yet in 
God's sight peradventure thy better, my soul is more precious, and I dearer 
unto him. Etiani servi diis curce sunt, as Evangel us at large proves in Ma- 
crobius, the meanest servant is most precious in his sight. Thou art an 
epicure, I am a good Christian ; thou art many parasangs before me in means, 
favour, wealth, honour, Claudius's Narcissus, ^iero's Massa, Domitian's Par- 
thenius, a favourite, a golden slave; thou coverest thy floors with marble, thy 
roofs with gold, thy walls with statues, fine pictures, curious hangings, &c., 

pAdgenerum Cereris sine csde et sanguine pauci descendant reges, et sicca morte tjTanni. q "God 

shall deliver his soul from the power of the grave,'' Psal. xlis. 15. r Contempl. Idiot. Cap. 37. divitiarum 
acquisitio magni laboris, possessio magni timoris, araissio magni doloris. « Boethias de coiisol. phil. 1.3. 
"How contemptible stolid minds! They covet riches and titles, and when the^' have obtained these com- 
modities of false weight and measures, then, and not before, they understand what is truly valuable." 
t Austin in Ps. Ixxvi. omnis Philosophise magisti-a, ad coslum via " Bonte mentis soror paupertas. 

»P£ed.igoga pietatis sobria, pia mater, cultu, simplex, habilu secura, consiliobeuesuada. Apul. y Cardan. 
Opprobrium non est paui)ertds : quodlatro eripit, aut pater non reliiiiiit, cur mihi vitio daretur, si fortana 
divitias invidit? nonaiiuihy, non, &c. ^ Tally. "Epist. 74. servus, suinme homo; servus sum, imuio 

contubernalis, servus sum, at humilis amicus, immo couservus si cogitaveris. 



3 'J 2 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

wliat of all this? calcas opes, &c., what's all this to true happiness? I live and 
breathe under that glorious heaven, that august capitol of nature, enjoy the 
brightness of stars, that clear ligLt of san and moon, those infinite creatures, 
plants, birds, beasts, fishes, herbs, 5x11 that sea and land afford, far surpassing all 
that art and opulentia can give. 1 am free, and which ^Seneca said of Eome, 
culmen liheros texit, sub marmore et auro postea servitus habitavit, thou hast 
Amalthece cornu, plenty, pleasure, the world at will, I am despicable and poor; 
but a word overshot, a blow in choler, a game at tables, a loss at sea, a sud- 
den fire, the prince's dislike, a little sickness, &c., may make us equal in an 
instant ; howsoever take thy time, triumph and insult awhile, cinis cequat, 
as " Alphonsus said, death will equalise us all at last, I live sparingly, in the 
mean time, am clad homely, fare hardly; is this a reproach? am I the worse 
for it? am I contemptible for it? am I to be reprehended? A learned man 
in ''Nevisanus was taken down for sitting amongst gentlemen, but he replied, 
" my nobility is about the head, yours declines to the tail," and they were 
silent. Let them mock, scoff, and revile, 'tis not thy scorn, but his that made 
thee so; " he that mocketh the poor, reproacheth him that made him," Pro v. 
xi. 5. "and he that rejoiceth at affliction, shall not be unpunished." For the 
rest, the poorer thou art, the happier thou art, ditior est, at non melior, saith 
^Epictetus, he is richer, not better than thou art, not so free from lust, envy, 
hatred, ambition. 

" Beatus ille qui procul negotiis 
Paternarura bobiis exercet suis." 

Happy he, in that he is ^freed from the tumults of the world, he seeks no 
honours, gapes after no preferment, flatters not, envies not, temporiseth not, 
but lives privately, and well contented with his estate; 

" Nee spes corde avidas, nee curam pascit inanera 
Securus quo fata cadaiit," 

lie is not troubled with state matters, whether kingdoms thrive better by 
succession or election ; whether monarchies should be mixed, temperate, or ab- 
solute; the house of Ottomon's and Austria is all one to him; he inquires 
not after colonies or new discoveries ; whether Peter were at Rome, or Constan- 
tino's donation be of force; what comets or new stars signify, whether the 
earth stand or move, there be a new world in the moon, or infinite worlds, 
&c. He is not touched with fear of invasions, factions or emulations; 



"« Foelix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis, 
Quem non mordaciresplendens gloria fuco 
Solicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus, 
Sed tacitos sinit ire dies, etpaupere cultu 
•• Exigit innocuse tranquilla silentia viUe." 



"A happy soul, and like to God himself, 
Whom not vain glory macerates or strife, 
Or wicked joys of that proud swelling pelf, 
But leads a still, poor, and contented life." 



A secure, quiet, blissful state he hath, if he could acknowledge it. But here 
is the misery, that he will not take notice of it; he repines at rich men's 
wealth, brave hangings, dainty fare, as 'Simonides objecteth to Hiero, he 
hath all the pleasures of the world, ^Hn lectis eburneis dormit, vinum phialis 
bibit, optimis unguentis delibuitur, " he knows not the affliction of Joseph, 
stretching himself on ivory beds, and singing to the sound of the viol." And 
it troubles him that he hath not the like; there is a difference (he grumbles) 
between Laplolly and Pheasants, to tumble i' th' straw and lie in a down bed, 
betwixt wine and water, a cottage and a palace. " He hates nature (as ^ Pliny 
characteriseth him) that she hath made him lower than a god, and is angry 

b Epist. 66 et 90. cPanormitan. rebus gestis Alph. ^ Lib. 4 num. 218. quidam deprehensus quod 

sederet loco nobilium,mea nobilitas, ait, est circa caput, vestra declinat ad caudam. ^'fanto beatior es, 

quanto collectior. f Non amoribus inservit, non appetit lionores, et qualitercunque relictus satis habet, 

hominem se esse meminit, invidet nemini, neminem despicit, nemiuem miratur, sermonibus malignis non 
attend t aut alitur. Plinius. KPolitianus in rustico. ''Gyges, regno Lydiai inflatus, sciscitatum misit 
Apollinem, an quis mortalium se lelicior esset. Aglaium Arcadum pauperrimura Apollo pr;etulit, qui ter- 
minos agri sui nunquam excesserat, rure sua contentus. Val. lib. 1. c 7. *Hor. ha;c est Vita solutorum 
miseraambitione, gravique. kAmosvi. J Prsefat. lib. 7. Odit na.tm-am quod infra deos sit ; irascitar 
diis quod quis illi antecedat. 



Mem. 3.] Memedies against Discontents. 393 

with the gods that any man goes before him ;" and although he hath received 
much, yet (as "Seneca follows it) "he thinks it an injury that he hath no 
more, and is so far from giving thanks for his tribuneship, that he complains 
he is not praetor, neither doth that please him, except he may be consul." Why 
is he not a prince, why not a monarch, why not an emperor? Why should one 
man have so much more than his fellows, one have a-ll, another nothing ? Why 
should one man be a slave or drudge to another 1 One surfeit, another starve, 
one live at ease, another labour, without any hope of better fortune 1 Thus 
they grumble, mutter, and repine : not considering that inconstancy of human 
affairs, judicially conferring one condition with another, or well weighing their 
own present estate. What they are now, thou mayest shortly be ; and what 
thou art they shall likely be. Expect a little, compare future and times past 
with the present, see the event, and comfort thyself with it. It is as well to 
be discerned in commonwealths, cities, fomilies, as in private men's estates. 
Italy was once lord of the world, Rome the queen of cities, vaunted herself of 
two "myriads of inhabitants; now that all -commanding country is possessed by 
petty princes, ° Rome a small village in respect. Greece of old the seat of 
civility, mother of sciences and humanity; now forlorn, the nurse of barbarism, 
a den of thieves. Germany then, saith Tacitus, was incult and horrid, now full 
of magnificent cities: Athens, Corinth, Carthage, how flourishing cities, now 
buried in their own ruins! Corvorum, ferarum, aproruin ethestiarum lustra, 
like so many wildernesses, a receptacle of wild beasts. Yenice, a poor fisher- 
town; Paris, London, small cottages in Caesar's time, now m.ost noble empo- 
riums. Valois, Plantagenet, and Scaliger how fortunate families, how likely 
to continue ! now quite extinguished and rooted out. He stands aloft to-day, 
full of favour, wealth, honour, and prosperity, in the top of fortune's wheel : 
to-morrow in prison, worse than nothing, his son's a beggar. Thou art a poor 
servile drudge, Fc^x pojndi, a very slave, thy son may come to be a prince, 
vvith Maximinus, Agathocles, &c., a senator, a general of an army; thou 
standest bare to him. now, workest for him, drudgest for him and his, takest an 
alms of him: stay but a little, and his next heir perad venture shall consume all 
with riot, be degraded, thou exalted, and he shall beg of thee. Thou shalt be 
his most honourable patron, he thy devout servant, his posterity shall run, ride, 
and do as much for thine, as it was with pPrisgobald and Cromwell, it may be 
for thee. Citizens devour country gentlemen, and settle in their seats; after 
two or three descents, they consume all in riot, it returns to the city again. 



-Novus incola venit: 



Nam propria tellm'is herum natuva, neque ilium, 
Nee me, nee quenquam statuit; nos expulit ille : 
ll:um aut nequities, aut vafri inscitia juris." 



" have we liv'd at a more frugal rate 

Since this new stranger seiz'd on our estate? 

Nature will no perpetual heir assign. 

Or make the tarm his property or mine. 

He turn'd us out ; hut follies all his own, 

Or law-suits and their knaveries yet unknown, 

Or, all his follies and his law-suits past, 

Some long-lived heir shall turn him out at last.' 



A lawyer buys out his poor client, after a while his client's posterity buy out 
him and his ; so things go round, ebb and flow. 



"Nunc ager Umhreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli 
Dictus erat, nulli proprins, sed cedit in usum 
Nunc mihi, nunc aliis ; " 



" The farm, once mine, now hears Umhrenus' name; 
The use alone, not property, we claim ; 
Then be not with your present lot deprest, 
And meet the future with undaunted breast ; " 



as he said then, ager cujus, quot hahes Dominos ? So say I of land, houses, 
moveables and money, mine to-day, his anon, whose to-morrow 1 In fine (as 
■^ Machiavel observes), "virtue and prosperity beget rest; rest idleness; idleness 
riot ; riot destruction : from which we come again to good laws : good laws 

" De Ira, cap. 31. lib. 3. Et si mu'tum acceperit, injuria>Ta putat pluranon accepisse; non aG;itpro tribunatu 
gratias, sed queritur quod non sit ad praeturam perductus ; neque hrec gi'ata, si desit consulatus. n Lips 
admir. <> Of some 90,000 inhabitants now. p Read the story at Lirge in John Fox, his Acts and Monu- 
ments, q Hor. Sat. 2. ser. lib 2. ' 5 Florent. hist, virtus quietem parat, quies otium, otium ponv 
luxum generat, luxus interitum, a quo iterum ad saluberrimas, &c. 



394 Cure of Melanclioly. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

engender virtuous actions; virtue, glory, and prosperity: and 'tis no dishonour 
then (as G-uicciardine adds) for a flourishing man, city, or state to come to ruin, 
®nor infelicity to be subject to the law of nature." Ergo terrena calcanda, 
sitienda ccelestia, therefore (I say) scorn this transitory state, look up to heaven, 
think not what others are, but what thou art: ^Qaa parte locatus es in re : 
and what thou shalt be, what thou mayest be. Do (I say) as Christ himself 
did, when he lived here on earth, imitate him as much as in thee lies. How 
many great Csesars, mighty monarchs, tetrarchs, dynasties, princes lived in his 
days, in what plenty, what delicacy, how bravely attended, what a deal of gold 
and silver, what treasure, how many sumptuous palaces had they, what pro- 
vinces and cities, ample territories, fields, rivers, fountains, parks, forests, 
lawns, woods, cells, &c. ? Yet Christ had none of all this, he would have none 
of this, he voluntaril}^ rejected all this, he could not be ignorant, he could not 
err in his choice, he contemned all this, he chose that which was safer, better, 
and more certain, and less to be repented, a mean estate, even poverty itself ; 
and why dost thou then doubt to follow him, to imitate him, and his apostles, 
to imitate all good men: so do thou tread in his divine steps, and thou shalt 
not err eternally, as too many worldlings do, that run on in their own dissolute 
courses, to their confusion and ruin, thou shalt not do amiss. Whatsoever thy 
fortune is, be contented with it, trust in him, rely on him, refer thyself wholly 
to him. For know this, in conclusion, J^on est volentisnec currentis, sed mise- 
rentis Dei, 'tis not as men, but as God will. " The Lord maketh poor and 
maketh rich, bringeth low, and exalteth (1 Sam. ii. ver. 7, 8.), he lifteth the 
poor from the dust, and raiseth the beggar from the dunghill, to set them 
amongst princes, and make them inherit the seat of glory;" 'tis all as he 
pleaseth, how, and when, and v/hom ; he that appoints the end (though to us 
unknown) appoints the means likewise subordinate to the end. 

Yea, but their present estate crucifies and torments most mortal men, they 
have no such forecast, to see what may be, what shall likely be, but what is, 
though not wherefore, or from v/hom; hoc angit,t\\Q\Y present misfortunes grind 
their souls, and an envious eye which they cast upon other men's prosperities, 
Vicinumque pecus grandius uher hahet, how rich, how fortunate, how happy is 
he ? But in the meantime he doth not consider the other miseries, his infir- 
mities of body and mind, that accompany his estate, but still reflects upon his 
own false conceived woes and wants, whereas if the matter were duly examined 
^ he is in no distress at all, he hath no cause to complain. 

" « toUe querelas, - I " Then cease complaining, ftiend, and learn to live. 

Pauper enim non est cui renim suppetit usus," He is not poor to whom kind fortune grants, 

( Even with a frugal hand, what Nature wants," 

he is not poor, he is not in need. " ^ Nature is content with bread and water; 
and he that can rest satisfied with that, may contend with Jupiter himself for 
happiness." In that golden age,^so??i?zos dedit umbra saluhi'es, potum quoque, 
lubricus amnis, the tree gave wholesome shade to sleep under, and the clear 
rivers drink. The Israelites drank water in the wilderness; Samson, David, 
Saul, Abraham's servant when he went for Isaac's wife, the Samaritan woman, 
and how many besides might I reckon up, ^gypt, Palestine, whole countries in 
the ^Indies, that drank pure water all their lives. ^The Persian kings them- 
selves drank no other drink than the water of Ghaospis, that runs by Susa, 
which was carried in bottles after them, whithersoever they went. Jacob 
desired no more of God, but bread to eat, and clothes to put on in his journey: 
Gen. xxviii. 20. Bene est cui Deiis obtulit Parca quod satis est manu; bread 
is enough " " to strengthen the heart." And if you study philosophy aright, 

• Guicciard. in Hiponest; nulla infelicitas suhjectum esse legi naturae, &c. tPei'sius. nOmnes 

divites qui coelo et terra frui possunt. '^ Hor. lib. 1. epist. 12. y Seneca, epist. 15. panem et aquam natura 
desiderat, et hsec qui habet, ipso cum Jove de felicitate contendat. Cibus simplex famem sedat, vestis tenuis 
frigus arcet. Senec. epist. 8. »Boethias. » Muffseus et alii. bUrissonius. cPsal. Ixxxiv. , - 



Mem. 3.] Remedies against Discontents. 395 

saith "* Maudarensis, " whatsoever is beyond this moderation, is not useful, 
but troublesome." ^Ageilius, out of Euripides, accounts bread and water 
enougli to satisfy Dature, " of which there is no surfeit, the rest is not a feast, 
but a riot." ^S. Hierome esteems him rich " that hath bread to eat, and a 
potent man that is not compelled to be a slave : hunger is not ambitious, so 
that it hath to eat, and thirst doth not prefer a cup of gold." It was no 
epicurean speech of an epicure, he that is not satisfied with a little will never 
have enough : and very good counsel of him in the ^poet, " my son, medio- 
crity of means agrees best with men ; too much is pernicious." 

"Divitioe grandes homini sunt vivere parcfe, 
MqxLO animo." 

And if thou canst be content, thou hast abundance, nihil est, nihil deest, 
thou hast little, thou wantest nothinaf. 'Tis all one to be han.^ed in a chain 
ot gold, or m a rope; to be filled with dainties or coarser meat. 

" ^ Si ventri bene, si lateri, pedibusque tuis, nil I " If belly, sides, and feet be well at ease, 
Divitiaj poterunt regales addere majas." | A prince's treasure can thee no more please.** 

Socrates in a fair, seeing so many things bought and sold, such a multitude of 
I3eople con vented to that purpose, exclaimed forthwith, " O ye gods what a sight 
of things do not I want 'I 'Tis thy want alone that keeps thee in health of 
body and mind, and that which thou persecutest and abhorrest as a feral 
plague is thy physician and 'chiefest friend, which makes thee a good man, 
a healthful, a sound, a virtuous, an honest and happy man." For when virtue 
came from heaven (as the poet feigns), rich men kicked her up, wicked men 
abhorred her, courtiers scoffed at her, citizens hated her, ^and that she was 
thrust out of doors in every place, she came at last to her sister Poverty, where 
she had found good entertainment. Poverty and Virtue dwell together. 

" • vitae tuta facultas 



Pauperis, angustique lares, 6 munera nondum 
lutellacta deiim." 



How happy art thou if thou couldst be content. " Godliness is a great gain, 
if a man can be content with that which he hath," 1 Tim. vi. 6. And all 
true happiness is in a mean estate. 1 have a little wealth, as he said, ^sed 
quas animus magnas facit, a kingdom in conceit : 



nil amplius opto 



Maia nate, nisi ut propria bKC mihi munera faxis; 

I have enough and desire no more. 

"oDii bene fecernnt inopis me quodque pusilll 
Fecerunt animi" 

'tis very well, and to my content. ^ Vestem et fortunaifn concinnatn potius 
quam laxam, probo, let my fortune and my garments be both alike fit for me. 
And which ^ Sebastian Foscarinus, sometime Duke of Venice, caused to be 
engraven on his tomb in St. Mark's Church, " Hear, O ye Venetians, and I 
will tell you which is the best thing in the world : to contemn it." I will 
engrave it in my heart, it shall be my whole study to contemn it. Let them 
take wealth, Stercora stercus aniet, so that I may have security : bene qui latuit, 
bene vixit ; though I live obscure, 'yet I live clean and honest ; and when as 
the lofty oak is blown down, the silly reed may stand. Let them take glory, 
for that's their misery ; let them take honour, so that I may have heart's ease. 

dSi recte philosophemini, quicquid aptam moderationeni supergreditur, oneri potius qukm usui est. 
^Lib. 7. 16. Cererismmius et aquis pocnlnm mortales quajrunt habere, et quorum satiesnunquam est, luxus 
autem, sunt csetera, non epuhe. f batis est dives qui pane non indiget; nimium potens qui servire noa 

cogitur. Ambitiosa non est fames, &c. 8 Euripides, Menalip. fili, mediocresdivitiiehominibus con- 

veniunt, nimia vero moles perniciosa. h Hor. i noctes ccensque deum. ^ Per mille fraudes 

doctosque dolos ejicitur, apud sociam paupertatem e;iusque cultores divertens, in eorum sinu ettutela deli- 
ciatur. ' Lucan. " protecting quality of a poor man's life, frugal means, gifts scarce yet understood 

by the gods themselves." '^ Lip. miscell. ep. 40. ° Sat. 6. lib. 2. o Hor. Sat. 4. p ApiQeius. 

1 Cliytreus in Em-opre deliciis. Accipite, cives Veueti, quod est optimum in rebus humanis, res humanas 
contemnere. ' Vah, vivere etiam nunc lubet, as Demea said, Adelph. Act. i. Quam multis non egeo, 

qaam multa non desidero, ut Socrates in pompa, ille in nundinis. 



396 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

Due me, Jupiter, et tufatum,^ &c. Lead me, O GocI, whither thou wilt, I 
am ready to follow j command, I will obey. I do not envy at their wealth, 
titles, offices; 

"Stet quicunque voletpotens 
Aulas culmine lubrico, 
Me dulcis saturet quies," ' 

let me live quiet and at ease. '"■ Erimus fortasse (as he comforted himself) 
quando illi non erunt, when they are dead and gone, and all their pomp 
vanished, our memory may flourish : 

■ dant perennes 



Stemmata non peritura Musse." 

Let him be my lord, patron, baron, earl, and possess so many goodly castles, 
'tis well for me^ that I have a poor house, and a little wood, and a well by 

it, &c. 

"His me consolor victuriim suavius, ac si [sent." I " With which I feel myself more truly blest 
Quisstor avus pater atque meus, patruusque fuis- ] Than if my sires the quaestor's power possessed." 

I live, I thank God, as merrily as he, and triumph as much in this my mean 
estate, as if my father and uncle had been lord treasurer, or my lord mayor. 
He feeds of many dishes, I of one : * qui Christum curat, non multum curat 
quam de jjreciosis cihis siercus conficiat, what care I of what stuff my excre- 
ments be made ? " ^ He that lives according to nature cannot be poor, and he 
that exceeds can never have enough," totus non sufficit orhis, the whole world 
cannot give him content. " A small thing that the righteous hath, is better 
than the riches of the ungodly," Psal. xxxvii. 16 ; "and better is a poor 
morsel with quietness, than abundance with strife," Pro v. xvii. 1. 

Be content then, enjoy thyself, and as ^Chrysostom adviseth, " be not angry 
for what thou hast not, but give God hearty thanks for what thou hast received." 

*' <= Si dat oluscula I Ne pete grandia, 

Mensa minuscula Lautaque prandia 

pace referta, | lite repleta."' 

But what wantest thou, to expostulate the matter? or what hast thou not 
better than a rich man? '"^health, competent wealth, children, security, 
sleep, friends, liberty, diet, apparel, and what not," or at least mayest have 
(the means being so obvious, easy, and well known), for as he inculcated to 
himself, 

"• Vitam quse faciunt beatiorem, 
Jucundissime Martialis, hsecsunt; 
lies non parta labore, sed relicta, 
Lis nunquam," &c. 

I say again thou hast, or at least mayest have it, if thou wilt thyself, and that 
which I am sure he wants, a merry heart. " Passing by a village in the 
territory of Milan," saith ^St. Austin, " I saw a poor beggar that had got belike 
his bellyful of meat, jesting and merry ; I sighed, and said to some of my 
friends that were then with me, What a deal of trouble, madness, pain, and grief 
do we sustain and exaggerate unto ourselves, to get that secure happiness which 
this poor beggar hath prevented us of, and which we peradventure shall never 
have 1 Por that which he hath now attained with the begging of some small 
pieces of silver, a temporal happiness, and present heart's ease, I cannot com- 

• Kpictetus, 77. cap quo sura destinatus, et sequar alacriter. *" Let whosoever covets it occupy the 

highest pinnacle of fame, sweet tranquillity shall satisfy me." " Puteanus, ep. 62. ^ Marullus. 

" The immortal Muses confer imperishable pride of origin." 7 Hoc erit in votis, modus agri non ita parvus, 
Hortus ubi et tecto vicinus jugis aquas fons, et paulum sylvse, &,c. Hor. Sat. 6. lib. 2. Ser. ^ Hieronym. 
» Seneca, consil. ad Albinum c. 11. qui continet se intra naturselimites, paupertatem non sentit ; qui excedit, 
eum ill opibus paupertas sequitur. b Hom. 12. Pro his quas accepisti gratias age, noli indignare pro his 

quae non accepisti. ^ Nat. Chytreus deliciis Europ. Gustonii in jedibus Hubianis in coeuaculo fe regions 

mensas. " If your table afford frugal fare with peace, seek not, in strife, to load it lavishly." ^ Quid non 
habet melius pauper quam dives ? vitam, valetudinem, cibum, somnum, libertatem, &c. Card. « Martial. 
1.10. epig. 47. read it out thyself in the author. f Confess, lib. 6. Transiens per vicum queiidam 

Mediolanensem. animadverti pauperem quendam mendicum, jam credo saturum, jocantera atque ridentem, 
et ingemui et locatus sura cum amicis qui mecum erant, &c. 



Mem. 3.] Remedies against Biscon'enls. 307 

p:iss with all my careful windings, and riimiiiig in and out. ^And surely the 
beggar was very merry, but I was heavy; he was secure, but I timorous. 
And if any man should ask me now, whether I had rather be merry, or still 
so solicitous and sad, I should say, merry. If he should ask me again, 
whether I had rather be as I am, or as this beggar was, I should sure choose 
to be as I am, tortured still with cares and fears; but out of peevishness, and 
not out of truth." That which St. Austin said of himself here in this place, 
I may truly say to thee, thou disconteuted wretch, thou covetous niggard, 
thou churl, thou ambitious and swelling toad, 'tis not want but peevish- 
ness which is the cause of thy woes; settle thine affection, thou hast enough. 

'"^Denique sit finis qii?erendi, quoque habeas plus, 
Pauperiem metuas minus, et finire laborem 
Incipias; parto, quod avebas, utere." 

Make an end of scraping, purchasing this manor, this field, that house, for 
this and that child ; thou hast enough for thyself and them : 

■ "« quod petis hie est, 

Est UlubriSj animus si te non deficit asquus," 

Tis at hand, at home already, which thou so earnestly seekest. But 



" si angulus ille 

Proximus accedat, qui nunc denormat agellum," 

O that I had but that one nook of ground, that field there, that pasture, si 

venam argentifors quis mihi monstret O that I could but find a pot of 

money now, to purchase, &c., to build me a new house, to marry my daughter, 
place my son! &c. "''O if I might but live a while longer to see all things 
settled, some two or three years, I would pay my debts," make all my reckon- 
ings even ! but they are come and past, and thou hast more business than 
before. " O madness, to think to settle that in thine old age when thou hast 
more, which in thy youth thou canst not now compose having but a little." 
^Pyrrhus would first conquer Africa, and then Asia, et turn suaviter agere, and 
then live merrily and take his ease: but when Cyneasthe orator told him he 
might do that already, id jam posse fieri, rested satisfied, condemning his own 
folly. Si parva licet componere magnis, thou mayest do the like, and therefore 
be composed in thy fortune. Thou hast enough ; he that is wet in a bath, can 
be no more wet if he be flung into Tiber, or into the ocean itself: and if thou 
hadst all the world, or a solid mass of gold as big as the world, thou canst not 
have more than enough; enjoy thyself at length, and that which thou hast; 
the mind is all; be content, thou art not poor, but rich, and so much the 
richer, as '"Censorinus well writ to Cerellius, quanta pauciora optas, non quo 
phc7'a 2^ossides, in wishing less, not having more. I say then, JVon adjiceopes, 
sedminue cujnditates^ tis ° Epicurus' advice), add no more wealth, but diminish 
thy desires; and as "Chrysostom well seconds him. Si vis ditari, contemne 
divitias; that's true plenty, not to have, but not to want riches, non habere, 
sed non indigere, vera ahundantia : 'tis more glory to contemn, than to possess ; 
et nihil egere, est deoriMn, " and to want nothing is divine." How many deaf, 
dumb, halt, lame, blind, miserable persons could I reckon up that are poor, 
and withal distressed, in imprisonment, banishment, galley slaves, condemned 
to the mines, quarries, to gyves, in dungeons, perpetual thraldom, than all 
which thou art richer, thou art more happy, to whom thou art able to give 



sEtcerteille Itetabatur, ego ansius; securus ille, ego trepidus. Et si pereontaretur me quispiam an 
exultare mallem, an metuere, responderem, exultare : et si rursus interrogaret an ego talis essem, an qualia 
nunc sum, me ipsis curis confectum eligerem ; sed perversitate, non veritate. ^ Hor. > Hor. ep. lib. 1. 
^'O si nunc morirer, inquit, quanta et qualia mihi imperfecta manerent : sed si mensibus decem vel o -to 
supervixero, omnia redigam ad libellum, ab ojiini debito creditoque me explicabo; prajtereunt interim 
menses decem, et octo, et cum illis anni, et adhuc restant pliu'a quam prius ; quid igitur speras, insane, 
finem quem rebus tuis non inveneras in juventa, in senecta impositurum ? dementiara, quum ob curas ct 
negotia tuo judicio sis infelix, quid putas futurum quum plura supererint? Cardan, lib. 8. cap. 40. de rer. 
var. ipiutarch. =»Lib. de natali. cap. 1. "ApudStobeum ser. 17. "Horn. 12. in 2. 



398 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

an alms, a lord, in respect, a petty prince! ^be contented then I say, repine 
and mutter no more, ''for thou art not poor indeed but in opinion." 

Yea, but this is very good counsel, and rightly applied to such as have it, 
and will not use it, that have a competency, that are able to work and get 
their living by the sweat of their brows, by their trade, that have something 
yet; he that hath birds, may catch birds; but what shall we do that are 
slaves by nature, impotent, and unable to help ourselves, mere beggars, that 
languish and pine away, that have no means at all, no hope of means, no trust 
of delivery, or of better success? as those old Britons complained to their 
lords and masters the Bomans, oppressed by the Picts, mare adharharos,har- 
bari ad mare, the barbarians drove them to the sea, the sea drove them back 
to the barbarians : our present misery compels us to cry out and howl, to 
make our moan to rich men : they turn us back with a scornful answer to our 
misfortune again, and will take no pity of us; they commonly overlook their 
poor friends in adversity; if they chance to meet them, they voluntarily for- 
get and will take no notice of them; they will not, they cannot help us. 
Instead of comfort they threaten us, miscal, scoff at us, to aggravate our 
misery, give us bad language, or if they do give good words, what's that to 
relieve us ? According to that of Thales, Facile est alios Tiionere; who cannot 
give good counsel? 'tis cheap, it costs them nothing. It is an easy matter when 
one's belly is full to declaim against fasting. Qui sojtur est plenolaudatjejunia 
ventre; " Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass, or loweth the ox when 
he hath fodder?" Job vi. 5. ^Neque enimpopulo Romano quidquam potest esse 
Icetius, no man living so jocund, so merry as the people of Rome when they 
had plenty; but when they came to want, to be hunger-starved, "neither shame, 
nor laws, nor arms, nor magistrates, could keep them in obedience." Seneca 
pleadeth hard for poverty, and so did those lazy philosophers : but in the 
meantime ''he was rich, they had wherewithal to maintain themselves; but 
doth any poor man extol it? There "are those (saith ^Bernard), that approve 
of a mean estate, but on that condition they never want themselves : and some 
again are meek so long as they may say or do what they list; but if occasion 
be offered, how far are they from all patience?" I would to God (as he said), 
" *No man should commend poverty, but he that is poor," or he that so much 
admires it, would relieve, help, or ease others. 

" " Nunc si nos audis, atque es divinus Apollo, I " Now if thou hear'st us, and art a good man. 

Die mihi, qui nummos non habet, unde petat ;" | Tell him that wants, to get means, if you can." 

But no man hears us, we are most miserably dejected, the scum of the world, 
^ Vix habet in nobis jam nova plaga locum. Wq can get no relief, no comfort, 
no succour, ^ Et nihil inveni quod mihi ferret opem. We have tried all means, 
yet find no remedy: no man living can express the anguish and bitterness of 
our souls, but we that endure it; we are distressed, forsaken, in torture of 
body and mind, in another hell : and what shall we do? When ''Crassus the 
Roman consul warred against the Parthians, after an unlucky battle fought, 
he fled away in the night, and left four thousand men, sore, sick, and wounded 
in his tents, to the fury of the enemy, which, when the poor men perceived, 
clamoribus et ululatibus omnia complerunt, they made lamentable moan, and 
roared downright, as loud as Homer's Mars when he was hurt, which the 
noise of 10,000 men could not drown, and all for fear of present death. But 
our estate is far more tragical and miserable, much more to be deplored, and 
far greater cause have we to lament ; the devil and the world persecutes us all, 

p Non in paupertate, sed in paupere (Senec.), non re, sed opinions labores. i Vobiscus Aureliano. sed 
si populus faraelicus inedia laboret, nee arma, leges, pudor, magistratus, coercerevalent. 'One of tlie 

richest men in Rome. »Serm. Quidam sunt qui pauperes esse volunt ita ut nihil illis desit, sic coiii- 

mendant ut nullam patiantur inopiam; sunt et alii mites, quamdiu dicitur et agitur ad eorum arbitrium, 
&c. t Nemo paupertatemcommendaret nisi pauper. " Petronius Catalec. "Ovid. "Tliere is no 

gpace left on oui- bodies for a fresh stripe." y Ovid. « Plutarcii. vit. Crassi. 



Mem. 3.] Remedies against Discontents. 399 

good fortune hatli forsaken us, we are left to the rage of beggary, cold, hunger, 
thirst, nastiness, sickness, irksomeness, to continue all torment, labour and 
pain, to derision, and contempt, bitter enemies all, and far worse than any 
death; death alone we desire, death we seek, yet cannot have it, and what 

shall we do % Quod mcdefei^s, assuesce; feres bene accustom thyself to it, 

and it will be tolerable at last. Yea, but I may not, I cannot, In me con- 
sumpsit vires fortuna nocendo, I am In the extremity of human adversity ; 
and as a shadow leaves the body when the sun is gone, I am now left and 
lost, and quite forsaken of the world. Qui jacet in terra, non hahet unde 
cadat ; comfort thyself with this yet, thou art at the worst, and before it be 
long it will either overcome thee or thou it. If it be violent, it cannot en- 
dure, aut solvetur, aut solvet: let the devil himself and all the plagues of 
Egypt come upon thee at once, Ne tu cede mcdis, sed contra audentior ito, be 
of good courage ; misery is virtue's whetstone. 



" ^ Serpens, sitis, ardor, arenas, 



Dulcia virtuti,'' 

as Cato told his soldiers marching in the deserts of Lybia, " Thirst, heat, 
sands, serpents, were pleasant to a valiant man;" honourable enterprises are 
accomj)anied with dangers and damages, as experience evinceth; they will 
make the rest of thy life relish the better. But j)ut case they continue ; thou 
art not so poor as thou wast born, and as some hold, much better to be pitied 
than envied. But be it so thou hast lost all, poor thou art, dejected, in pain 
of body, grief of mind, thine enemies insult over thee, thou art as bad as Job; 
yet tell me (saith Chrysostom), "was Job or the devil the greater conqueror? 
surely Job ; the ^ devil had his goods, he sat on the muck-hill and kept his 
good name; he lost his children, health, friends, but he kept his innocency; 
he lost his money, but he kept his confidence in God, which was better than 
any treasure." Do thou then as Job did, triumph as Job did, "" and be not 
molested as every fool is. Sed qua ratione potero ? How shall this be done? 
Chrysostom answers, facile si ccelum cogitaveris, with great facility, if thou 
shalt but meditate on heaven. ^ Hannah v/ept sore, and troubled in mind, 
could not eat ; " but why weepest thou," said Elkanah her husband, " and 
why eatest thou not? why is thine heart troubled? am not I better to thee than 
ten sons?" and she was quiet. Thou art here® vexed in this world; but say 
to thyself, "Why art thou troubled, O my soul?" Is not God better to thee 
than all temporalities, and momentary pleasures of the world? be then pacified. 
And though thou beest now perad venture in extreme want, *'it may be 'tis for 
thy further good, to try thy patience, as it did Job's, and exercise thee in this 
life : trust in God, and rely upon him, and thou shalt be ^ crowned in the end. 
AVhat's this life to eternity? The world hath forsaken thee, thy friends and 
fortunes all are gone : yet know this, that the very hairs of thine head are 
numbered, that God is a spectator of all thy miseries, he sees thy wrongs, 
woes, and wants. " ^ 'Tis his good- will and pleasure it should be so, and he 
knows better what is for thy good than thou thyself His providence is over 
all, at all times; he hath set a guard of angels over us, and keeps us as the 
apple of his eye," Ps. xvii. 8. Some he doth exalt, prefer, bless with worldly 
riches, honours, ofiices, and preferments, as so many glistening stars he makes 
to shine above the rest : some he doth miraculously protect from thieves, 
incursions, sword, fire, and all violent mischances, and as the ' poet feigns of 



a Lucan. Ub. 9. b An quum super fimo sedit Job, an cum omnia abstulit diabolus, (fee, pecuniis 

privatus fiduciam deo habuit, omni thesauro preciosiorem. c Hsec videntes spoute pliilosophemini, nee 

insipientum affectibus agitemur. d 1 Sam. i. 8. e James i. 2. " My brethren, count it an exceeding 

joy, wlien you fall into divers temptations." f Aliflictio dat intellectum ; "quos Deus diligit, castigat. Deus 
optimum quemque aut mala valetudine aut luctu afficit. Seneca, g Quam sordet mihi terra quum coelum 
intueor. h Senec. de providentia, cap. 2. Diis ita visum, dii melius noruut quid sit in commodum meuui, 
illora. Iliad. 4. 



400 Cure of Melanchohj. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

that Lycian Pandarus, Lycaon's son, when he shot at Menelaus the Grecian 
with a strong arm, and deadly arrow, Pallas, as a good mother keeps flies 
from her child's face asleep, turned by the shaft, and made it hit on the buckle 
of his girdle ; so some he solicitously defends, others he exposeth to danger, 
poverty, sickness, want, misery, he chastiseth and corrects, as to him seems 
best, in his deep, unsearchable and secret judgment, and all for our good, 
" The tyrant took the city (saith ^ Chrysostom), God did not hinder it ; led 
them away captives, so God would have it; he bound them, God yielded to 
it: flung them into the furnace, God permitted it: heat the oven hotter, it 
was granted: and when the tyrant had done his worst, God showed his 
power, and the children's patience; he freed them:" so can he thee, and can 
Mielp in an instant, when it seems to him good. "™ Rejoice not against 
me, O my enemy ; for though I fall, I shall rise : when T sit in darkness, the 
Lord shall lighten me." Remember all those martyrs what they have en- 
dured, the utmost that human rage and fury could invent, with what "* patience 
they have borne, with what willingness embraced it. " Though he kill me," 
saith Job, " I will trust in him," Justus ^ inexpugnahiUs, as Chrysostom 
holds, a just man is impregnable, and not to be overcome. The gout may 
hurt his hands, lameness his feet, convulsions may torture his joints, but not 
rectam mentem, his soul is free. 



p "nempe, pecns, rem, 



Lectos, arsentum tollas licet; in manicis, et 
Compedibus sasvo teneas custode." 



"Perhaps, you mean, 
My cattle, money, moveables, or land. 
Then take them all.— But, slave, if I command, 
A cruel jailor shall thy freedom seize." 



"^Take away his money, his treasure is in heaven: banish him his country, 
he is an inhabitant of that heavenly Jerusalem: cast him into bands, his 
conscience is fi-ee; kill his body, it shall rise again; he fights with a shadow 
that contends with an upright man:" he will not be moved. 

" si fractus illabatur orbis, 



Impavidum ferient ruince. 

Though heaven itself should fall on his head, he will not be offended. lie 
is impenetrable, as an anvil hard, as constant as Job. 

"» Ipse deus simul atque volet me solvet, opinor." | "A god shall set me free whene'er I please." 

Be thou such a one; let thy misery be what it will, what it can, with patience 
endure it ; thou mayest be restored as he was. Terris proscriptus, ad ccelum 
propera; ah hominibus desertus, ad Deumfuge. "The poor shall not always 
be forgotten, the patient abiding of the meek shall not perish for ever," 
Psal. ix. 18; ver. 9, "The Lord will be a refage of the oppressed, and a 
defence in the time of trouble." 

" Servus Epictetus, mutilati corporis, Irus I "Lame was Epictetus, and poor Irus, 

Pauper : at hcec inter charus erat superis." | Yet to them both God was propitious." 

Lodovicus Vert om annus, that famous traveller, endured much misery, yet 
surely, saith Scaliger, he was vir deo charus, in that he did escape so many 
dangers, " God especially protected him, he was dear unto him : " Modo in 
egestate, trihulatione, convalle deplorationis, &c. " Thou art now in the vale 
of misery, in poverty, in agony, *in temptation; rest, eternity, happiness, im- 
mortality, shall be thy reward," as Chrysostom pleads, " If thou trust in God, 
and keep thine innocency." Non, si mde nunc et olim, sic erit semper; a good 
hour may come upon a sudden ; ^ expect a little. 

k Horn. 9. Voluit urbem tyrannus evertere, et Deus non prohibuit; vol'.iit captives ducere, non impedivit; 
voluit ligare, concessit, &c. i Psal. cxiii. De terra inopem, de stercore erigit pauperem. " Mieah, 

vii. 8. nPreme, preme, ego cum Findaro, lxfBanri(no^ ei/xc wt (peWrx; vir' aX/xa, iramersibilis sum sicut 

suber super maris septum. Lipsius. « Hie ure, hie seca, ut in tttcrnmn parcas, Austin. Diis fruitur 

iratis, superat et crescit mails. Mutium ignis, Fabricium paupertas, Rej,alum tormenta, Socratem veaenum 
superare non potuit. p Hor. epist. 16. lib. 1. q lloin. 5. Aufcret pecinias ? at habet in coelis : patria 

dejiciet, at in coelestem civitatem mittet : vincula iiijiciet? at habet solutam conscientiam : corpus inter- 
ficiet, at iterum resurget ; cum umbra pugnat qui cum justo pugnat. r Leonides. ^ Modo in pressura, 
in tentationibuSj erit postea bonum tuum requies, iieternitas, immortalitas. t Dabit Deus his quoque fiQeiu. 



Mein. 3.] Remedies against Discontents. 401 

Yea, but this expectation is it whicli tortures me in the mean time j 
^futura expectans prcesentibus angor, whilst the grass grows the horse starves : 
''despair not, but hope well, 

"ySpera, Batte, tibi melius lux Crastina ducet: 
Duin spirasspera" ■ 

Cheer up, I say, be not dismayed ; Spes alit agricolas ; " he thafc sows In 
tears, shall reap in joy," Psal. cxxvi. 5. 

" Si fortune me tormente, 
Esperance me coutente." 

Hope refresheth, as much as misery depresseth ; hard beginnings have many 
times prosperous events, and that may happen at last which never was yet. 
"A desire accomplished delights the soul," Pro v. xiii. 19. 

*** Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur bora : " I " Which makes m' enjoy my joys long wish'd at last, 

I Welcome that hour shall come when hope is past : " 

a lowering morning may turn to a fair afternoon, * Nube solet pulsd candidus ire 
dies. " The hope that is deferred, is the fainting of the heart, but when the 
desire cometh, it is a tree of life," Pro v. xiii. 12, ^ suavissimum est voti compos 
jieri. Many men are both wretched and miserable at first, but afterwards 
most happy j and oftentimes it so falls out, as "^Machiavel relates of Cosmo 
de' Medici, that fortunate and renowned citizen of Europe, ' that all his youth 
was full of perplexity, danger, and misery, till forty years were past, and then 
upon a sudden the sun of his honour broke out as through a cloud." Hun- 
niades was fetched out of prison, and Henry the Third of Portugal out of a 
poor monastery , to be crowned kings, 

"Multa cadunt inter calicem supreraaque labra," ( "Many things happen between the cup and the lip." 

beyond all hope and expectation many things fall out, and who knows what 
may happen % Nondimi omnium dierum Soles occiderunt, as Philippus said, 
all the suns are not yet set, a day may come to make amends for all. 
" Though my father and mother forsake me, yet the Lord will gather me up,'* 
Psal. xxvii. 10. "Wait patiently on the Lord, and hope in him," Psal. 
xxxvii. 7. " Be strong, hope and trust in the Lord, and he will comfort 
thee, and give thee thine heart's desire," Psal. xxvii. 14. 

"Sperate et vosmet rebus serrate secundis." | "Hope, and reserve yourself for prosperity." 

Fret not thyself because thou art poor, contemned, or not so well for the pre- 
sent as thou wouldest be, not respected as thou oughtest to be, by birth, place, 
worth ; or that which is a double corrosive, thou hast been happy, honourable, 
and rich, art now distressed and poor, a scorn of men, a burden to the world, 
irksome to thyself and others, thou hast lost all : Miserum est fuisse felicem, 
and as Boethius calls it, Infelicissimum genus infortiinii ; this made Timon 
half mad with melancholy, to think of his former fortunes and present misfor- 
tunes : this alone makes many miserable wretches discontent. I confess it is 
a great misery to have been happy, the quintessence of infelicity, to have been 
honourable and rich, but yet easily to be endured; *^security succeeds, and to 
a judicious man a far better estate. The loss of thy goods and money is no 
loss ; " *thou hast lost them, they would otherwise have lost thee." If thy 
money be gone, "^thoii art so mach the lighter," and as Saint Hierome 
persuades Rusticus the monk, to forsake all and follow Christ : " Gold and 
silver are too heavy metals for him to carry that seeks heaven." 

" s Vel nos in mare proximum, I Summi materiam mali 

Gemmas et lapides, aurura et inutile, | Mittamus, scelerum si bene poenitet." 

" Seneca. ^ Nemo desperet meliora lapsus. r Theocritus. " Hope on, Battus, to-morrow maj' bring 
better luck; while there's life there's hope." ^Ovid. aQvid. bThales. "= Lib. 7. Flor. hist. 

Omnium felicissimus, et locupletissimus, &c., incarceratus sspe adolescentiam periculo mortis habuit, soli- 
citudiuis et discriminis pleuam, &c. ^ Lajtior successit securitas qufe simul cum divitiis cohabitare 

nescit. Camden. e pecuniam perdidisti, fortassis ilia te perderet manens. Seneca. ^Expeditior 

es ob pecuniarum jacturam. Fortuna opes auferre, non animura potest. Seneca. sHor. " Let us cast 
our jewels and gems, and useless gold, the cause of all vice, iuto the sea, since we truly repent of our sms." 



402 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec, 3. 

Zeno tlie pliilosoplier lost all his goods by shipwreck, ''he might like of it, for- 
tune had done him a good turn : Opes a me animum auferre non potest : she 
can take away my means, but not my mind. He set her at defiance ever 
after, for she could not rob him that had nought to lose ; for he was able to 
contemn more than they could possess or desire. Alexander sent a hundred 
talents of gold to Phocion of Athens for a present, because he heard he was a 
good man : but Phocion returned his talents back again with ^permitte me in 
vaster u'in virura honum esse to be a good man still; let me bs as I am: iVo^^ 

QUI aurumposco, nee mi preciuni' That Theban Crates flung of his own 

accord his money into the sea, ahite, nummi, ego vos mergam ne mergar a 
vohis, I had rather drown you, than you should drown me. Can stoics and 
epicures thus contemn wealth, and shall not we that are Christians 1 It was 
mascula vox et pr cedar a, a generous speech of Cotta in ^'Sallust, "Many mise- 
ries have happened unto me at home, and in the wars abroad, of which by the 
help of God some I have endured, some I have repelled, and by mine own 
valour overcome : courage was never wanting to my designs, nor industry to 
my intents : prosperity nor adversity could never alter my disposition," " A 
wise man's mind," as Seneca holds, " ^ is like the state of the world above the 
moon, ever serene," Come then what can come, befall what may befall, infrac- 
tum invictumque ^ animum oj^ponas : Eebus angustis animosus atquefortis 
appare. {Trior. Od. 11. lib. 2.) Hope and patience are two sovereign reme- 
dies for all, the surest reposals, the softest cushions to lean on in adversity : 

" n Durum sed levius fit patientia, | " What can't be cured must be endured," 

Quicquid corrigere est nefas," | 

If it cannot be helped, or amended, "make the best of it ; ^necessitati qui se 
accommodate sapit, lie is wise that suits himself to the time. As at a game at 
tables, so do by all such inevitable accidents. 

** q Ita vita est hominum, quasi cum ludas tesseris, 
Si illud quod est maxime opus jactu non cadit, 
lUud quod cecidit forte, id arte ut corrigas ; " 

If thou canst not fling v/hat thou woulJst, play thy cast as well as thou canst. 
Everything, saith ""Epictetus, hath two handles, tlie one to be held by, the other 
not : 'tis in our choice to take and leave whether we will (all which Sira23li- 
cius's commentator hath illustrated by many examples), and 'tis in our 
power, as they say, to make or mar ourselves. Conform thyself then to thy 
present fortune, and cut thy coat according to thy cloth, ^ Ut quimus (quod 
aiunt) quando quod volumus oion licet, " Be contented with thy loss, state, and 
calling, whatsoever it is, and rest as well satisfied with thy present condition 
in this life." 

" Esto quod es ; quod sunt alii, sine queralibet esse ; I "Be as thou art ; and as they are, so let 
Quod non es, nclis; quod potes esse, velis." | Others be still; what is and may be covet." 

And as he that is * invited to a feast eats what is set before him, and looks for 
no other, enjoy that thou hast, and ask no more of God than what he thinks fit 
to bestow upon thee. Non cuivis contingit adire Curinthum, we may not be all 
gentlemen, all Catos, or Lselii, as Tully telleth us, all honourable, illustrious, 
and serene, all rieh ; but because mortal men want many things, " " therefore," 
saith Theodoret, " hath God diversely distributed his gifts, wealth to one, skill 
to another, that rich men might encourage and set poor men at work, poor men 

'i Jubet me posthac fortuna expeditius Philorophari. ^ "^T do not desire riches, nor that a price should 

be set upon me." kjn frag. Quirites, multa mihi pericula domi, militise multa adversa fuere, quorum 

alia toleravi, alia deorum auxillo repuli et virtute mea ; nunquam animus negotio defuit, nee decretis labor; 
nullse res nee prosperee nee adversse ingenium mutabant. i Qualis mundi status supra lunam semper 

serenus. •" Bona mens nullum tristioris fortunas recipit incursum, Val. lib. 4. c. 1. Qui nil potest sperai'e, 
desperet nihil. " Hor. oJZquam memento rebus in ardnis servare mentem. lib. 2. Od. 3. p Epict. 

c. 18. iTer. Adelph. act. 4. sc. 7. ■■ Unaqu!:?que res duas habet ansas, alteram qu£e teneri, alteram qu<'8 
non potest; in manu nostra quam volumus accipere. ^Ter. And. Act. 4. sc. 6. tEpictetus. Invitatus 
ad convivium, qua? apponuntur comedis, non qua;ris ultra; in mundo multa rogitas quse dii negant. " Cap. 6. 
de providentia. Mortales cum sint rerum omnium indigi, ideo deus aliis divitias, aliispaupertatem distribuit, 
ut qui opibus poUent, materiam subministrent.; qui vero inopes, exercitatas artibus mauus admoveant. 



IVIem. 3.] Remedies against Discontents. 403 

might learn several trades to the common good. As a piece of arras is corn- 
posed of several parcels, some ■wrought of silk, some of gold, silver, crewel of 
diverse colours, all to serve for the exoneration of the whole : music is made 
of diverse discords and keys, a total sum of many small numbers, so is a com- 
monwealth of several unequal trades and callings. ^If all should be Croesi 
and Darii, all idle, all in fortunes equal, who should till the land"? As ^Mene- 
nius Agrippa well satisfied the tumultuous rout of Rome, in his elegant apologue 
of the belly and the rest of the members. Who should build houses, make 
our several stuffs for raiments 1 We should all be starved for company, as 
Poverty declared at large in Aristophanes' Plutus, and sue at last to be as 
we were at first. And therefore God hath appointed this inequality of states, 
orders, and degrees, a subordination, as in all other things. The earth yields 
nourishment to vegetables, sensible creatures feed on vegetables, both are 
substitutes to reasonable souls, and men are subject amongst themselves, and 
all to higher pov/ers, so God would have it. All things then being rightly 
examined and duly considered as they ought, there is no such cause of so 
general discontent, 'tis not in the matter itself, but in our mind, as we moderate 
our passions and esteem of things. Nihil aliud necessarium ut sis miser (saitli 
^Cardan), qumn ut te miserum credas, let thy fortune be what it will, 'tis thy 
mind alone that makes thee poor or rich, miserable or happy. Vidi ego (saith 
divine Sen eca),w2 villa hilari et amoend mcestos,et media solitudine occupatos; noii 
locus sed animus facit ad tranquillitafem. I have seen men miserably dejected 
in a pleasant village, and some again well occupied and at good ease in a 
solitary desert. 'Tis the mind not the place that causeth tranquillity, and 
that gives true content, I will yet add a word or two for a corollary. Many 
rich men, I dare boldly say it, that lie on down beds, with delicacies pampered 
every day, in their well-furnished houses, live at less heart's ease, with more 
anguish, more bodily pain, and through their intemperance, more bitter hours, 
than many a prisoner or galley-slave; "^Moicenas in plumd ceque vigilat ac Regu- 
lus in dolio: those poor starved Hollanders, whom ^Bartison their captain 
left in Nova Zembla, anno 1596, or those ''eight miserable Englishmen that 
were lately leffc behind, to winter in a stove in Greenland, in 77 deg. of lat. 
1630, so pitifully forsaken, and forced to shift for themselves in a vast, dark, 
and desert place, to strive and struggle with hunger, cold, desperation, and 
death itself. 'Tis a patient and quiet mind (I say it again and again), gives 
true peace and content. So for all other things, they are, as old '^Chremes 
told us, as we use them. 

"Parentes, patriam, amicos, genus, cognatos, divitias, 
Hsec perinde sunt ac illius animus qui ea possidet; 
Qui uti scit, ei bona ; qui utitur non recte, mala." 

" Parents, friends, fortunes, country, birth, alliance, &c., ebb and flow with 
our conceit ; please or displease, as we accept and construe them, or apply them 
to ourselves." Faber quisque fortunce suce, and in some sort I may truly say, 
prosperity and adversity are in our own hands. Neino Iceditur nisi a seipso, 
and which Seneca confirms out of .his judgment and experience. " *^ Every 
man's mind is stronger than fortune, and leads him to what side he will; a 
cause to himself each one is of his good or bad life." But will we, or nill we, 
make the worst of it, and suppose a man in the greatest extremity, 'tis a for- 
tune which some indefinitely prefer before prosperity; of two extremes it is the 
best. Luxuriant animi rebus plerumque secundis, men in ^prosperity forget 

^ Si sint omnes equales, necesse est ut omnes fame pereant; quia aratro terram sulcaret, quis sementem 
faceret, quis plantas sereret, quis vinum exprimeret ? y Liv. lib. 1. = Lib. 3. de cons. » Seneca, 

b Vide Isaacum Fontanum descript. Amsterdam, lib. 2. c. 22. » Vide Ed. Pelham's book, edit. 1630. 

•^Heautontira. Act. 1. sc. 2. «Epist. 98. Omni fortima valentior ipse animus, in utramque partem res 

suas ducitj beataique ac misers Titte sibi causa est. f Portuna quem nimiuiu fovet stultum facit. Pub. 

Mimus. 



404 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

God and tliemsGlves, tlicy are besotted with their wealth, as LirJs with hen- 
bane : ^miserable if fortune forsake them, but more miserable if she tany 
and overwhelm them : for when they come to be in great place, rich, they that 
were most temperate, sober, and discreet in their private fortunes, as Nero, 
Otho, Yitellius, Heliogabalus (optimi imjyeratores nisi imperassent) degenerate 
on a sudden into brute beasts, so prodigious in lust, such tyrannical oppressors, 
&c., they cannot moderate themselves, they become monsters, odious, harpies, 
what not ? Cum triumphos, opes, honores aclepti sunt, ad voluptatem et otium 
deinceps se convertunt: 'twas ^Cato's note, " they cannot contain." For that 
cause belike. 



^Eutrapelus cuicnnque noeere volebat, 
Vestimenta dabat pretiosa; beatus enim jam, 
Cum pulchris tunicis sumet nova consilia et spes, 
Dormiet in lucem scorto, postponet honestum 
Officium." . 



" Etitrapelns when he would hiirt a knave, 
Gave him gay clothes and wealth to make liim brave : 
Because now rich he would quite change his mind, 
Keep whores, fly out, set honesty behind." 



On the other side, in adversity many mutter and repine, despair, &c., both 
bad, I confess. 

" '^ ut calceus olim 

Si pede major erit, subvertet : si minor, aret." 

" As a shoe too big or too little, one pincheth, the other sets the foot awry," 
sed e malis minimum. If adversity hath killed his thousand, prosperity hatli 
killed his ten thousand : therefore adversity is to be preferred ; ^ hcec frceno 
indiget, ilia solatio : ilia fallit, hcec instruit : the one deceives, the other 
instructs; the one miserably happy, the other happily miserable; and there- 
fore many philosophers have voliuitarily sought adversity, and so much com- 
mend it in their precepts. Demetrius, in Seneca, esteemed it a great infelicity, 
that in his lifetime he had no m.h^^ovi\\\\Q,miserum cui nihil unquam accidisset 
adversi. Adversity then is not so heavily to be taken, and we ought not in 
such cases so much to macerate ourselves: there is no such odds in poverty 
and riches. To conclude in ™Hierom's words, "I will ask our magniiicos 
that build with marble, and bestow a whole manor on a thread, what dif- 
ference between them and Paul the Eremite, that bare old man 1 They drink 
in jewels, he in his hand; he is poor and goes to heaven, they are rich and 
go to hell." 



MEMB. IV. 

Against Servitude, Loss of Liberty, Iinprisonment, Banishment. 

Servitude, loss of liberty, imprisonment, are no such miseries as they are 
held to be : we are slaves and servants the best of us all : as we do reverence 
our masters, so do our masters their superiors : gentlemen serve nobles, and 
nobles subordinate to kings, omne sub regno graviore regnum, princes them- 
selves are God's servants, reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis. They are subject" 
to their own laws, and as the kings of China endure more than slavish im- 
prisonment, to maintain their state and greatness, they never come abroad. 
Alexander was a slave to fear, Csesar of pride, Vespasian to his money {nihil 
enim refert rerum sis servus an hominum"^), Heliogabalus to his gut, and so 
of the rest. Lovers are slaves to their mistresses, rich men *.to their gold, 
courtiers generally to lust and ambition, and all slaves to our affections, as 
Evangelus well discourseth in °Macrobius, and ^ Seneca the philosopher, 
assiduam servitutem extremam et ineluctabilem he calls it, a continual slavery, 
to be so captivated by vices; and who is free? Why then dost thou repine? 

B Seneca de beat. vit. cap. 14. miseri si deserantur ab ea, miseriores si obruantur. tpiutarch. vit. 

ejus. i Hor. epist. lib. 1. ep. 18. ' ^ Hor. i Boeth. 2. ■" Epist. hb. 3. vit. Paul. Ermit. Libet 

eos nunc interrogare qui domus marmoribus vestiunt, qui uno filo villarum ponunt precia, huic seni modo 
quid unquam defuit ? vos gemma bibitis, ille concavis manibus naturae satisfecit; ille pauper paradisum 
capit, vos avarosgehenaa suscipiet. o"It matters little whether we are enslaved by men or things." 

o^atur. 1. 11. Alius libidini servit, alius ambitioni, oranes spei, omnes timori. PNat. lib. 3. 



Mem. 4.] Remedies against Discontents. 405 

Satis est potens, Hierom saith, qui servlre non cogitur. Thou earnest no bur- 
dens, thou art no prisoner, no drudge, and thousands want that liberty, those 
pleasures which thou hast. Thou art not sick, arid what vvouldst thou have? 
But nitimur in vetitum,wQ must all eat of the forbidden fruib. Were we enjoined 
to go to such and such places, we would not willingly go: but being barred of 
our liberty, this alone torments our wandering soul that we may not go. A 
citizen of ours, saith '^Cardan, was sixty years of age, and had never been forth 
of the walls of the cityof Milan; the prince hearing of it, commanded him not to 
stir out : being now forbidden that which all his life he had neglected, he ear- 
nestlj^ desired, and being denied, dolore confecius mortem obiit, he died for grief. 

What I have said of servitude, I again say of imprisonment, we are all 
prisoners. '"What is our life but a prison? We are all imprisoned in an 
island. The world itself to some men is a prison, our narrow seas as so many 
ditches, and when they have comj^assed the globe of the earth, they would fain 
go see what is done in the moon. In * Muscovy, and many other northern parts, 
all over Scandia, they are imprisoned half the year in stoves, they dare not 
peep out for cold. At *Aden in Arabia, they are penned in all daylong with 
that other extreme of heat, and keep their markets in the night. What is a 
ship but a prison? And so many cities are but as so many hives of bees, ant- 
hills ; but that which thou abhorrest, many seek : women keep in all winter, 
and most part of summer, to preserve their beauties ; some for love of study : 
Demosthenes shaved his beard because he would cut oE all occasions from 
going abroad: how many monks and friars, anchorites, abandon the world! 
Monachus in ui'be, jnscis in arido. Art in prison? Make right use of it, and 
mortif}? thyself; " " Where may a man contemplate better than in solitariness," 
or study more than in quietness? Many worthy men have been imprisoned 
all their lives, and it hath been occasion of great honour and glory to them, 
much public good by their excellent meditation, ^Ptolemeus king of Egypt, 
cu7n virihus attenuatis infirma vcdetudine laboraret, miro discendi studio affec- 
tus, &c., now being taken with a grievous infirmity of body that he could not 
stir abroad, became Strato's scholar, fell hard to his book, and gave himself 
wholly to contemplation, and upon that occasion (as mine author adds), j'^ul- 
cherrimum regice ojyideiitice nionumeatum, &c., to his great honour built that 
renowned library at Alexandria, wherein were 400,000 volumes. Severinus 
Boethius never writ so elegantly as in prison, Paul so devoutly, for most of 
his epistles were dictated in his bands : " Joseph," saith ^Austin, " got more 
credit in prison, than when he distributed corn, and was lord of Pharaoh's 
house." It brings many a lewd riotous fellow home, many wandering rogues 
it settles, that would otherwise have been like raving tigers, ruined themselves 
and others. 

Banishment is no grievance at all, Omne solum forti patria, &c.,et patriaest 
uhicunque bene est, that's a man's country where he is well at ease. Many 
travel for pleasure to that city, saith Seneca, to which thou art banished, and 
what a part of the citizens are strangers born in other places! ^ Incolentibus 
l^atria, 'tis their country that are born in it, and they would think themselves 
banished to go to the place which thou leavest, and from which thou art so 
loth to depart. 'Tis no disparagement to be a stranger, or so irksome to be 
an exile. " ^The rain is a stranger to the earth, rivers to the sea, Jupiter in 
Egypt, the sun to us all. The soul is an alien to the body, a nightingale to 
the air, a swallow in a house, and Ganymede in heaven, an elephant at 

qConsol. 1. 5. "^ generose, quid est vita nisi career aiiimi ! sjierbastein. ' Vertomannus, navi^. 
1. 2. c. 4. Commercia in nundinis noctu hora secunda ob nimios qui sjBviunt interdiu testus exercent. " Ubi 
verior contemplatio quam in solitudine? ubi stndium solidius quam in quiete ? x Alex. ab. Alex. gen. 

dier. lib. 1. cap. 2. yln Ps. Ixxvi. non ita laudatur Joseph cum frumenta distribuei'et, ac quum carcerem 
liabitaret. » Boethius. "^ Philostratus in deliciis. Peregriui sunt imbres in terra et fluvii in mari, 

Jupiter apud ^gyptos, sol apud omues; hospes anima in corpore, lusciuia in aere,.hirundo in domo, Gany- 
niedes coelo, &c. 



406 Careo/Melanclwly. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

Borne, a Phoenix in India;" and such things commonly please us best, which 
are most strange and come the farthest off. Those old Hebrews esteemed the 
whole v/orld Gentiles; the Greeks held all barbarians but themselves; our 
modern Italians account of us as dull Transalpines by way of reproach, they 
scorn thee and thy country which thou so much admirest. 'Tis a childish 
humour to hone after home, to be discontent at that which others seek ; to 
prefer, as base islanders and Norwegians do, their own ragged island before 
Italy or Greece, the gardens of the world. There is a base nation in the north, 
saith ^ Pliny, called Chauci, that live amongst rocks and sands by the seaside, 
feed on fish, drink water : and yet these base people account themselves slaves 
in respect, when they come to Rome. Ita est profectd (as he concludes), Tnultis 
fortuna iJirdt in poenam, so it is, fortune favours some to live at home, to 
their further punishment: 'tis want of judgment. All places are distant 
from heaven alike, the sun shines happily as warm in one city as in another, 
and to a wise man there is no difference of climes; friends are every where to 
him that behaves himself well, and a prophet is not esteemed in his own 
country. Alexander, Csesar, Trajan, Adrian, were as so many land-leapers, 
now in the east, now in the west, little at home, and Polus Yenetus, Lod. 
Vertomannus, Pinzonus, Cadamustus, Columbus, Americus Yespucius, Yascus 
Gama, Drake, Candish, Oliver Anort, Schoutien, got all their honour by vo- 
luntary expeditions. But you say such men's travel is voluntary; we are 
compelled, and as malefactors must depart: yet know this of ''Plato to be 
true, ultori Deo summa cura peTegrinus est, God hath an especial care of 
strangers, " and when he wants friends and allies, he shall deserve better and 
find more fiivour with God and men." Besides the pleasure of peregrination, 
variety of objects will make amends; and so many nobles, TuUy, Aristides, 
Themistocles, Theseus, Codrus, &c., as have been banished, will give sufficient 
credit unto it. Bead Pet. Alcionius his two books of this subject. 



MEMB. Y. 

Against Sorrow for Death of Friends or otherwise, vain Fear, &g. 

Death and departure of friends are things generally grievous, "Omnium, 
quce in humand vita contingunt, luctus atque mors sunt acerhissima, the most 
austere and bitter accidents that can happen to a man in this life, in (Eternum 
valedicere, to part for ever, to forsake the world and all our friends, 'tis ultimiim 
terrihilium, the last and the greatest terror, most irksome and troublesome 
unto us, ^ Homo quoties moritur, toties amittit suos. And though we hope for a 
better life, eternal happiness, after these painful and miserable days, yet we 
cannot compose ourselves willingly to die; the remembrance of it is most 
grievous unto us, especially to such who are fortunate and rich : they start at 
the name of death, as a horse at a rotten post. Say what you can of that 
other world, ® Montezuma that Indian prince, Bonum est esse /ac, they had rather 
be here. Nay, many generous spirits, and grave staid men otherwise, are so 
tender in this, that at the loss of a dear friend they will cry out, roar, and 
tear their hair, lamenting some months after, howling " O Hone," as those 
Irish women and ^Greeks at their graves, commit many indecent actions, 
and almost go beside themselves. My dear father, my sweet husband, mine 
only brother's dead, to whom shall I make my moan? me miserum I Quis 
dahit in lachrymas fontem, &c. What shall I do? 

"g Sed totum hoc studium luctu fraterna mihi mors 1 " My brother's death my study hath undone, 
Abstulit, hei misero frater adempte mihi ! " | Woe's me, alas, my brother he is gone ! " 

a Lib. 16. cap. 1. Nullam frugem habent, potns ex imbre : Et has gentes si vincantur, &c. ^ Lib. 5. de 

legibus. Cumque cognatis careat et amicis, majorem apud deos et apud homines misericordiam meretur. 

c Cardan, de consol. lib. 2. <* Seneca. « Benzo. f Suramo mane ululatum oriuntur, pectora 

percutientes, <fcc., miserabile spectaculum exhibentes. Ortelius in Grascia. b Catullus. 



Mem. 5.] Remediss against Discontents. 407 

VIezentius would not live after his son : 

" h Niinc vivo, nee adhuc homines lucemque rclinquo, 
Sed linquam " 

And Pompey's wife cried out at the news of her husband's death, 

" ' Tiirpe mori post te solo non posse dolore, 
Violenta luctu et nescia tolerandi," 

as "^ Tacitus of Agrippina, not able to moderate her passions. So when she 
heard her son was slain, she abruptly broke oif her work, changed countenance 
and colour, tore her hair, and fell a roaring downright. 

subitus miserK; color ossa reliquit, 



Excussi manibus radii, revolutaque peusa : 
Evolat infelix et foemineo ululata 
Scissa comam : — i" 

Another would needs run upon the sword's point after Euryalus' departure, 

" "? Figite me, siqua est pietas, in me omnia tela 
Conjicite, 6 Eutili; •" 

O let me die, some good man or other make an end of me. How did Achilles 
take on for Patroclus' departure! A black cloud of sorrows overshadowed 
him, saith Homer. Jacob rent his clothes, put sackcloth about his loins, sorrov/ed 
for his son a long season, and could not be comforted, but would needs go down 
into the grave unto his son, Gen. xxxvii. 37. Many years after, the remem- 
brance of such friends, of such accidents, is most grievous unto us, to see or 
hear of it, though it concern not ourselves but others. Scaliger saith of him- 
self, that he never read Socrates' death, in Plato's Ph^edon, but he wept : 
''Austin shed tears when he read the destruction of Troy. But howsoever this 
passion of sorrow be violent, bitter, and seizeth familiarly on wise, valiant, dis- 
creet men, yet it may surely be withstood, it may be diverted. For what is 
there in this life, that it should be so dear unto us] or that we should so much 
deplore the departure of a friend? The greatest pleasures are common society, 
to enjoy one another's presence, feasting, hawking, hunting, brooks, woods, 
hills, music, dancing, &c., all this is but vanity and loss of time, as I have suf- 
ficiently declared. 



dum bibimus, dum serta, ungiienta, 

puellas 
Poscimus, obrepit non intellecta senectus." 



'■^ Whilst we drinli, prank ourselves, with wenches 
dally, 
Old age upon's at unawares doth sally." 



As alchymists spend that small modicum they have to get gold, and never find 
it, we lose and neglect eternity for a little momentary pleasure which we cannot 
enjoy, nor shall ever attain to in this life. We abhor death, pain, and grief, 
all, 3^et we will do nothing of that which should vindicate us from, but rather 
voluntarily thrust ourselves upon it. " ° The lascivious prefers his whore before 
his life, or good estate ; an angry man his revenge ; a parasite his gut ; ambi- 
tious, honours; covetous, wealth; a thief his booty; a soldier his spoil; we 
abhor diseases, and yet we pull them upon us." Yf e are never better or freer 
from cares than when we sleep, and yet, which we so much avoid and lament, 
death is but a perpetual sleep; and why should it, as ^ Epicurus argues, so 
much affright us 1 When we are, death is not : but when death is, then we 
are not :" our life is tedious and troublesome unto him that lives best; " '^'tis 
a misery to be born, a pain to live, a trouble to die :" death makes an end of 
our miseries, and yet v/e cannot consider of it; a little before ''Socrates drank 
his portion of cicuta, he bid the citizens of Athens cheerfully farewell, and cou- 

t Virgil. " I live now, nor as yet relinquish society and life, but I shall resign them." • Lucan. 

" Overcome by grief, and unable to endure it, she exclaimed, ' Not to be able to die through sorrow for thee 
were base.' " k 3. Annal. 1 " The colour suddenly fled her cheek, the distatf forsook her hand, 

the reel revolved, and with dishevelled locks she broke away, wailing as a woman." ^ Virg. Ma. 10. 

" Ti-ansfix me, Rutuli, if yo'i have any piety; pierce me with your thousand arrows." ^ Confess. 1. 1. 

* Juvenalis. ^ Amator scortum vitte prsponit, iracundus vindictam, parasitiis gulam, ambitiosus honores, 
avarus opes, miles rapi 11 am, fur priedam; morbos odimus et accersimus. Card. P Seneca; quum nos 

sumiis, mors non adest ; cum vero mors adest, turn nos non sumus. 1 Bernard, c. 3. med. Nasci miserum 
vivere poena, angustia mori. ^^'Piato, Apol. Socratis. Sed jam bora est bine abire, &q. 



408 



Cure of Melancholy. 



[Part. 2. Sec. 3. 



eluded his speech with this short sentence ; " My time is now come to be gone. 
I to my death, you to live on ; but which of these is best, God alone knows." 
For there is no j)leasure hei'e but sorrow is annexed to it, repentance follows it. 
« 8 j£ J £gg^| liberally, I am likely sick or surfeit : if I live s^^aringly, my hunger 
and thirst is not allayed; I am well neither full nor fasting; if I live honest, I 
burn in lust ; if I take my pleasure, I tire and starve myself, and do injury to 
my body and soul." " * Of so small a quantity of mirth, how much sorrow ! after 
so little pleasure, how great misery ! " 'Tis both ways troublesome to me, to 
rise and go to bed, to eat and provide my meat; cares and contentions attend 
me all day long, fears and suspicions all my life. I am discontented, and why 
should I desire so much to live? But a happy death will make an end of all 
our woes and miseries; omnibus una meis certa medela onalis; why shouldst 
not thou then say with old Simeon, since thou art so well affected, " Lord, now 
let thy servant depart in peace :" or with Paul, " I desire to be dissolved, and 
to be with Christ?" Beata mors quce ad heatam vitam adituni ajyerit, 'tis a 
blessed hour that leads us to a "blessed life, and blessed are they that die in the 
Lord. But life is sweet, and death is not so terrible in itself as the conco- 
mitants of it, a loathsome disease, paiu, horror, (fee, and many times the 
manner of it, to be hanged, to be broken on the wheel, to be burned alive. 
^Servetus the heretic, that suffered in Geneva, when he was brought to the 
stake, and saw the executioner come with fire in his hand, homo viso igne tarn 
horrendum exclamavit, ut universum 'poioulwni perten-efecerit, roared so loud, 
that he terrified the people. An old stoic would have scorned this. It troubles 
some to be unburied, or so: 



■ non te optima mater 



Condet humi, patriove onerabit membra sepulchro; 
Alitibus liiiguere feris, et gurgite mersum 
Unda feret, piscesque impasti vulnera lambent." 



' Thy gentle parents shall not bnry thee, 
Amongst thine ancestors entomb'd to be, 
But feral towl thy carcass shall devour, 
Or drowned corpse hungry fish maws shall scour.' 



As Socrates told Crito, it concerns me not what is done with me when I am 
dead; Facilis jactura sepulchri: I care not so long as I feel it not; let them 
set mine head on the pike of Teneriffe, and my quarters in the four parts of 

the world, pascam licet in cruce corvos, let wolves or bears devour me ; 

Ccelo tegitur qui non habet urnam, the canopy of heaven covers him 



that hath no tomb. So likewise for our friends, why should their departure 
so much trouble us? They are better, as we hope, and for what then dost thou 
lament, as those do whom Paul taxed in his time, 1 Thes. iv. 13, "that have 
no hope?" 'Tis fit there should be some solemnity. 

" 2 Sed sepelire decet defunctum, pectore forti, 
ConstanteSj unumque diem fletui indulgentes." 

Job's friends said not a word to him the first seven days, but let sorrow and 
discontent take their course, themselves sitting sad and silent by him. When 
Jupiter himself wept for Sarpedon, what else did the poet insinuate, but that 
some sorrow is good. 

"3' Quis matrem, nisi mentis inops, in funere nati 
Flere vetat ? " 

who can blame a tender mother if she weep for her children? Beside, as 
^Plutarch holds, 'tis not in our power not to lament, Indolentia non cuivis 
contingit, it takes away mercy and j^ity, not to be sad ; 'tis a natural passion to 
weep for our friends, an irresistible passion to lament and grieve. "I know 



8 Comedi ad satietatem, gravitas me offendit ; parcius edi, non est expletum desiderium ; venereas deliclas 
seqiior, hinc morbus, lassitude, &c. t Bern. c. 3. med. De tantilla laetitia, quanta tristitia; post tantam 
voluptatem qnam gravis miseria ! ^ Est enim mors piorum felix transitus de labore ad refrigerium, de 

expectatione ad premium, de agone ad bravium. ^ Vaticanus vita ejus. y Luc. ^ 11. 9. Homer. 
"■ It is proper that, having indulged in becoming grief for one whole day, you should commit the dead to the 
sepulchre." a Ovid. b Consol. ad Apolou. non est libertate nostra positum non dolere, miseri- 

cordiam abolet, &c. 



Mem. 5.] Remedies against Discontents. 409 

not how (saitli Seneca) but sometimes 'tis good to be miserable in misery : 
and for the most part all grief evacuates itself bj tears," 

" « est quredam flere voluptas, 

Expletur lachiymis egeriturque dolor :" 

'^yet after a day's mourning or two, comfort thyself for thy heaviness," 
Ecclus. xxxviii. 17. ^JSfon decet defunctum ignavo qucestu 2^'i'osequi; 'twas 
Germanicus' advice of old, that we should not dwell too long upon our passions, 
to be desperately sad, immoderate grievers, to let them tyrannise, there's indo- 
lenticB ars, a medium to be kept: we do not (saith ° Austin) forbid men to grieve, 
but to grieve overmuch. " I forbid not a man to be angry, but I ask for what 
cause he is so? Not to be sad, but why is he sad? Not to fear, but where- 
fore is he afraid?" I require a moderation as well as a just reason. ^The 
Romans and most civil commonwealths have set a time to such solemnities ; 
they must not moui'n after a set day, " or if in a family #' child be born, a 
daughter or son married, some state or honour be conferred, a brother be 
redeemed from his bands, a friend from his enemies," or the like, they must 
lament no more. And 'tis fit it should be so; to what end is all their funeral 
pomp, complaints, and tears ? When Socrates was dying, his friends Apollo- 
dorus and Grito, with some others, were weeping by him, which he perceiving, 
asked them what they meant; " ^for that very cause he put all the women out 
of the room, upon which words of his they were abashed, and ceased trom their 
tears." Lodovicus Cortesius, a rich lawyer of Padua (as ^Bernardinus Scar- 
deonius relates), commanded by his last will, and a great mulct if otherwise to 
his heir, that no funeral should be kept for him, no man should lament : but 
as at a wedding, music and minstrels to be provided ; and instead of black 
mourners, he took ordei, '' ' that twelve virgins clad in green should carry hiia 
to the chrn'ch." His will and testament was accordingly performed, and he 
buried in St. Sophia's church. ^Tully was much grieved for his daughter 
Tulliola's death at first, until such time that he had confirmed his mind with 
some philosophical pi'ecepts, "Hhen he began to triumph over fortune and 
grief, and for her reception into heaven to be mucli more joyed than before ho 
was troubled for her loss." If a heathen man could so fortify himself froDC: 
philosophy, what shall a Christian from divinity? Why dost thou so mace- 
rate thyself? 'Tis an inevitable chance, the first statute in Magna Charta, 
an everlasting Act of Parliament, all must ™ die. 

""Constat peterna positumque lege est, 
Ut coiistet geuitum nihil." 

It cannot be revoked, we are all mortal, and these all commanding gods and 

princes " die like men : " ° involvit Immile jKcriter et celsum caput, cequatque 

sammis infima. " O weak condition of human estate," Sylvius exclaims : 
''Ladislaus, king of Bohemia, eighteen years of age, in the flower of his youth, 
so potent, rich, fortunate and hai^py, in the midst of all his friends, amongst 
so many "^physicians, now ready to be ' married, in thirty-six hours sickened 
and died. We must so be gone sooner or later all, and as Calliopeius in the 
comedy took his leave of his spectators and auditors, Vos valete et plaudite, 
Calliopeius recensui, must we bid the world farewell (Exit Calliopeius), and 
having now played our parts, for ever be gone. Tombs and monuments have 

cOvid. 4. Trist ^Tacitns, lib. 4. eLib. 9. cap. 9. de civitate Dei. Non quaero cum 

irascatur sed cur, non utrum sit trisris sed unde, non utrum tiineat sed quid timeat. Testus verbo 

minuitur. Luctui dies iiidicebatur cum liberi uascantur, cum IVatcr abit, amicus ab hospite captivus domuni 
redeat, puella desponsetur. s Ob hauc caasam muliercs ablegarana ne talia facerent; nos htec audientes 
erubuimus et destitimus a lachrymis. ''Lib. 1. class. 8. de Claris. Jurisconsultis Patavinis. > 12. 

Innuptaj puellte amictiB viridibus pannis, &c. k Lib. de consol. ' Prasceptis philosophise confirmatus 
adversus omnem fortunse vim, et te consecrata in coslumque reccpta, tanta affectus lijtitia sum ac voluptate, 
quantam animo capere possam, ac exulrare plane mihi vidcor, victorque de omni dolore et fortuna trium- 
phare. ■" Ut lignum uri natum, arista secari, sic homines mori. " Boeth. lib. 2. met. 3. ° Boeth. 

pNic. Hensel. Breslagr. tbl. 47. 'i 'I'wcnty then present. ' To Magdalen, the daughter of Charles the 
Seventh of France. Obcunt uoctcsquc dicsque, &.c. 



^10 Cure of Melancholy, [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

the like fate, data sunt ipsis quoquefata sepulchris, kingdoms, provinces, towns, 
and cities, have their periods, and are consumed. In those flourishing times 
of Troy, Mjcenae was the fairest city in Greece, Grcecice cunctce imperitahat, 
but it, alas, and that " 'Assyrian Nineveh are quite overthrown :" the like fate 
. hath that Egyptian and Boeotian Thebes, Delos, commune GrcecicB conciliabu- 
lum, the common council-house of Greece, *and Babylon, the greatest city that 
ever the sun shone on, hath now nothing but walls and rubbish left. " "^Quid 
Pandionice restat nisi no/nen Athence?" Thus ^Pausanias complained in his 
times. And where is Troy itself now, Persepolis, Carthage, Cizicum, Sparta, 
Argos, and all those Grecian cities? Syracuse and Agrigentum, the fairest 
towns in Sicily, which had sometimes 700,000 inhabitants, are now decayed: 
the names of Hiero, Empedocles, &c., of those mighty numbers of people, 
only left. One Anacharsis is remembered amongst the Scythians ; the world 
itself must have an end; and every part of it. Cceterce igitur urbes sunt mor- 
tales, as Peter ^ Gillius concludes of Constantinople, hcec sane quamdiu erunt 
homines, futur a mihi videtur immortalis; but 'tis not so : nor site, nor strength, 
nor sea, nor land, can vindicate a city, but it and all must vanish at last. And 
as to a traveller, great mountains seem plains afar off, at last are not discerned 

at all; cities, men, monuments decay, -—nee solidis prodest sua macldna 

terris,^- the names are only left, those at length forgotten, and are involved in 
perpetual night. 

"''Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from ^gina towards Megara, I 
began (saith Servius Sulpicius, in a consolatory epistle of his to Tullj) to view 
the country round about. ^Egina v^^as behind me, Megara before, Piraeus on 
the right hand, Corinth on the left:, what flourishing towns heretofore, now 
prostrate and overwhelmed before mine eyes, I began to think with myself, 
alas, why are we nwn so much disquieted with the departure of a friend, whose 
life is much shorter, ^wlien so many goodly cities lie buried before us? 
Pcmember, O Servius, thou art a man ; and with that I was much confirmed, 
and corrected myself." Correct then likewise, and comfort thyself in this, 
that we must necessarily die, and all die, that we shall rise again : as Tully 
held; Jucundiorque multo congressus noster futur us, qua/m insuavis et acerhus 
diyressus, our second meeting shall be much more pleasant than our departure 
was grievous. 

Ay, but he was my most dear and loving friend, my sole friend, 

" b Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus I " And who can blame my woe ? " 

Tam chari capitis ? " ( 

Thou mayest be ashamed, I say with ° Seneca, to confess it, "in such a ""tem- 
pest as this to have but one anchor," go seek another : and for his part thou 
dost him great injury to desire his longer life. " ^ Vf ilt thou have him crazed 
and sickly still," like a tired traveller that comes weary to his inn, begin his 
journey afresh, "or to be freed from his miseries: thou hast more need rejoice 
that he is gone." Another complains of a most sweet wife, a young wife, Non- 
dum sustiderat fiavu7n Proserpina crinem, such a wife as no mortal man ever 
had, so good a wife, but she is now dead and gone, letkaioque jacet condita 
sarcophago. I reply to him in Seneca's words, if such a woman at least ever 
was to be had, " ^ He did either so find or naake her ; if he found her, he 
may as happily find another; if he made her," as Critobulus in Xenophon did 
by his, he may as good cheap inform a.nc)ther, ethona tam sequitur, qwam bona 

•AssjTiorum regio funditus deleta. 'Omnium quot unquam Sol aspexit url)ium maxima. "Ovid. 
"What of ancient Athens but the name remains? " '■'Arcad. lib. 8. yPrcefat. Topogr. Constantinop. 
* " Nor can its own structure preserve the solid globe." ' Epist. Tull. lib. 3. » Quum tot oppidoruin 
cadavera ante oeulos projecta jacent. '>Hor. lib. 1. Od. 24. ^j^g i-emed. fortuit. d^i-ubesce 

tauta tempestate quod art unam anchoram stabas. e Vis jegrum, et morbidum, sitibunduni — gaiide 

potais quod his malis liberatus sit. ^Uxorem bonam aut inveni.sti, aut sic feeisti; si iuveneiis, aliam 

habere te posse ex hoc iatelligamus : si feccr;s, bene spores, salvus est artifex. 



Mem. 5] Remedies against Discontents, 411 

prima fuit; "he need not despair, so long as the same master is to be had." 
But was shegood? Had she been so tried peradventure as that Ephesian widow 
in Petronius, by some swaggering soldier, she might not have held out. Many 
a man would have been willingly rid of his : before thou wast bound, now thou 
art free; '-^and 'tis but a folly to love thy fetters though they be of gold." 
Come into a third place, you shall have an aged father sighing for a son, a 
pretty child ; 

" >> Impube pectus quale vel impia I " He now lies asleep, 

Molliret Thracum pectora." | Would make an impious Thraciaa weep." 

Or come fine daughter that died young, Nondum experta novi gaudia prima 
tori. Or a forlorn son for his deceased fathei'. But why ? Prior exiit, prior 
intravity he came first, and he must go first. ^ Tu frustra pius, hen, &c. What, 
wouldst thou have the laws of nature altered, and him to live always] Julius 
Csesar, Augustus, Alcibiades, Galen, Aristotle, lost their fathers young. And 
why ou the other side shouldst thou so heavily take the death of thy little son? 

"kXum quia nee fato, merita nee morte peribat, 
Seel miser ante diem" 

he died before his time, perhaps, not yet come to the solstice of his age, yet 
was he not mortal? Hear that divine ^Epictetus, "If thou covet thy wife, 
friends, children should live always, thou art a fool." He was a fine child 
indeed, dignus AjMllineis lacJirymis, a sweet, a loving, a fair, a witty child, of 
great hojDe, another Eteoneus, whom Pindarus the poet and Aristides the rhetori- 
cian so much lament; but who can tell whether he would have been an honest man % 
He might have proved a thief, a rogue, a spendthrift, a disobedient son, vexed 
and galled thee more than all the world beside; he might have wrangled with 
thee and disagreed, or with his brothers, as Eteocles and Polynices, and broke 
thy heart; he is now gone to eternity, as another Ganymede, in the ""flower of 
his youth, "as if he had risen,". saith "Plutarch, "'from the midst of a feast," 
before he was drunk, "the longer he had lived, the worse he would have been," 
et quo vita longior (Ambrose t\\m\^), culpa numerosior, more sinful, more to 
answer he would have had. If he was naught, thou mayest be glad he is gone ; 
if good, be glad thou hadst such a son. Or art thou sure he was good? It 
may be he was an hypocrite, as many are, and howsoever he spake thee fair, 
peradventure he prayed, amongst the rest tliat Icaro Menippus heard at Jupi- 
ter's whispering-place in Lucian, for his father's death, because he now kept 
him short, he was to inherit much goods, and many fair manors after his de- 
cease. Or put case he was very good, suppose the best, may not thy dead son 
expostulate with thee, as he did in the same « Lucian, "why dost thou lament 
my death, or call me miserable that am much more happy than thyself? what 
misfortune is befallen me ? Is it because I am not so bald, crooked, old, 
rotten, as thou art ? What have I lost, some of your good cheer, gay clothes, 
music, singing, dancing, kissing, merry-meetings, thalami lubentias, (fee, is 
that it ? Is it not much better not to hunger at all than to eat : not to thirst 
than to drink to satisfy thirst : not to be cold than to put on clothes to drive 
away cold? You had more need rejoice that I am freed from diseases, agues, 
cares, anxieties, livor, love, covetousness, hatred, QnYj, malice, that I fear no 
more thieves, tyrants, enemies, as you do." "^Id cinerem et manes credis 
curare sepuUos ^ " Do they concern us at all, think you, when we are once 

t Stulti est compedes licet aureas amare. •> Hor. ' Hor. lib. 1 . Od. ?4. ^ Virg. 4 Mn. 

1 Cap. 19. Si id studes ut uxor, amivi, liberi perpetuo vivant, stultus es. m Deus quos diligit juvenes 

rapit, Menan. » Consol. ad ApoL Apollonius tilius tuus in tlore decessit, ante nos ad reternitatem 

digressus, tanquam. e convivio abiens, priusquam in errorem aliquem e temulentia incideret, quales in longa 
senecta accidere solent. oTom. 1. Tract, de luctu. Quid me mortuum miserum vocas, qui te sum multo 
felicior ? aut quid acerbi mihi putas contigisse ? an quia non sum malus senex, ut tu facie rugosus, incurvus, 
&c. demens, quid tibi videtur in vita boni ? nimirum amicitias, coenas, &.C. Longe melius non esurire quam 
edere; non sitire, &c. Gaude potius quod morbos et febres efi'ugerim, angorem auimi, &c. Ejulatas quid 
prodest, quid laclirymffi, jtc. p Virgil. 



412 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

dead?" Condole not others then overmuch, "wish not or fear thy death." 
'^Summum nee optes diem nee tnetuas ; 'tis to no purpose. 

"Excess! h vitfe jenimnis facQisque lubensque I "I left this irksome life with all mine iieart, 
Ne pejora ipsa morte dehinc videam." j Lest worse than death should happen to my part." 

' Cardinal Brundusinus caused this epitaph in Rome to be inscribed on his tomb, 
to show his willingness to die, and tax those that were so loth to depart. 
Weep and howl no more then, 'tis to small purpose ; and as Tally adviseth us 
in the like case, Non quos amisimus, sed quantum lugere par sit cogitemus : 
think what we do, not whom we have lost. So David did, 2 Sam. xxii., 
** While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept ; but being now dead, w^hy 
should I fast 1 Can I bring him again 1 I shall go to him, but he cannot 
return to me." He that doth otherwise is an intemperate, a weak, a silly, and 
indiscreet man, Though Aristotle deny any part of intemperance to be con- 
versant about sorrow, I am of * Seneca's mind, "he that is wise is temperate, 
and he that is temperate is constant, free from passion, and he that is such a 
one, is without sorrow," as all wise men should be. The *Thracians wept 
still when a child was born, feasted and made mirth when any man was buried : 
and so should we rather be glad for such as die well, that they are so happily 
freed from the miseries of this life. When Eteoneus, that noble young Greek, 
was so generally lamented by his friends, Piudarus the poet feigns some god 
saying, Silete, homines, non enim miser est, &c., be quiet good folks, this young 
man is not so miserable as you think; he is neither gone to Styx nor Acheron, 
sed gloriosus et senii expers heros, he lives for ever in the Elysian fields. He 
now enjoys that happiness which your great kings so earnestly seek, and wears 
that garland for v/hich ye contend. If our present weakness is such, we cannot 
moderate our passions in this behalf, we must divert them by all means, by 
doing something else, thinking of another subject. The Italians most part 
sleep away care and grief, if it unseasonably seize upon them, Danes, Dutch- 
men, Polanders and Bohemians drink it down, our countrymen go to plays : 
do something or other, let it not transpose thee, or by ""premeditation make 
such accidents familiar," as Ulysses that wept for his dog, but not for his wife, 
quod paratus esset animo obfirmato, (Plut. de anim. tranq^ "accustom thyself, 
and harden beforehand by seeing other men's calamities, and applying them 
to thy present estate ; " Prcevisum est levius quod fuit ante 7nalum. I will 
conclude with ^Epictetus, "If thoulovest a pot, remember 'tis but a pot thou 
lovest, and thou wilt not be troubled when 'tis broken : if thou lovest a son or 
wife, remember they were mortal, and thou wilt not be so impatient." And 
for false fears and all other fortuitous inconveniences, mischances, calamities, 
to resist and prepare ourselves, not to Mnt is best : ^Stultum est timere quod 
vitari non potest, 'tis a folly to fear that which cannot be avoided, or to be 
discovjcaged at all. 

♦'«]Sram quisquis trepiduspavet vel optat, 
Abjecit clypeum, locoqiie motus 
Kectit qua valeat trahi catenam. 

"For he that so faints or fears, and yields to his passion, flings away his own 
weapons, makes a cord to bind himself, and pulls a beam upon his own head." 



MEMB. YI. 
Against Envy, Livor, Emulation, Hatred, Ambition j Self-love, and all other 

Affections. 
Against those other "passions and affections, there is no better remedy than 
as mariners when they go to sea, provide all things necessary to resist a tem- 

qHor I Chytreus deliciis Europre. •Epist. 85. * Sardus de mor. gen. "Prffime- 

ditatione facllem reddere queinque casum. Tlutarchus consolatione ad Apollonium. Assuefacere non casibus 
deoemus. TuU. lib. 3. Tusculan. quitst. « Cap. 8. Si oUam diligas, memento te ollam diligere, non 

pei-tin-baberis ea confracta; si filium aut uxorem, memento hominem a te diligi, &o. y Seneca. 

» iJoeih, lib. 1. pros. i. • Qui invidiam ferrc non potest, ferre coutemptum cogitur. 



Mem. C] Remedies against Discontents. 413 

pest: to furnisli ourselves with philosophical and Divine precepts, other men's 
examples, ^ Per ecw/ztw ex aliis facere, sibi quod ex usu siet: To balance our 
hearts with love, charity, meekness, patience, and counterpoise those irregular 
motions of envy, livor, spleen, hatred, with their opposite virtues, as we bend 
a crookfed staff another way, to oppose " ^sufferance to labour, patience to 
reproach," bounty to CO vetousness, fortitude to pusillanimity, meekness to anger, 
humility to pride, to examine ourselves for what cause we are so much dis- 
quieted, on what ground, what occasion is it just or feigned 1 And then either 
to pacify ourselves by reason, to divert by some other object, contrary passion, 
or premeditation . "^Meditari seoum oportet quo pacta adversam cerumnani 
ferat, Pericla^ damna, exiliaperegre rediens semper cogitet, autfilii peccatum,, 
aut uxoris mortem, aut morbum JilicE, communia esse hcec: fieri posse., ut ne 
quid animo sit novum. To make them familiar, even all kind of calamities, 
that when they happen they may be less troublesome unto us. In secundis 
m^ditare, quo facto f eras adversa: or out of mature judgment to avoid the 
effect, or disannul the cause, as they do that are troubled with toothache, 
pull them quite out. 

"« ut vivat castor, sibi testes amputat ipse; I "The leaver Vxt&s off s stones to save the rest : 

Tu quoque siqua nocent, abjice, tutus eris." | Do thou the like witli that thou art opprest." 

Or as they that play at wasters, exercise themselves by a few cudgels how to 
avoid an enemy's blows : let us arm ourselves against all such violent incur- 
sions, which may invade our minds. A little experience and practice will 
inure us to it; vetula vulpes, as the proverb saith, laqueo haud capitur, an 
old fox is not so easily taken in a snare ; an old soldier in the world methinks 
should not be disquieted, but ready to receive all fortunes, encounters, and 
with that resolute captain, come what may come, to make answer. 



-" f non ulla laborum I " No labour comes at unawares to me 



O virgo nova mi facies inopinaque surgit, For I have long before cast what may be." 

Omnia percepi atque animo mecum ante peregi." \ 

" non hoc primum mea pectora vulnus 

Senserunt, graviora tuli ■ S 

The commonwealth of ^ Yenice in their armoury have this inscription, "Happy 
is that city which, in time of peace, thinks of war," a fit motto for every man's 
private house; happy is the man that provides for a future assault. But many 
times we complain, repine, and mutter without a cause, we give way to passions 
wemay resist, and will not. Socrates was bad bynature, envious, as he confessed 
to Zopirus the physiognomer, accusing him of it, froward and lascivious : but 
as he was Socrates, he did correct and amend himself. Thou art malicious, 
envious, covetous, impatient, no doubt, and lascivious, yet as thou art a Chris- 
tian, correct and moderate thyself. 'Tis something, I confess, and able to move 
any man, to see himself contemned, obscure, neglected, disgraced, undervalued, 
" 'left behind; " some cannot endure it, no, not constant Lipsius, a man dis- 
creet otherwise, yet too weak and passionate in this, as his words express, 
^coilegas olim^ quos ego sine fremitu non intueor, nuper terrcB fijlios^ nunc 
McEcenates et Agrippas habeo, — summojam monte potitos. But he was much to 
blame for it : to a wise staid man this is nothing, we cannot all be honoured 
and rich, all Caesars; if we will be content, our present state is good; and in 
some men's opinion to be preferred. Let them go on, get wealth, offices, 
titles, honours, preferments, and what they will themselves, by chance, fraud, 
imposture, simony, and indirect means, as too many do, by bribery, flattery, 
and parasitical insinuation, by impudence and time-serving, let them climb up 
to advancement in despite of virtue, let them " go before, cross me on every 

^ Ter. Heautont. «Epictetus, c. 14. Si labor objecttis fuerit tolerantiiB, convicium patientioe, &c., si ita 
consueveris, vitiis non obtemperabis. ^xer. Phor. eAlciatEmbl. f Yirg. -lEn. g" My breast 

was not conscious of this first wound, for 1 have endured still greater." •> Xat. Chytreus deliciis 

Europe, Felix civitasquas tempore pacis de bello cogitat. iQccupet extremura scabies; mihi turpe 

relinqui est. Hor. ^ Lipsius, epist. qurest. 1. 1 . ep. 7. 



414 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

side," ^me non offendunt modo 7ion in oculos incurrant, as he said, correcting 
his former error, they do not offend nie so long as they run not into mine eyes. 
I am. inglorious and poor, compositd paupertate, but I live secure and quiet : 
they are dignified, have great means, pomp, and state, they are glorious; but 
what have they with it? "™Envy, trouble, anxiety, as much labour to maintain 
their place with credit, as to get it at first." I am contented with my fortunes, 
spectator e longinquo, and love Neptunum procul a terra spectarefurentem: 
he is ambitious, and not satisfied with his : "but what "gets he by it? to have 
all his life laid open, his reproaches seen : not one of a thousand but he hath 
done more worthy of dispraise and animadversion than commendation; no 
better means to help this than to be private." Let them run, ride, strive as 
so many fishes for a crumb, scrape, climb, catch, snatch, cozen, collogue, 
temporise and fleire, take all amongst them, wealth, honour, °and get what 
they can, it offends me not : 

r " P me mea tellus 



Lare secreto tutoque tegat," 

'^ I am well pleased with my fortunes," "^ Vivo et regno simul ista relinqicens. 
I have learned "in what state soever I am, therewith to be contented," 
Philip, iv. 11. Come what can come, I am prepared. Nave ferar magna 
an parvd^ ferar unus et idem. I am the same. I was once so mad to bustle 
abroad, and seek about for preferment, tire myself, and trouble all my friends, 
sed nihil labor tantus profecit; nam dum alios amicorum mors avocat, aliis 
ignotus sum, his invisus, alii large promittunt, intercedunt illi mecum soliciti, 
hi vand spe lactant; dam alios ambio, hos capto, Hits innotesco, Oitas perit, anni 
dejluunt, amicifatigantur, ego deferor^ etjam, mundi tcesus, humancEcjue satur 
infidelitatis, acquiesco. '"And so I say still; although I may not deny, but 
that I have had some ^bountiful patrons and noble benefactors, we ^i'm m^enm 
ingratus, and I do thankfully acknowledge it, I have received some kindness, 
quod Deus illis beneficium rependat, si non pro votisy fortasse pro meritis, more 
peradventure than I deserve, though not to my desire, more of them than I 
did expect, yet not of others to my desert ; neither am I ambitious or covetous, 
for this while, or a Suffenus to myself; what I have said, without prejudice 
or alteration shall stand. And now as a mired horse that struggles at first 
with all his might and main to get out, but when he sees no remedy, that his 
beating will not serve, lies still, I have laboured in vain, rest satisfied, and if 
I may usurp that of * Prudent i us, 

"Inveniportum; spes et fortuna valete, I " Mine haven's found, fortune and hope adieu, 

Uil mihi vobiscum, ludite nunc alios." j Mock others now, for 1 have done with you." - 



MEMB. YII. 

Against Repulse, Abuses, hijuries, Contempts, Disgraces, Contumelies, 
Slanders, Scoffs, SfC. 

Repidse^ I may not yet conclude, think to appease passions, or quiet the 
mind, till such time as I have likewise removed some other of their more 
eminent and ordinary causes, which produce so grievous tortures and discon- 
tents: to divert all, I cannot hope; to point alone at some few of the chiefest, 
is that which I aim at. 

iLipsius, epist. lih. 1. epist. 7. " Gloria comitem habet invidiam, pari onere premitur retinendo ac 

acquirendo. » Quid aliud ambitiosus sibi parat quam ut probra ejus pateant ? nemo vivens qui non 

habet in vita pluva vituperatione quam laude digna; his malis non melius occurritur, quam si bene 
latueris. <> Et omnes fama per urbes garrula laudet. p Sen. fler. Fur. ^ Hor. " I live like a king 

•without any of these acquisitions." ' " But all my labour was unprofitable ; for while death took off 

some of my friends, to others I remain unknown, or little liked, and these deceive me with false promises. 
Wliilst I am canvassing one party, captivating another, making myself known to a tliird, my age increases, 
years glide away, I am put off, and now tired of the world, and surfeited with liuman M'orthlessness, I rest 
content." * The right honourable Lady Frances Countess Dowager of Exeter. The Lord Berkley. 

tDistichon ejus in militera Christianum e Grceco. Lngraveu on the tomb of Fr. Puccius the Florentine 
m Home. Chytreus in deliciis. 



Mem. 7.] Remedies against Discontents. ' 41-5 

Repulse and disgrace are two main causes of discontent, but to an nnder- 
stauding man not so Lardlj to be taken. Csesar himself hath been denied, 
" and when two st^nd equal in fortune, birth, and all other qualities alike, 
one of necessity must lose. Why shouldst thou take it so grievously 1 It 
hath a familiar thing for thee thyself to deny others. If every man might 
have what he would, we should all be deified, emperors, kings, princes; if 
whatsoever vain hope suggests, insatiable appetite, affects, our preposterous 
judgment thinks fit were granted, we should have another chaos in an instant, 
a mere confusion. It is some satisfaction to him that is repelled, that dig- 
nities, honours, offices, are not always given by desert or worth, but for love, 
affinity, friendship, affection, ^ great men's letters, or as commonly they are 
bought and sold. '^ ^ Honours in court are bestowed not according to men's 
virtues and good conditions (as an old courtier observes), but as every man 
hath means, or more potent friends, so he is preferred." With us in France 
(^ for so their own countryman relates) " most part the matter is carried by 
favour and grace; he that can get a great man to be his mediator, runs away 
with all the preferment." Indignissimus plerumque prcefertur, Vatinius 
Catoni, illaudatus laudatissimo ; 



"Sei'vi dominantur; asolli 



Ornantur plialeris, dephaleraiitiir equi." * 

An illiterate fool sits in a man's seat, and the common people hold him learned, 
grave and wise. " One professeth (^Cardan well notes) for a thousand crowns, 
but he deserves not ten, when as he that deserves a thousand cannot get ten." 
Scdariurti non dat tnid/tis scdem. As good horses draw in carts as coaches. 
And oftentimes, which Machiavel seconds, ° PTiiicipes non sunt qui oh insig- 
nem virtutem pj'incipatu digni sunt, he that is most worthy wants employment; 
he that hath skill to be a pilot wants a ship, and he that could govern a com- 
mon v/ealth, a world itself, a king in conceit, wants means to exorcise his worth, 
hath not a poor office to manage, and yet all this while he is a better man that 
is fit to reign, etsi careat regno, though he want a kingdom, " '' than he that 
hath one, and knov/s not how to rule it :" a lion serves not always his keeper, 
but oftentimes the keeper the lion, and as ® Polydore Yirgil hath it, midti 
reges at pupilli oh inscitiam non regunt sed reguntur. Hiero of Syracuse 
was a brave king, but wanted a kingdom; Perseus of Macedon had nothing of 
a king, but the bare name and title, for he could not govern it : so great places 
are often ill bestowed, worthy persons uurespected. Many times too, the ser- 
vants have more means than the masters whom they serve, which ^ Epictetus 
counts an eye-sore and inconvenient. But who can help it? It is an ordi- 
nary thing in these days to see a base impudent ass, illiterate, unworthy, insuf- 
ficient, to be preferred before his betters, because he can put himself forward, 
because he looks big, can bustle in the world, hath a fair outside, can tem- 
porise, collogue, insinuate, or hath good store of friends or money; whereas a 
more discreet, modest, and better-deserving man shall lie hid or have a repulse. 
'Twas so of old, and ever will be, and which Tiresias adviseth Ulysses in the 
^poet, "Accipe qua ratione queas dltescere^' &c. is still in use; lie, flat- 
ter and dissemble: if not, as he concludes, ''•Ergo pauper eris,'' then go 

like a beggar as thou art. Erasmus, Melancthon, Lipsius, Bud^eus, Cardan, 

"PEcderatus in SOOLacedJBmoniorumnumerum non elechis risit, gi-atulari se dicens civitatem habere 300 
cives se meliores. * Kissing goes bj' favour. y yEneas Syl. de miser, ciirial. Dantur honores in curiis 
non secundum honores et virtutes, sedut quisque ditior est atque potentior, eo raagis honoratur. ^Sesel- 
lius, lib. 2. de repub. Gallorum. Favore apud nos et gratia plerumque I'es agitur; et qui commodum 
aliquem nacti sunt intercessorera, aditum fere liabent ad omnes prajfecturas. ^ " Slaves govern ; asses 

are decked with trappings ; horses are deprived of them." ^ Imperitus periti munus occupat, et sic 

apud valgus habetur. Hie protitetur mille corouatis, cum nee decern mereatur; alius e diverso mille 
dignus, vix decern consequi potest. <^Epist. dedic. disput. Zeubbeo Bondemontio, et Cosmo Kucelaio. 

<i Quum is qui regnat, et rcgnandi sit imperitus. ^ Lib. 22. hist. ^ Miuistri locupletiores sunt iis 

quibus ministiatoi'. filior. lib. 2. bat. 5. "Learn how to grow rich." ■ 



41 G Cure of Melanchohj, [Rirt. 2. Sec. 3. 

lived and died poor. Gesner was a silly old man, lacuh innixus, amongst all 
those huffing cardinals, swelling bishops that flourished in his time, and rode 
on foot-clothes. It is not honesty, learning, worth, wisdom, that prefers men, 
" The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," but as the wise 
man said, ^ Chance, and sometimes a ridiculous chance. ^ Casus plerumque 
ridiculus multos elevavlt. 'Tis fortune's doings as they say, which made Bru- 
tus now dying exclaim, misem virtus, ergo nihil quiim verba eras, atqui 
ego te tanquam o^em exercebam, sed tii serviebas fortuim. ^ Believe it here- 
after, O my friends! virtue serves fortune. Yet be not discouraged (O 
my well deserving spirits) with this which I have said, it may be otherwise, 
though seldom I confess, yet sometimes it is. But to your farther content, 
I'll tell you a ' tale. In Moronia pia, or Moronia felix, I know not whether, 
nor how long since, nor in what cathedral church, a fat prebend fell void. 
The carcass scarce cold, many suitors were up in an instant. The first had 
rich friends, a good purse, and he was resolved to outbid any man before he 
would lose it, every man supposed he should carry it. The second was my 
lord Bishop's chaplain (in whose gift it was), and he thought it his due to have 
it. The third was nobly born, and he meant to get it by his great parents, 
patrons, and allies. The fourth stood upon his worth, he had newly found 
out strange mysteries in chemistry, and other rare inventions, which he would 
detect to the public good. The fifth was a painful preacher, and he was com- 
mended by the whole parish where he dwelt, he had all their hands to his 
certificate. The sixth was the prebendary's son lately deceased, his father 
died in debt (for it, as they say), left a wife and many poor children. The 
seventh stood upon fair promises, which to him and his noble friends had been 
formerly made for the next place in his lordship's gift. The eighth pretended 
great losses, and what he had suffered for the church, what pains he had taken 
at home and abroad, and besides he brought noblemen's letters. The ninth 
had married a kinswoman, and he sent his wife to sue for him. The tenth 
was a foreign doctor, a late convert, and wanted means. The eleventh would 
exchange for another, he did not like the former s site, could not agree with 
his neighbours and fellows upon any terms, he would be gone. The twelfth 
and last was (a suitor in conceit) a right honest, civil, sober man, an excellent 
scholar, and such a one as lived private in the university, but he had neither 
means nor money to compass it ; besides he hated all such courses, he could 
not speak for himself, neither had he any friends to solicit his cause, and 
therefore made no suit, could not expect, neither did he hope for, or look after 
it. The good bishop, amongst a jury of competitors thus perplexed, and not 
yet resolved what to do, or on whom to bestow it, at the last, of his own 
accord, mere motion and bountifid nature, gave it freely to the university 
student, altogether unknown to him but by fame; and to be brief, the acade- 
mical scholar had the prebend sent him for a present. The news was no 
sooner published abroad, but all good students rejoiced, and were much cheered 
up with it, though some would not believe it; others, as men amazed, said it 
was a miracle ; but one amongst the rest thanked God for it, and said Nunc 
juvat tandem studiosum esse, et Deo integro corde servire. You have heard my 
tale: but alas it is but a tale, a mere fiction, 'twas never so, never like to be, 
and so let it rest. Well, be it so then, they have wealth and honour, fortune 
and preferment, every man (there's no remedy) must scramljle as he may, and 
shift as he can; yet Cardan comforted himself with this, '"" the star Foma- 
hant would make him immortal," and that ° after his decease his books should 

h Solomon, Eccles ix. !1. i Sat. Menip. k"0 wretched virtue! you are therefore uothinf? but 

words, and 1 have all this time been loolcing upon you as a reality, while you are yourself tlie slave of 
fortune." ITale quid est apud Valent Andreara Apolog. manip. 5. apol. Si). "* Stella I'oinahaut 

Immortalitateiu dabit. "Lib. de lib. piopriis. 



Mem. 7.] Remedies against Discontents. 417 

be found in ladies' studies: °I)ignum laude virum Musa vetat mori. But 
why sliouldest thou take thy neglect, thy canvas so to heart % It may be 
thou art not fit; but a ^^ child that puts on his father's shoes, liat, headpiece, 
breastplate, breeches, or holds his spear, but is neither able to wield the one, 
or wear the other ; so wouldest thou do by such an office, place, or magis- 
tracy : thou art unfit: " And what is dignity to an unworthy man, but" (as 
** Sal vianus holds), "a gold ring in a swine's snout?" Thou art a brute. Like 
a bad actor (so 'Plutarch compares such men in a tragedy), diadema fert, at 
vox non auditur : Thou wouldest play a king's part, but actest a clown, speakest 
like an ass. ^ Magna petis, Phaeton, et quce non virihus istis, &c., as James and 
John the sons of Zebedee, did ask they knew not what : nescis, temerarie, 
nescis ; thou dost, as another Suff'enus, overween thyself; thou art wise in 
thine own conceit, but in other more mature judgment altogether unfit to 
manage such a business. Or be it thou art more deserving than any of thy 
rank, God in his providence hath reserved thee for some other fortunes, sio 
superls visum. Thou art humble as thou art, it may be ; hadst thou been 
preferred, thou wouldest have forgotten God and thyself, insulted over others, 
contemned thy friends, *been a block, a tyrant, or a demi-god, sequiturque 
superhia formam : " * Therefore," saith Chrysostom, " good men do not always 
find grace and favour, lest they should be puffed up with turgent titles, grow 
insolent and proud." 

Injuries, abuses, are very offensive, and so much the more in that they think 
veterem ferendo invitant novam, "by taking one they provoke another:" but 
it is an erroneous opinion, for if that were true, there would be no end of 
abusing each other; lis litem generat; 'tis much better with patience to bear, 
or quietly to put it up. If an ass kick me, saith Socrates, shall I strike him 
again? And when "his wife Xantippe struck and misused him, to some 
friends that would have had him strike her again, he replied, that he would 
not make them sport, or that they should stand by and say, £ia Socrates, eia 
Xantippe, as we do when dogs fight, animate them the more by clapping of 
hands. Many men spend themselves, their goods, friends, fortunes, upon 
small quarrels, and sometimes at other men's procurements, with much vex- 
ation of spirit and anguish of mind, all which with good advice, or mediation 
of friends, might have been happily composed, or if patience had taken place. 
Patience in such cases is a most sovereign remedy, to put up, conceal, or dis- 
semble it, to ^forget and forgive, "^not seven, but seventy-seven times, as 
often as he repents forgive him;" Luke xvii. 3. as our Saviour enjoins us, 
stricken, " to turn the other side:" as our "" Apostle persuades us, "to recom- 
pense no man evil for evil, but as much as is possible to have peace with all 
men : not to avenge ourselves, and we shall heap burning coals upon our ad- 
versary's head." " For "if you put up wrong (as Chrysostom comments), you 
get the victory ; he that loseth his money, loseth not the conquest in this our 
philosophy." If he contend with thee, submit thyself unto him first, yield 
to him. Durum et durum non Jaciunt murum, as the diverb is, two refractory 
spirits will never agree, the only means to overcome is to relent, ohsequio vinces. 
Euclid in Plutarch, when his brother had angered him, swore he would be 
revenged; but he gently replied, " ^Let me not live if I do not make thee to 
love me again," upon which meek answer he was pacified, 

"c Flectitur obsequio curvatus ab arbore ramus, i " A branch if easily bended yields to thee, 
Frangis st vires experire tuas." | Pull hard it breaks; the difference you see." 

o Hor. "The muse forbids the praiseworthy man to die." p Qui induit thoracem aut galeam, &c. 

<iLib. 4. fie guber. Dei. Quid est dignitas indiguo nisi circulus aureus in naribus suis ? 'In Lysandro. 

■ Ovid. Met. t Magistratus virum indicat. *Ideo boni viri aliquando gratiam non accipiunt, ne in su- 
perbiam eleventur ventositate jactantise, ne altitudo inuneris negligentiores eflBciat. u ^lian. » Injuriarum 
reniedium est oblivio. y Mat. xviii. 22. Mat. v. .39. ^ Rom. xii. 17. ^ Si toleras injuriam, victor 

evadis; <iui enim pecuniis privatus est, non est privatus victoria in hac philosophia. ^ Dispereain nisi tQ 

ultus fuero: dispeream nisi ut me deiaceps ames effecero. « Joach. Camerarius, Embl. 21. cent. 1. 

2je 



418 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

The noble family of the Colonni in Rome, when they were expelled the city 
by that furious Alexander the Sixth, gave the bending branch therefore as 
an impress, with this motto, Flecti potest, frangi non potest, to signify that he 
might break them by force, but so never make them stoop, for they fled in 
the midst of their hard usage to the kingdom of NajDles, and were honourably 
entertained by Frederick the king, according to their callings. Gentleness in 
this case might have done much more, and let thine adversary be never so 
perverse, it may be by that means thou mayest win him ; ^favore et berievo- 
lentia etiam immanis animus onansuescit, soft words pacify wrath, and the 
fiercest spirits are so soonest overcome; ®a generous lion will not hurt a beast 
that lies prostrate, nor an elephant an innocuous creature, but is infestus infestis, 
a terror and scourge alone to such as are stubborn, and make resistance. It 
was the symbol of Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, and he was not mis- 
taken in it, for 

** fQuo quisqae est major, magis est placabilis irSe, I ♦* A greater man is soonest pacified, 
Et faciles motus mens generosa capit." | A noble spirit quickly satisfied." 

It is reported by ^Gualter Mapes, an old historiographer of ours (who lived 
400 years since), that King Edward senior, and Llewellyn prince of Wales, 
being at an interview near Aust upon Severn, in Gloucestershire, and the 
prince sent for, refused to come to the king; he would needs go over to him; 
which Llewellyn perceiving, " ^went up to the arms in water, and embracing 
his boat, would have carried him out upon his shoulders, adding that his 
humility and wisdom had triumphed over his pride and folly ; and thereupon 
was reconciled unto him and did his homage." If thou canst not so win him, 
put it up, if thou beest a true Christian, a good divine, an imitator of Christ, 
(" 'for he was reviled and put it up, whipped and sought no revenge"), thou 
wilt pray for thine enemies, '•'''and bless them that persecute thee;" be 
patient, meek, humble, &c. An honest man will not offer thee injury, pro- 
bus non vult; if he were a brangling knave, 'tis his fashion so to do; where 
is least heart is most tongue; quo quisque stultior eo magis insolescit, the more 
sottish he is, still the more insolent: " ^Do not answer a fool according to 
his folly." If he be thy superior, ™bear it by all means, grieve not at it, let 
him take his course; Annitus and Melitus "°may kill me, they cannot hurt 
me;" as that generous Socrates made answer in like case. Mens immota 
onanet, though the body be torn in pieces with wild horses, broken on the 
wheel, pinched with fiery tongs, the soul cannot be distracted. 'Tis an ordi- 
nary thing for great men to vilify and insult, oppress, injure, tyrannise, to 
take what liberty they list, and who dare speak against? Miserum est ab eo 
Icedi, quo nonpossis queri,a, miserable thing 'tis to be injured of him, from whom 
is no appeal : '*and not safe to write against him that can proscribe and punish a 
man at his pleasure, which Asinius Pollio was aware of, when Octavianus pro- 
.voked him. 'Tis hard I confess to be so injured: one of Chile's three difficult 
things : " ^To keep counsel; spend his time well ; put up injuries:" but be 
thou patient, and "^ leave revenge unto the Lord. " ''Vengeance is mine and I 
will repay, saith the Lord." — " I know the Lord," saith * David, " v/ill avenge 
the afflicted and judge the poor." — " IS'o man (as * Plato farther adds) can so 
severely punish his adversary, as God will such as oppress miserable men." 

" u Iterum ille rem judicatam judicat, 
Majoreque mulcta mulctat." 

•J-Heliodorus. eReipsareperi nihil esse liomini melius facilitate et dementia. Ter. Adelph. 

'Ovid. g Camden in Glouc. ^ Usque ad pectus ingressus est aquam, &c., cymbam amplectens, sapien- 
tissime rex, ait, tua liumilitas meam vicit superbiam, et sapientia triumphavit ineptiam; collum ascende 
quod contra tefatuus erexi, intrabis terram quam hodie fecit tuam benignitas, &c. • Chrysostom. 

contumeliis affectus est et eas pertulit ; opprobriis, nee ultus est; verberibus csesus, nee vicem reddidit. 
kRom. xii. 14. iProv. ™ Contend not with a greater man, Prov. » Occidere possunt. <> Non facile 
aut tutum in eum scribere qui potest proscribere. p Arcana tacere, otium recte coUocare, injuriam posse 
ferre, difflcillimum. iPsal. xlv. '•Rom. xii. sPsal. xiii. 12. 'Nullus tam severe inimiciim suum 
■alcisci potest, quam Deus solet miserorum oppressores. u Arcturus in Plaut. "He adjudicates judgment 
again, and punislies with a still greater penalty." 



Mem. 7.] Remedies against Discontents. 419 

If there be aay religion, any God, and that God be just, it shall be so; if 
thou believest the one, believe the other : Erit, erit, it shall be so. Nemesis 
comes after, sero sed serib^ stay but a little and thou shalt see God's just 
judgment overtake him. 

"^Raro antecedentem scelestum I "Yet with sure steps, though lame and slow, 

Deseruitpede poena claudo." | Vengeance o'ertakes the trembling villain's speed." 

Thou shalt perceive that verified of Samuel to Agag, 1 Sam. xv. 33. " Thy 
sword hath made many women childless, so shall thy mother be childless 
amongst other women." It shall be done to tliem as they have done to others. 
Conradinus, that brave Suevian prince, came with a well-prepared army into 
the kingdom of Naples, was taken prisoner by King Charles, and put to death 
in the flower of his youth ; a little after {iiltionem Conradini mortis, Pandul- 
phus Collinutius, Hist. Neap. lib. 5. calls it), King Charles's own son, with two 
hundred nobles, was so taken prisoner, and beheaded in like sort. Not in this 
only, but in all other offences, quo quisque peccat in eo punietur, rthey shall 
be punished in the same kind, in the same part, like nature, eye with or in 
the eye, head with or in the head, persecution with persecution, lust with 
effects of lust ; let them march on with ensigns displayed, let drums beat on, 
trumpets sound taratantarra, let them sack cities, take the spoil of countries, 
murder infants, deflower virgins, destroy, burn, persecute, and tyrannise, they 
shall be fully rewarded at last in the same measure, they and theirs, and 
that to their desert. 

**^ Ad generum Ceteris sine csede et sanguine pauci I " Few tyrants in their beds do die, 

Descendunt reges et sicca morte tyranui." [ But stabb'd or maim'd to hell they hie." 

Oftentimes too a base contemptible fellow is the instrument of God's justice 
to punish, to toi"ture, and vex them, as an ichneumon doth a crocodile. They 
shall be recompensed according to the works of their hands, as Haman was 
hanged on the gallows he provided for Mordecai; "They shall have sorrow of 
heart, and be destroyed from under the heaven," Thren. iii. 64, 65, QQ. Only 
be thou patient: ^vincit quipatitur: and in the end thou shalt be crowned. 
Yea, but 'tis a hard matter to do this, flesh and blood may not abide it; 'tis 
grave, grave! no (Chrysostom replies), non est grave, 6 homo! 'tis not so 
grievous, "^ neither had God commanded it, if it had been so difficult." But 
how shall it be done? "Easily," as he follows it, "if thou shalt look to heaven, 
behold the beauty of it, and what God hath promised to such asput up injuries." 
But if thou resist and go about vi'ni vi repellere, as the custom of the world is, 
to right thyself, or hast given just cause of offence, 'tis no injury then, but a 
condign punishment; thou hast deserved as much: A te principium, in te 
recidit crimen quod a tefuit; pcccdsti, quiesce, as Ambrose expostulates with 
Cain, lib. 3. de Abel et Cain. *^Dionysius of Syracuse, in his exile, was made 
to stand without dioov, patienterferendum,fortasse nos tale quid fecimus, quum 
in honore essemus, he wisely put it up, and laid the fault where it was, on his 
own pride and scorn, which in his prosperity he had formerly showed others. 
'Tis <^Tully's axiom, ferre ea molestissime homines non debent, quce ipsorum 
culpa contracta sunt, self do, self have, as the saying is, they may thank 
themselves. For he that doth wrong must look to be wronged again ; habet et 
musca. splenem, etformiccB sua bilis inest. The least fly hath a spleen, and a 
little bee a stmg. ® An ass overwhelmed a thistle warp's nest, the little bird 
pecked his galled back in revenge ; and the humble-bee in the fable flung down 
the eagle's eggs out of Jupiter's lap. Bracides, in Plutarch, put his hand into a 
mouse's nest and hurt her young ones, she bit him by the finger : ^I see now 
(saith he) there is no creature so contemptible, that will not be revenged. 'Tis 

^ Hor. 3. od. 2. y Wisd. xi. 6. ^ Juvenal. ^ Apud Christianos non qui patitur, sed qui facit 

injuriam miser est. Leo ser. b Neque prc'^cepissr t Deus si grave fuisset ; sed qua ratione potero ? facile 
si ccelum suspexeris; et ejus pulchritudine, et quod pollicetur Deus, &c. <^Valer. lib. 4. cap. I. 

d Kp. Q. frat. ^ Camerarius, £mb. Id. cent. 2. f Papse, intuit : nullum animal tarn pusillum 

quod non cupiat ulciscl. 



420 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

lex talionis, and the nature of all things so to do : if thou wilt live quietly thy- 
self, ^do no wrong to others; if any be done thee, put it up, with patience 
endure it, for " ""this is thankworthy," saith our apostle, "if any man for con- 
science towards God endure grief, and suffer wrong undeserved ; for what 
praise is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye take it patiently? But 
if when you do well, ye suffer wrong and take it patiently, there is thanks with 
God ; for hereunto verily we are called." Qui mala nonfert, ipse sibi testis est 
per impatientiam qubdhonus nan est, "he that cannot bear injuries, witnesseth 
against himself that he is no good man," as Gregory holds. " ' 'Tis the nature 
of wicked men to do injuries, as it is the property of all honest men patiently 
to bear them." Improbitas nullo flectitur ohsequio. The wolf in the ''emblem 
sucked the goat (so the shepherd would have it), but he kept nevertheless a 
wolf's nature; 'a knave will be a knave. Injury is on the other side a good 
man's footboy, his, Jidus Achates, and as a lackey follows him wheresoever he 
goes. Besides, miser a est fortuna quce caret inimico, he is in a miserable 
estate that wants enemies i"" it is a thing not to be avoided, and therefore 
with more patience to be endured. Cato Censorius, that upright Cato of 
whom Paterculus gives that honourable eulogium, bene fecit quod aliterfacere 
non potuit, was "fifty times indicted and accused by his fellow citizens, and as 
** Ammianus well hath it, Quis erit imiocens si clam vel palam accusdsse suffi- 
ciat? if it be sufficient to accuse a man openly or in private, who shall be 
free ? If there were no other respect than that of Christianity, religion and the 
like, to induce men to be long-suffering and patient, yet methinks the nature 
of injury itself is sufficient to keep them quiet, the tumults, uproars, miseries, 
discontents, anguish, loss, dangers that attend upon it might restrain the cala- 
mities of contention: for as it is with ordinary gamesters, the games go to the 
box, so falls it out to such as contend ; the lawyers get all ; and therefore if 
they would consider of it, aliena pericula cautos, other men's misfortunes in 
this kind, and common experience might detain them. *The more they con- 
tend, the more they are involved in a labyrinth of woes, and the catastrophe 
is to consume one another, like the elephant and dragon's conflict in Pliny ; p 
the dragon got under the elephant's belly, and sucked his blood so long, till he 
fell down dead upon the dragon, and killed him with the fall, so both were 
ruined. 'Tis a hydra's head, contention; the more they strive, the more they 
may : and as Praxiteles did by his glass, when he saw a scurvy face in it, 
brake it in pieces : but for that one he saw many more as bad in a moment : 
for one injury done they provoke another cum foenore, and twenty enemies for 
one. Noli irritare crabrones, oppose not thyself to a multitude : but if thou 
hast received a wrong, wisely consider of it, and if thou canst possibly, compose 
thyself with patience to bear it. This is the safest course, and thou shalt 
find greatest ease to be quiet. 

**I say the same of scoffs, slanders, contumelies, obloquies, defamations, 
detractions, pasquilling libels, and the like, which may tend any way to our 
disgrace : 'tis but opinion ; if we could neglect, contemn, or with patience 
.digest them, they would reflect on them that offered them at first. A wise 
citizen, I know not whence, had a scold to his wife: when she brawled, he 
played on his drum, and by that means madded her more, because she saw 
that he would not be moved. Diogenes in a crowd when one called him back, 
and told him how the boys laughed him to scorn, Ego, inquit, non rideor, took 
no notice of it. Socrates was brought upon the stage by Aristophanes, and 

8 Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris. h I Pet. ii. » Siquidem maloram proprium est inferre 

damna, et bonorum pedissequa est injuria. k Alciat. emb. iNaturam expellas furca licet, usque 

recurret. ™ By many indignities we come to dignities. Tibi subjicito qusefiunt aliis, furtum, convitia, &c. 
Et in iis in te admissis non excandesces. Epictetus. ^ Plutarch, quinquagies Catoni dies dicta ab inimicis. 
*'Lib. 18. *Hoc scio pro certo quod si cum stercore certo, vinco seu vincor, semper ego maculor. 

P Lib.- 8. cap. 2. 1 0bloquutus est, probrumque tibi intulit quispiam, sive vera is dixerit, sive falsa, 

maximam tibi coronam texueris si mansuete convitium tuleris. Chrys. in 6. cap. ad Rom. ser. 10. 



Mem. 7.] Itemcdies against Dlscontekts. 421 

misused to liis face, but he laughed as if it concerned him not : and as ^lian 
relates of him, whatsoever good or bad accident or fortune befell him, going 
in or coming out, Socrates still kept the same countenance; even so should a 
Christian do, as Hierom describes him., pei^ infamiam et honam, famam gras- 
sari ad immorlalitatem, march on through good and bad reports to immor- 
tality, '"not to be moved: for honesty is a sufficient reward, prohitas sihi 
'prcemium; and in our times the sole recompence to do well, is, to do well : but 
naughtiness will punish itself at last, ^ Improhis ipsa nequitia swpplicium. As 
the diverb is, 

" Qui benfe fecerunt, illi sua facta sequentur; i " They that do well, shall have reward at last; 
Qui malfe fecerunt, facta sequentur eos : " | But they that ill, shall suffer for that's past." 

Yea, but I am ashamed, disgraced, dishonoured, degraded, exploded : my 
notorious crimes and villainies are come to light [deprendi miserum est), my 
filthy lust, abominable oppression and avarice lies open, my good name's lost, 
my fortune's gone. I have been stigmatised, whipt at post, arraigned and 
condemned, I am a common obloquy, I have lost my ears, odious, execrable, 
abhorred of God and men. Be content, 'tis but a nine days' wonder, and as 
one sorrow drives out another, one passion another, one cloud another, one 
rumour is exj)elled by another; every day almost come new news unto our 
ears, as how the sun was eclipsed, meteors seen in the air, monsters born, 
prodigies, how the Turks were overthrown in Persia, an earthquake in Hel- 
vetia, Calabria, Japan, or China, an inundation in Holland, a great plague in 
Constantinople, a fire at Prague, a dearth in Germany, such a man is made 
a lord, a bishop, another hanged, deposed, pressed to death, for some murder, 
treason, rape, theft, oppression, all which we do hear at first with a kind of 
admiration, detestation, constei-nation, but by and by they are buried in 
silence : thy father's dead, thy brother robbed, wife runs mad, neighbour 
hath killed himself; 'tis heavy, ghastly, fearful news at first, in every man's 
mouth, table talk; but after a while who speaks or thinks of it? It will be 
so with thee and thine offence, it will be forgotten in an instant, be it theft, 
rape, sodomy, murder, incest, treason, &c., thou art not the first ofiender, nor 
shalt not be the last, 'tis no wonder, every hour such malefactors are called 
in question, nothing so common, Quocunque hi populo, quocunque sub axe.* 
Comfort thyself, thou art not the sole man. If he that were guiltless him- 
self should fling the first stone at thee, and he alone should accuse thee that 
were faultless, how many executioners, how x^any accusers wouldst thou 
have ] If every man's sins were written in his forehead, and secret faults 
known, how many thousands would parallel, if not exceed thine ofience? It 
naay be the judge that gave sentence, the jury that condemned thee, the 
spectators that gazed on thee, deserved much more, and were far more guilty 
than thou thyself. But it is thine infelicity to be taken, to be made a public 
example of justice, to be a terror to the rest; yet should every man have his 
desert, thou wouldest peradventure be a saint in comparison ; vexat censurd 
columhas, poor souls are punished; the great ones do twenty thousand times 
worse, and are not so much as spoken of 

"»Non rete accipitri tenditur neque milvio, j "The net's not laid for kites or birds of prey, 

Qui male faciunt nobis ; illis qui nil faciunt tenditur." | But for the harmless still our gins we lay." 

Be not dismayed then, humanum est errare, we are all sinners, daily and 
hourly subject to temptations, the best of us is a hypocrite, a grievous offender 
in God's sight, Noah, Lot, David, Peter, &c., how many mortal sins do we 
commit 1 Shall I say, be penitent, ask forgiveness, and make amends by the 
sequel of thy life, for that foul offence thou hast committed? recover thy 

rTullius, epist. Dolabella, tu forti sis animo; et tua moderatio, constantia, eorum infamet inj-uriam. 
• Boethius, consol. Mb. 4. pros. 3. * " Amongst people in every climate." " Ter. Phor. 



422 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

credit by some noble exploit, as Themistocles did, for he was a most debauched 
and vicious youth, sedjuventce maculas prcedaris factis delevit, but made the 
world amends by brave exploits; at last become a new man, and seek to be 
reformed. He that runs away in a battle, as Demosthenes said, may fight 
again; and he that hath a fall may stand as upright as ever he did before. 
Nemo des'peret meliora lapsus, a wicked liver may be reclaimed, and prove an 
honest man ; he that is odious in present, hissed out, an exile, may be received 
again with all men's favours, and singular applause; so Tully was in Rome, 
Alcibiades in Athens. Let thy disgrace then be what it will, quod fit, in- 
fectum non potest esse, that which is past cannot be recalled ; trouble not thy- 
self, vex and grieve thyself no more, be it obloquy, disgTace, &c. No better 
way, than to neglect, contemn, or seem not to regard it, to make no reckoning 
of it, Deesse robur arguit dicacitas : if thou be guiltless it concerns thee not : — 

" » Irrita vaniloquas quid curas spicula linguse, 
Latrantera curatne alta Diana canem ? " 

Doth the moon care for the barking of a dog 1 They detract, scoff and rail, 
saith one, ^and bark at me on every side; but I, like that Albanian dog some- 
times given to Alexander for a present, vindico me ah illis solo contemptu, I lie 
still and sleep, vindicate myself by contempt alone. ^ Expei^s terroris Achilles 
armatus: as a tortoise in his shell, ^virtute medme involvo, or an urchin round, 
7iil moror ictus, ''a lizard in camomile, I decline their fury and am safe. 

"Integritas virtusque suo munimine tuta, I "Virtue and integrity are their own fence, 

Non patet adversae morsibus invidi« :" j Care not for envy or wliat comes from thence." 

Let them rail then, scoff, and slander, sapiens contumelia non afficitur, a wise 
man, Seneca thinks, is not moved because he knows, contra Sycophantce 7)ior- 
sum non est remedium, there is no remedy for it : kings and princes, wise, 
grave, prudent, holy, good men, divine, all are so served alike. ""0 Jane a 
tergo quern mdla ciconia pinsit, Antevorta and Postvorta, Jupiter's guardians^, 
may not help in this case, they cannot protect; Moses had a Dathan, a 
Corath, David a Shimei, God himself is blasphemed : nondum felix es si te 
nondum turha deridet. It is an ordinary thing so to be misused. ^Regimn \ 
est cum henefeceris male audire, the chiefest men and most understanding are 
so vilified; let him take his ® course. And as that lusty courser in ^sop, 
that contemned the poor ass, came by and by after with his bowels burst, a 
pack on his back, and was derided of the same ass : contcTunentur ah iis quos 
ipsi prius contempsere, et irridehuntur ah iis quos ipsi prius wrisere, they shall 
be contemned and laughed to scorn of those whom they have formerly derided. 
Let them contemn, defame, or undervalue, insult, oppress, scofi[' slander, 
abuse, wrong, curse and swear, feign and lie, do thou comfort thyself with a 
good conscience, m sinu gaudeas, when they have all done, " ^a good conscience 
is a continual feast," innocency will vindicate itself: and which the poet 
gave out of Hercules, diisfruitur iratis, enjoy thyself, though all the world 
be set against thee, contemn and say with him, Elogium mihi prce forihus, 
my posy is, "not to be moved, that ^my palladium, my breastplate, my 
buckler, with which I ward all injuries, offences, lies, slanders; I lean upon 
that stake of modesty, so receive and break asunder all that foolish force of 
liver and spleen." And whosoever he is that shall observe these short instruc- 
tions, without all question he shall much ease and benefit himself. 

»Camerar. Emb. 61. cent. 3. " Why should you regard the harmless shafts of a vain -speaking tongue — 
does the exalted Diana care for the barking of a dog ? " y Lipsius elect, lib. 3. ult. Latrant me, jaceo, ac taceo, 
&c. ^ Catullus. aThe symbol of I. Kevenheder, a Carinthian baron, saith Sambucus. •» The 

symbol of Gonzaga, duke of Mantua. <= Pers. Sat. 1. ^ Magni animi est injurias despicere, Seneca do 

Ira, cap. 31. « Quid turpius quam sapientis vitam ex insipientis sermone pendere ? Tullius 2. de finibus. 
*^Tua te conscientia salvare, in cubiculum ingredere, ubi secure requiescas. Minuft se quodammodo proba 
bonitas conscientiaa secretum, Boethius, 1. 1. pros. 4. sRingantur licet et maledicant; Palladium illud 

pectori oppono, non moveri : consisto modestiae veluti audi innitens, excipio et fi-ango stultissimum impetum 
livoris. Putean., lib. 2. epist. 58. 



Mem. 7.] Remedies against Discontents. 423 

In fine, if princes would do justice, judges be upright, clergymen truly 
devout, and so live as they teach, if great men would not be so insolent, if 
soldiers would quietly defend us, the poor would be patient, rich men would 
be liberal and humble, citizens honest, magistrates meek, superiors would 
give good example, subjects peaceable, young men would stand in awe : if 
parents would be kind to their children, and they again obedient to their 
parents, brethren agree amongst themselves, enemies be reconciled, servants 
trusty to their masters, virgins chaste, wives modest, husbands would be lov- 
ing and less jealous : if we could imitate Christ and his apostles, live after 
God's laws, these mischiefs would not so frequently happen amongst us; but 
being most part so irreconcilable as we are, perverse, proud, insolent, factious, 
and malicious, prone to contention, anger and revenge, of such fiery spirits, 
so captious, impious, irreligious, so opposite to virtue, void of grace, how 
should it otherwise be ? Many men are very testy by nature, apt to mistake, 
apt to quarrel, apt to provoke and misinterpret to the worst, every thing that 
is said or done, and thereupon heap unto themselves a great deal of trouble, 
and disquietness to others, smatterers in other men's matters, tale-bearers, 
v/hisperers, liars, they cannot speak in season, or hold their tongues when 
they should,^ Et suam partem itidem tacere, cum aliena est oratio : they will 
speak more than comes to their shares, in all companies, and by those bad courses 
accumulate much evil to their own souls {qui contendit, sibi convicium /acit), 
their life is a perpetual brawl, they snarl like so many dogs, with their wives, 
children, servants, neighbours, and all the rest of their friends, they can agree 
with nobody. But to such as are judicious, meek, submissive, and quiet, these 
matters are easily remedied : they will forbear upon all such occasions, neglect, 
contemn, or take no notice of them, dissemble, or wisely turn it off. If it be 
a natural impediment, as a red nose, squint eyes, crooked legs, or any such 
imperfection, infirmity, disgrace, reproach, the best way is to speak of it first 
thyself, 'and so thou shalt surely take away all occasions from others to jest 
at, or contemn, that they may perceive thee to be careless of it. Yatinius 
was wont to scoff at his own deformed feet, to prevent his enemies' obloquies 
and sarcasms in that kind ; or else by prevention^ as Cotys, king of Thrace, 
that brake a company of fine glasses presented to him, with his own hands, 
lest he should be overmuch moved when they were broken by chance. And 
sometimes again, so that it be discreetly and moderately done, it shall not be 
amiss to make resistance, to take down such a saucy companion, no better 
means to vindicate himself to purchase final peace : for he that suffers him- 
self to be ridden, or through pusillanimity or sottishness will let every man 
baffle him, shall be a common laughing stock to flout at. As a cur that goes 
through a village, if he clap his tail between his legs, and run away, every 
cur will insult over him : but if he bristle up himself, and stand to it, give 
but a counter-snarl, there's not a dog dares meddle with him : much is in a 
man's courage and discreet carriage of himself 

Many other grievances there are, which happen to mortals in this life, 
from friends, wives, children, servants, masters, companions, neighbours, our 
own defaults, ignorance, errors, intemperance, indiscretion, infirmities, &c., 
and many good remedies to mitigate and oppose them, many divine precepts 
to counterpoise our hearts, special antidotes both in Scripture and human 
authors, which, whoso will observe, shall purchase much ease and quietness 
unto himself: I will point out a few. Those prophetical, apostolical admo- 
nitions are well known to all ; what Solomon, Siracides, our Saviour Christ 
himself hath said tending to this purpose, as " Tear God : obey the prince : 

•> Mil. glor. Act. 3. Plautus. i Bion said his father was a rogue, his mother a wliore, to prevent obloquy, 
and to show that nought belonged to hiua but goods of the mind. 



424 Care of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 3. 

be sober and watcb : pray continually : be angry but sin not : remember tliy 
last : fashion not yourselves to tliis world, &c,, apply yourselves to the times : 
strive not with a mighty man : recompense good for evil, let nothing be done 
through contention or vain-glory, but with meekness of mind, every man 
esteeming of others better than himself: love one another;" or that epitome 
of the law and the prophets, which our Saviour inculcates, " love God above 
all, thy neighbour as thyself;" and " whatsoever you would that men should 
do unto you, so do unto them;" which Alexander Severus writ in letters of 
gold, and used as a motto, ''Hierom commends to Celantia as an excellent 
way, amongst so many enticements arid worldly provocations, to rectify her life. 
Out of human authors take these few cautions, " 'Know thyself. Be contented 
with thy lot. "Trust not wealth, beauty, nor parasites, they will bring thee to 
destruction. ^Have peace with all men, war with vice. ^Be not idle. "^Look 
before you leap. ^Beware of. Had I wist. ® Honour thy parents, speak well 
of friends. Be temperate in four things, lingua, locis, oculis, et poculis. 
Watch tldne eye. * Moderate thine expenses. Hear much, speak little, ^sus- 
tine et abstine. If thou seest aught amiss in another, mend it in thyself Keep 
thine own counsel, reveal not thy secrets, be silent in thine intentions. ^Give 
not ear to tale-tellers, babblers, be not scurrilous in conversation: ^jest with- 
out bitterness : give no man cause of offence : set thine house in order: ^tako 
heed of suretyship. ^Fide et diffide, as a fox on the ice, take heed whom you 
trust. ^Live not beyond thy means. ^Give cheerfully. Pay thy dues 
willingly. Be not a slave to thy money; <^omit not occasion, embrace oppor- 
tunity, lose no time. Be humble to thy superiors, respective to thine equals, 
affable to all, ®but not familiar. Flatter no man. ^Lie not, dissemble not. 
Keep thy word and promise, be constant in a good resolution. Speak truth, 
Be not opiniative, maintain no factions. Lay no wagers, make no compari- 
sons. ^Pind no faults, meddle not with other men's matters. Admire not 
thyself. ^Be not proud or popular. Insult not. Fortunam reverenter habe. 
^Pear not that which cannot be avoided. ^Grieve not for that which cannot 
be recalled. ^Undervalue not thyself. "^Accuse no man, commend no man 
rashly. Go not to law without great cause. Strive not with a greater man. 
Cast not off an old friend, take heed of a reconciled enemy. ^If thou c()me 
as a guest stay not too long. Be not unthankful. Be meek, merciful, and 
patient. Do good to all. Be not fond of fair words. ° Be not a neuter in a 
faction; moderate thy passions. ^ Think no place without a witness. ^Ad- 
monish thy friend in secret, commend him in public. Keep good company. 
^Love others to be beloved thyself. Ama tanquam osu7^us. Amicus tarda 
jias. Provide for a tempest. Noli irritare crabrones. Do not prostitute thy 
soul for gain. Make not a fool of thyself to make others merry. Marry not 
an old crony or a fool for money. Be not over solicitous or curious. Seek that 
which may be found. Seem not greater than thou art. Take thy pleasure 
soberly. Ocyrruwm ne terito. ® Live merrily as thou canst. * Take heed by 
other men's examples. Go as thou wouldest be met, sit as thou wouldest be 

k Lib. 2. ep. 25. l Nosce teipsum.. " Contentus aW. " Ne fidas opibus, neque parasitis, trahunt 

in prsecipitiam. oPacem cum hominibus habe, bellum cum vitiis. Othou. 2. imperat. symb. p Dfeinon 
te nunquam otioisura inveniat. Hieron. iDiu deliberandum quod statuendum est semel. "^ Insipientis 
est dicere non putaram. » Ames parentem, si sequum ; aliter, feras ; prsestes parentibus pietatem, amicis 
dilectionem. * Comprimelinguam. Quid de quoque viro et cui dicas ssepe caveto. Libentius audias 

tjuam loquaris; vive ut vivas. "Epictetus : optime feceris si ea fugeris qute in alio reprehendis. Nemiai 
dixeris qu£e nolis efferri. »Fuge susuiTones. Percontatorem fugito, &c. y Sint sales sine vilitate. Sen. 
« Sponde, presto noxa. » Camerar. emb. 55. cent. 2. cave cai credas, vel nemini fidas Epicarmus. 

t Tecum habita. « Bis dat qui cito dat. ^ Post est occasio calva. « Nimia familiaritas parit con- 

tcmptura. f Mendacium servile vitium. e Arcanum neque inscrutaberis ullius unquam, commissumque 
teges, Hor. lib. 1. ep. 19. Nee tua laudabis studia aut aliena reprendes, Hor. ep. lib. 18. ^ Ne te 

quaesiveris extra. ' Stultum est timere, quod vitari non potest. ^ De re amissa irreparabili ne doleas. 
1 Tanti eris aliis quanti tibi fueris. "> Neminem vel laudes vel accuses. " NiUlius hospitis grata est 

mora longa. « Solonis lex apud Aristotelem; Gellius, lib. 2. cap. 12. p Nullum locum putes sine teste, 
semper adesse Deura cogita. i Secretb amicos admone, lauda palam. "^Ut ameris, amabilis esto. Eros 
et anteros gem elli Veneris, amatio etredamatio. Plat. « Dum fata sinunt vivite laiti, Seueca. 'Id 

apprime in vita utile, ex aliis observare aibi quod ex usu siet. Ter. 



Mem. 8. liemedies against Discontents. 425 

found, "yield to the time, follow the stream. AYilt thou live free from fears 
and cares? ^Live innocently, keep thyself upright, thou needest no other 
keeper," &c. Look for more in Isocrates, Seneca, Plutarch, Epictetus, &c., 
and for defect, consult with cheese-trenchers and painted cloths. 



MEMB. VIII. 

Melancholy 

"Every man," saith ^Seneca, " thinks his own burthen the heaviest," and 
a melancholy man above all others complains most ; weariness of life, abhor- 
riug all company and light, fear, sorrow, suspicion, anguish of mind, bashful- 
ness, and those other dread symptoms of body and mind, must needs aggravate 
this misery ; yet compared to other maladies, they are not so heinous as they 
be taken. For first this disease is either in habit or disposition, curable or 
incurable. If new and in disposition, 'tis commonly pleasant, and it may be 
helped. If inveterate, or a habit, yet they have lucida intervalla, sometimes 
well, and sometimes ill; or if more continuate, as the ^Yejentes were to the 
Romans, 'tis liostis magis assiduus quam gravis, a more durable enemy than 
dangerous : and amongst many inconveniences, some comforts are annexed to 
it. First it is not catching, and as Erasmus comforted himself, when he was 
grievously sick of the stone, though it was most troublesome, and an intoler- 
able pain to him, yet it was no whit offensive to others, not loathsome to the 
spectators, ghastly, fulsome, terrible, as plagues, apoplexies, leprosies, wounds, 
sores, tetters, pox, pestilent agues are, which either admit of no company, 
terrify or offend those that are present. In this malady, that which is, is 
wholly to themselves : and those symptoms not so dreadful, if they be compared 
to the opposite extremes. They are most part bashful, suspicious, solitary, &c., 
therefore no such ambitious, impudent intruders as some are, no sharkers, no 
conycatchers, no prowlers, no smell-feasts, praters, panders, parasites, bawds,, 
drunkards, whore masters ; necessity and defect compel them to be honesty 
as Mitio told Demea in the ^comedy, 

" Hsec si neque ego neque tu fecimus, 
Non sinit egestas facere nos." 

"If we be honest 'twas poverty made us so:" if we melancholy men be not 
as bad as he that is worst, 'tis our dame melancholy kept us so : Non deerat 
voluntas sed facultas. ^ 

Besides they are freed in this from many other infirmities, solitariness makes 
them more apt to contemplate, suspicion wary, which is a necessary humour 
in these times, ° Nam pol qui maxime cavet, is scepe cautor ca2:)tus est, " he that 
takes most heed, is often circumvented and overtaken." Fear and sorrow 
keep them temperate and sober, and free them from any dissolute acts, which 
jollity and boldness thrust men upon: they are therefore no sicaidi, roaring 
boys, thieves or assassins. As they are soon dejected, so they are as soon, 
by soft words and good persuasions reared. Wearisomeness of life makes 
them they are not so besotted on the transitory vain pleasures of the world. 
If they dote in one thing, they are wise and well understanding in most other. 
If it be inveterate, they are insensati, most part doting, or quite mad, insen- 
sible of any wrongs, ridiculous to others, but most happy and secure to them- 
selves. Dotage is a state which many much magnify and commend: so is 
simplicity and folly, as he said, ^ hie furor, 6 superi, sit mihi perpetuus. Some 
think fools and dizzards live the merriest lives, as Ajax in Sophocles, Nihil 

^ Dum faror in cursu currenti cede furori. Cretizandum cum Crete. Temporibus servi, nee contra 
flamina tlato. ^ Nulla certior custodia innocentia : iuexpugnabile munlmentum munimento non egere. 
5"Unicaique suum onus intolerabile videtur. ^Livius. ^^ Ter. Seen. 2. Adelphus. b"'T\vasuot 

the will but the way was wanting."' cpjautus. d Petronius Catul. 



426 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 4. 

scire vita jucundissima, "'tis the pleasantest life to know nothing; iners niar- 
lorum remediuQn ignorantia, " ignorance is a downright remedy of evils." 
These curious arts and laborious sciences, Galen's, Tally's, Aristotle's, Jus- 
tinian's, do but trouble the world some think; we might live better with that 
illiterate Virginian simplicity, and gross ignorance; entire idiots do best, they 
are not macerated with cares, tormented with fears, and anxiety, as other 
wise men are: for as ®he said, if folly were a pain, you should hear them 
howl, roar, and cry out in every house, as you go by in the street, but they 
are most free, jocund, and merry, and in some ^countries, as amongst the 
Turks, honoured for saints, and abundantly maintained out of the common 
stock. ^ They are no dissemblers, liars, hypocrites, for fools and madmen 
tell commonly truth. In a word, as they are distressed, so are they pitied, 
which some hold better than to be envied, better to be sad than merry, better 
to be foolish and quiet, quam sapereet ringi, to he wise and still vexed; bet- 
ter to be miserable than happy: of two extremes it is the best. 



SECT. IV. MEMB. I. 

SuBSECT. I. — 0/ Physic which cureth with Medicines. 

After a long and tedious discourse of these six non-natural things and their 
several rectifications, all which are comprehended in diet, I am come now at 
last to Pharmaceutice, or that kind of physic which cureth by medicines, which 
apothecaries most part make, mingle, or sell in their shops. Many cavil at 
this kind of physic, and hold it unnecessary, unprofitable to this or any other 
disease, because those countries which use it least, live longest, and are best 
in health, as ^Hector Boethius relates of the isles of Orcades, the people are 
still sound of body and mind, without any use of physic, they live commonly 
120 years, and Ortelius in his itinerary of the inhabitants of the Forest of 
Arden, "Hhey are verj painful, long-lived, sound, &c. ^Martianus Capella, 
speaking of the Indians of his time, saith, they were (much like our western 
Indians now) "bigger than ordinary men, bred coarsely, very long-lived, inso- 
much, that he that died at a hundred years of age, went before his time." 
&c. Damianus A-Goes, Saxo-Grammaticus, Aubanus Bohemus, say the like 
of them that live in i^orway, Lapland, Einmark, Biarmia, Corelia, all over 
Scandia, and those northern countries, they are most healthful, and very long- 
lived, in which places there is no use at all of physic, the name of it is not once 
heard. Dithmarus Bleskenius in his accurate description of Iceland, 1607, 
makes mention, amongst other matters, of the inhabitants, and their manner of 
living, " which is dried fish instead of bread, butter, cheese, and salt meats, 
most part they drink water and whey, and yet without physic or physician, 
they live many of them 250 years." I find the same relation by Lerius, and 
some other writers, of Indians in America. Paulus Jovius in his description 
of Britain, and Levinus Lemnius, observe as much of this our island, that there 
was of old no use of "^physic amongst us, and but little at this day, except it 
be for a few nice idle citizens, surfeitmg courtiers, and stall-fed gentlemen 
lubbers. The country people use kitchen physic, and common experience tells 
us, that they live freest from all manner of infirmities, that make least use 
of apothecaries' physic. Many are overthrown by preposterous use of it, and 

^Parmeno Caglestinas, Act. 8. Si stultitia dolor esset, in nulla non domo ejulatus audlrea. f Busbe- 

quius. Sands, lib. 1. fol. 89. ^ Qnis hodie beatior, quam cui licet stultum esse, et eorundem immunita- 

tibus frui. Sat. Menip. hLib. Hist. iParvo viventes, laboriosi, longsevi, suo contenti, ad centum 

annos vivunt. kLib. 6. de Nup. Philol. Ultra humanam fragilitatem prolixi, ut immature pereat qui 

. centenarius moriatur, &c. 1 Victus eorum caseo et lacte consistit, potus aqua et serum ; pisces loco 

panis babent; ita multos annos ssepe 250 absc^ue medico et medicina yivunt. ^ Lib. de 4. complex. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Medicinal Physic. 427 

thereby get their bane, that might otherwise have escaped : ° some think phy- 
sicians kill as many as they save, and who can tell, " ° Qaot Themison cegros 
autumno occiderit uno V " How many murders they make in a year," qui- 
hus impune licet hominem occidei^e, " that may freely kill folks," and have a 
reward for it, and according to the Dutch proverb, a new physician must 
have a new church-yard; and who daily observes it not? Many that did ill 
under physicians' hands, have happily escaped, when they have been given 
over by them, left to God and nature, and themselves ; 'twas Pliny's dilemma 
of old, " ^ every disease is either curable or incurable, a man recovers of it or 
is killed by it ; both ways physic is to be rejected. If it be deadly it cannot 
be cured ; if it may be helped, it requires no physician, nature will expel it 
of itself" Plato made it a great sign of an intemperate and corrupt common- 
wealth, where lawyers and physicians did abound ; and the Romans distasted 
them so much that they were often banished out of their city, as Pliny and 
Celsus relate, for 600 years not admitted. It is no art at all, as some hold, 
no not worthy the name of a liberal science (nor law neither), as ^Pet. And. 
Canonherius, a patrician of Home and a great doctor himself, " one of their 
own tribe," proves by sixteen arguments, because it is mercenary as now used, 
base, and as fiddlers play for a reward. Juridicis, medicis, Jisco fas vivere 
rapto, 'tis a corrupt trade, no science, art, no profession ; the beginning, prac- 
tice, and progress of it, all is nought, full of imposture, uncertainty, and doth 
generally more harm than good. The devil himself was the first inventor of 
it : Inventum est medicina meuin, said Apollo, and what was Apollo, but the 
devil? The Greeks first made an art of it, and they were all deluded by 
Apollo's sons, priests, oracles. If we may believe Yarro, Pliny, Columella, 
most of their best medicines were derived from his oracles. -<3j]sculapius his 
son had his temples erected to his deity, and did many famous cures; but, as 
Lactantius holds, he was a magician, a mere impostor, and as his successors, 
Phaon, Podalirius, Melampius, Menecrates (another god), by charms, spells, 
and ministry of bad spirits, performed most of their cures. The first that ever 
wrote in physic to any purpose, was Hippocrates, and his disciple and commen- 
tator Galen, whom Scaliger calls Fimbriam Hippocratis ; but as ^ Cardan cen- 
sures them, both immethodical and obscure, as all those old ones are, their 
precepts confused, their medicines obsolete, and now most part rejected. 
Those cures which they did, Paracelsus holds, were rather done out of their 
patients' confidence, ^ and good opinion they had of them, than out of any skill 
of theirs, which was very small, he saith, they themselves idiots and infants, 
as are all their academical followers. The Arabians received it from the 
Greeks, and so the Latins, adding new precepts and medicines of their own, 
but so imperfect still, that through ignorance of professors, impostors, mounte- 
banks, empirics, disagreeing of sectaries (which are as many almost as there 
be diseases), envy, covetousness, and the like, they do much harm amongst us. 
They are so diflierent in their consultations, prescriptions, mistaking many 
times the parties' constitution, * disease, and causes of it, they give quite con- 
trary phj^sic ; " ^ one saith this, another that," out of singularity or opposition, 
as he said of Adrian, multitudo medicoQ^um princijyem interfecit, " a multitude of 
physicians hath killed the emperor;" plus a medico quam d morbo periculi, 
" more danger there is from the physician, than from the disease." Besides, 
there is much imposture and malice amongst them. "All arts (saith ^Cardan) 

^Per mortes agunt experimenta et animas nostras negotiantur; et quod aliis exitiale hominem occidere, 
iis impunitas summa. Plinius. ** Juven. POmnis morbus lethalis aut curabilis, in vitara 

definit aut in mortem. TJtroque igitur modo medicina inutilis ; si lethalis, curari non potest ; si curabilis, 
non requirit medicum : natura expellet. <lln interpretationes politico-morales in 7 Aphorism. 

Hippoc. libros. ^ Przefat. de contrad. med. ^ Opinio facit medicos : a fair gown, a velvet cap, 

the name of a doctor is all in all. t Morbus alius pro alio curatur ; aliud remedium pro alio. " Con- 
trarias proferunt sententias. Card. ^ Lib. 3. de sap. Omnes artes fraudem admittunt, sola medi- 

cina sponte earn accersit. 



428 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 4. 

admit of cozening, physic, amongst the rest, doth appropriate it to herself;" 
and tells a story of one Curtiiis, a physician in Venice; because he was a 
stranger, and practised amongst them, the rest of the physicians did still cross 
him in all his precepts. If he prescribed hot medicines they would prescribe 
cold, miscentes pro calidis frigida, pro frigidis hu7mda,pro purgantibus astrin- 
gentia, binders for purgatives, omnia perturhahant. If the party miscarried, 
Curtium damnahant, Curtius killed him, that disagreed from them : if he re- 
covered, then -^they cured him themselves. Much emulation, imposture, malice, 
there is amongst them : if they be honest and mean well, yet a knave apothe- 
cary that administers the physic, and makes the medicine, may do infinite 
harm, by his old obsolete doses, adulterine drugs, bad mixtures, quid pro quo, 
&c. See Fuchsius, lib. 1. sect. 1. cap. 8, Cordus' Dispensatory, and Brassivola's 
Examen simpl. &c. But it is their ignorance that doth more harm than rash- 
ness, their art is wholly conjectural, if it be an art, uncertain, imperfect, and 
got by killing of men, they are a kind of butchers, leeches, men-slayers ; 
chirurgeons and apothecaries especially, that are indeed the physicians' hang- 
men, carniflces, and common executioners; though to say truth, physicians 
themselves come not far behind; for according to that facete epigram of 
Maximilianus Urentius, what's the difference 1 

" Chirurgicus medico quo dififert ? scilicet isto, 
Enecat hie succis, enecat ille manu : 
Carnifice hoc ambo tantum differre videntur, 
Tardius hi faciunt, quod facit ille cito." ^ 

But I return to their skill ; many diseases they cannot cure at all, as apo- 
plexy, epilepsy, stone, strangury, gout, Tollere nodosam nescit medicina 
Podagram; ^ quartan agues, a common ague sometimes stumbles them all, 
they cannot so much as ease, they know not how to judge of it. If by pulses, 
that doctrine, some hold, is wholly superstitious, and I dare boldly say with 
^ Andrew Dudeth, " that variety of pulses, described by Galen, is neither 
observed nor understood of any." And for urine, that is meretrix onedicorum, 
the most deceitful thing of all, as Forestus and some other physicians have 
proved at large : I say nothing of critic days, errors in indications, &c. The 
most rational of them, and skilful, are so often deceived, that as '^Tholosanus 
infers, " I had rather believe and commit myself to a mere empiric, than to a 
mere doctor, and I cannot sufficiently commend that custom of the Babylonians, 
that have no professed physicians, but bring all their patients to the market 
to be cured:" which Herodotus relates of the Egyptians: Strabo, S.ardus, and 
Aubanus Bohemus of many other nations. And those that prescribed physic, 
amongst them, did not so arrogantly take upon them to cure all diseases, as our 
professors da, but some one, some another, as their skill and experience did 
serve ; " ^ one cured the eyes, a second the teeth, a third the head, another 
the lower parts," &c., not for gain, but in charity to do good, they made nei- 
ther art, profession, nor trade of it, which in other places was accustomed : 
and therefore Cambyses in ® Xenophon told Cyrus, that to his thinking phy- 
sicians " were like tailors and cobblers, the one mended our sick bodies, as the 
other did our clothes." But I will urge these cavilling and contumelious 
arguments no farther, lest some physician should mistake me, and deny me 
physic when I am sick : for my part, I am well persuaded of physic : I can 
distinguish the abuse from the use, in this and many other arts and sciences; 

y Omnis Eegrotus propria culpa perit, sed nemo nisi medici beneflcio restituitur. Agrippa. ^ " How 

does the surgeon differ from the doctor ? In this respect : one kills by drugs, the other by the hand ; both 
only differ from the hangman in this way, they do slowly what he does in an instant." ^ "Medicine 

cannot cure the knotty gout." b Lib. 3. Crat. ep. Winceslao Raphaeno. Ausira dicere, tot pulsuum 

differentias, quse describuntur h Galeno, nee h, quoquam intelligi, nee observari posse. ^^ Lib. 28. cap. 7. 

syntax art mirab. Mallem ego expertis credere solum, quam merfe ratiocinantibus : neque satis laudare 
possum institutum Babylonicum, &c. d Herod. Euterpe de Egyptiis. Apud eos singulorum morborum 
sunt singuli medici; alius curat oculos, alius deutes, alius caput, partes occultas alius. ecynp. ht). i, 

Velut vestium fractarum resarcinatores, &c. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] 



Medicinal Physic, 



429 



^Aliud vinum, aliud ehrietas, winQ a.nd drunkenness are two distinct things. 
I acknowledge it a most noble and divine science, in so much that Apollo, 
^sculapius, and the first founders of it, meritd 2>ti'o diis habiti, were worthily 
counted gods by succeeding ages, for the excellency of their invention. And 
whereas Apollo at Delos, "Venus at Cyprus, Diana at Ephesus, and those other 
gods were confined and adored alone in some peculiar places : .^Esculapius had 
his temple and altars every where, in Corinth, Lacedaemon, Athens, Thebes, 
Epidaurus, &c. Pausanius records, for the latitude of his art, diety, worth, 
and necessity. With all virtuous and wise men therefore I honour the name 
and calling, as I am enjoined "to honour the physician for necessity's sake. 
The knowledge of the physician liffceth up his head, and in the sight of great 
men he shall be admired. The Lord hath created medicines of the earth, and 
he that is wise will not abhor them," Ecclus. Iviii. 1 . But of this noble sub- 
ject how many panegyrics are worthily written? For my part, as Sallust said 
of Carthage, priEstat silere quam pauca dicer ej I have said, yet one thing I 
will add, that this kind of physic is very moderately and advisedly to be used, 
upon good occasion, when the former of diet will not take place. And 'tis no 
other which I say, then that which Arnoldus prescribes in his 8. Aphorism. 
" ^ A discreet and goodly physician doth first endeavour to expel a disease by 
medicinal diet, then by pure medicine:" and m his ninth, "^he that may be 
cured by diet, must not meddle with physic." So in 11. Aphorism. " ^ A modest 
and wise physician will never hasten to use medicines, but upon urgent 
necessity, and that sparingly too:" because (as he adds in his 13. Aphorism.), 
"^Whosoever takes much physic in his youth, shall soon bewail it in his old 
age : " purgative physic especially, which doth much debilitate nature. For 
which causes some physicians refrain from the use of purgatives, or else 
sparingly use them. ^Henricus Ayrerus in a consultation for a melancholy 
person, would have him take as few purges as he could, '• because there be no 
such medicines, which do not steal away some of our strength, and rob the 
parts of our body, weaken nature, and cause that cacochymia," which °^ Celsns 
and others observe, or ill digestion, and bad juice through all the parts of it. 
Galen himself confesseth, "^that purgative physic is contrary to nature, takes 
away some of our best spirits, and consumes the very substance of our bodies :" 
But this, without question, is to be understood of such purges as are unsea- 
sonably or immoderately taken : they have their excellent use in this, as well 
as most other infirmities. Of alteratives and cordials no man doubts, be they 
simples or compounds. I will amongst that infinite variety of medicines, 
which I find in every pharmacopoeia, every physician, herbalist, &c., single out 
some of the chiefest. 

SuBSECT. II. — Simples proper to Melancholy, against Exotic Simples. 

Medicines properly applied to melancholy, are either simple or compound. 
Simples are alterative or purgative. Alteratives are such as correct, 
strengthen nature, alter, any way hinder or resist the disease; and they be 
herbs, stones, minerals, &c,, all proper to this humour. For as there be 
diverse distinct infirmities continually vexing us. 



^"'Hdiiaoi 5' avQpainoKJL e(p hfJ-epri >j5' em vvktI 
AvTOfiaTOi (poirwari KaKa Ovr\ToT(TL (pkpovcrai 



"Diseases steal both day and night on men, 
For Jupiter hath taken voice from them :" 



So there be several remedies, as ^he saith, "each disease a medicine, for every 



f Chrys. hom. SPrudens et pius medicus, morbnm ante expellere satagit, cibis medicinalibns, quam 

puris medicinis. h Cuicunque potest per alimenta restitui sanitas, fugiendus est penitus usus medica- 

mentorum. i Modestus et sapiens medicus, nunquam properabit ad pharmaciam, nisi cogente necessitate. 
kQuicunque pharmacatur in juventute, deflebit in senectute. IHildesh. spic. 2. de mel. fol. 276. Nulla 
est ferme medicina purgans, quae non aliquam de viribus et partibus corporis depreedatur. ^ Lib. 1. et 

Bart, lib. 8. cap. 12. ^De vict. acut. Omne purgans medicamentum, corpori purgato contrariiim, &c. 

succos et spiritus abducit, substantiam corporis aufert. ° Hesiod. op. P fleurnius, prsef. pra. med. 

Quot morborum suntideie, tot remediorum genera variis potentiis decorata. 



430 Cure of Melancholy, [Part. 2. Sec. 4. 

humour; and as some hold, every clime, every country, and more than that, 
every private place hath his proper remedies growing in it, peculiar almost 
to the domineering and most frequent maladies of it. As ^one discourseth, 
" wormwood groweth sparingly in Italy, because most part there they be mis- 
affected with hot diseases : but henbane, poppy, and such cold herbs : with us 
in Germany and Poland, great store of it in every waste." Baracellus Horto 
geniali, and Baptista Porta Physiogno7nic(E lib. 6. cap. 23, give many instances 
and examples of it, and bring many other proofs. For that cause belike that 
learned Puchsius of Nuremburg, " ^when he came into a village, considered 
always what herbs did grow most frequently about it, and those he distilled in 
a silver alembic, making use of others amongst them as occasion served." I 
know that mauy are of opinion, our northern simples are weak, imperfect, not 
so well concocted, of such force, as those in the southern parts, not so fit to be 
used in physic, and will therefore fetch their drugs afar off: senna, cassia out 
of -^gypt, rhubarb from Barbary, aloes from Socotra: turbith, agaric, myro- 
balanes, hermodactils, from the East Indies, tobacco from the West, and some 
as far as China, hellebore from the Antycirse, or that of Austria which bears 
the purple flower, which Matthiolus so much approves, and so of the rest. In 
the kingdom of Valencia in Spain, ^Maginus commends two mountains, 
Mariola and Benagolosa, famous for simples;* Leander Albertus, "Baldus a 
mountain near the Lake Yenacus in the territory of Yerona, to which all the 
herbalists in the country continually flock ; Ortelius one in Apulia, Munster, 
Mons major in Istria: others Montpelier in France; Prosper Altinus prefers 
Egyptian simples, Garcias ab Horto Indian before the rest, another those of 
Italy, Crete, &c. Many times they are over-curious in this kind, whom 
Fuchsius taxeth, Instit. I, 1. sec. 1. cap. 1. "^ that think they do nothing, 
except they rake all over India, Arabia, Ethiopia, for remedies, and fetch their 
physic from the three quarters of the world, and from beyond the Garamantes. 
Many an old wife or country woman doth often more good with a few known 
and common garden herbs, than our bombast physicians, with all their prodi- 
gious, sumptuous, far-fetched, rare, conjectural medicines;" without all ques- 
tion if we have not these rare exotic simples, we hold that at home which is in 
virtue equivalent unto them, ours will serve as well as theirs, if they be taken 
in proportionable quantity, fitted and qualified aright, if not much better, and 
more proper to our constitutions. But so 'tis for the most part, as Pliny writes 
to Gallus, " -^ We are careless of that which is near us, and follow that which is 
afar off, to know which we will travel and sail beyond the seas, wholly neglect- 
ing that which is under oiu* eyes." Opium in Turkey doth scarce offend, with 
us in a small quantity it stupifies : cicuta or hemlock is a strong poison in 
Greece, but with us it hath no such violent effects : I conclude with I. Yoschius, 
"who as he much inveighs against those exotic medicines, so he promiseth by 
our European, a full cure and absolute of all diseases; a capite ad calcem, 
nostrce regionis herbce nostris corporihus magis conducunt, our own simples 
agree best with us. It was a thing that Fernelius much laboured in his 
French practice, to reduce all his cure to our proper and domestic physic : so 
did ^ Janus Cornarius, and Martin Bulandus in Germany, T. B. with us, as 
appeareth by a treatise of his divulged in our tongue 1615, to prove the suffi.- 

*iPenottus denar. med. Qusecunqueregioproducitsimplicia, promorbisrei^ionis; crescitraro absynthium 
in Italia, quod ibi plerumque morbi calidi, sed cicuta, papaver, et herbas frigidse; apud nos Germanos et 
Polonos ubique provenit absyntliium. ^ Quum in villam venit, consideravit quae ibi crescebant medica- 
menta, simplicia frequentiora, et iis plerunque usus distillatis, et aliter, alimbacum ideo argenteuni circum- 
ferens. ^Herb« medicis utiles omnium in Apulia feracissimas. tGeog. ad quos magnus herbariorum 
Humerus undique confluit. Sincerus Itiner. Gallia. '^ Baldus mons prope Benacum herbilegis maxime 
notus. ^ Qui se niliil effecLsse arbitrantur, nisi Indiam, JSthiopiam, Arabiam, et ultra Garamantas a 
tribus mundi partibus exquisita remedia corradunt. Tutius ssepe medetur rustica anus una, &c. ^ Ep. 

lib. 8. Proximorum incuriosi longinqua sectamui', et ad ea cognoscenda iter ingredi et mare transmitters 
solemus ; at quae sub oculis posita negligimus. ^ Exotica rejecit, domesticia solum nos contentos esse 
voluit. Melcli. Adamus vit. ejus. 



Hem. 1. Subs. 3.] Medicinal Physic. 431 

ciency of English medicines, to the cure of all manner of diseases. If our 
simples be not altogether of such force, or so apposite, it may be, if like 
industry were used, those far-fetched drugs would prosper as well with us, as 
in those countries whence now we have them, as well as cherries, artichokes, 
tobacco, and many such. There have been diverse worthy physicians, which 
have tried excellent conclusions in this kind, and many diligent, painful 
apothecaries, as Gesner, Besler, Gerard, &c., but amongst the rest those famous 
public gardens of Padua in Italy, Nuremburg in Germany, Leyden in Hol- 
land, Montpelier in France (and ours in Oxford now in fieri, at the cost and 
charges of the Right Honourable the Lord Dan vers. Earl of Danby), are much 
to be commended, wherein all exotic plants almost are to be seen, and liberal 
allowance yearly made for their better maintenance, that young students may 
be the sooner informed in the knowledge of them : which as ^Euchsius holds, 
" is most necessary for that exquisite manner of curing," and as great a shame 
for a physician not to observe them, as for a workman not to know his axe, 
saw, square, or any other tool which he must of necessity use. 

SuBSECT. III. — Alteratives, Herhs, other Vegetables, dec. 

Amongst these 800 simples, which Galeottus reckons up, lib. 3. de promise, 
doctor, cap. 3, and many exquisite herbalists have written of, these few follow- 
ing alone I find appropriated to this humour: of which some be alteratives; 
"^ which by a secret force," saith Renodseus, "and special quality expel future 
diseases, perfectly cure those which are, and many such incurable effects." 
This is as well observed in other plants, stones, minerals, and creatures, as in 
herbs, in other maladies as in this. How many things are related of a man's 
skull? What several virtues of corns in a horse-leg, '^of a wolf's liver, &c. 
Of '^diverse excrements of beasts, all good against several diseases ? What 
extraordinary virtues are ascribed unto plants ? ^ SatyriuTYi, et eruca peneni 
erigunt, vitex et nymphea semen extinguunt, %ome herbs provoke lust, some 
again, as agnus castus, water-lily, quite extinguisheth seed; poppy causeth 
sleep, cabbage resist eth drunkenness, &c., and that which is more to be ad- 
mired, that such and such plants should have a peculiar virtue to such parti- 
cular parts, ^as to the head, aniseeds, foalfoot, betony, calamint, eye-bright, 
lavender, bays, roses, rue, sage, marjoram, peony, &c. Eor the lungs, calamint, 
liquorice, enula campana, hyssop, horehound, water germander, &c. Eor the 
heart, borage, bugloss, saffron, balm, basil, rosemary, violet, roses, &c. Eor 
the stomach, wormwood, mints, betony, balm, centaury, sorrel, purslain. Eor 
the liver, darthspine or camsepitis, germander, agrimony, fennel, endive, suc- 
cory, liverwort, barberries. Eor the spleen, maidenhair, fingerfern, dodder 
of thyme, hop, the rind of ash, betony. Eor the kidneys, grumel, parsley, 
saxifrage, plantain, mallow. Eor the womb, mugwort, pennyroyal, fetherfew, 
savine, &c. Eor the joints, camomile, St. John's wort, organ, rue, cowslips, 
centaury the less, &c. And so to peculiar diseases. To this of melancholy 
you shall find a catalogue of herbs proper, and that in every part. See more 
in Wecker, Renodseus, Heurnius, lib. 2. cap. 19, &c. I will briefly speak of 
them, as first of alteratives, which Galen in his third book of diseased parts, 
prefers before diminutives, and Trallianus brags, that he hath done more 
cures on melancholy men ^by moistening, than by purging of them. 

.Borage.^ In this catalogue, borage and bugloss may challenge the chiefest 
place, whether in substance, juice, roots, seeds, flowers, leaves, decoctions, 

^Instit. 1. 1. cap. 8. sec. 1. ad exquisitam curancii rationem, quorum cognitio imprimis uecessaria est. 
bQuaa casca vi ac specifica qualitate morbos futures arcent. lib. 1. cap. 10. Instit. Phar. *^ Galen, lib. epar 
lupi epaticos curat. dstercus pecoris ad Epilepsiam,.&c. ^ Priestpintle, rocket. fSabina 

faitum educit. s Wecker. Vide Oswaldum Crollium, lib. de internis rerum signaturis, de herbis purti- 

cularibus parti cuique convenientibus. hldem Laurentius, cap. 9. 



432 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 4. 

distilled waters, extracts, oils, &c., for such kind of herbs be diversely varied. 
Bugloss is hot and moist, and therefore worthily reckoned up amongst those 
herbs which expel melancholy, and ^exhilarate the heart, Galen, lih, 6. cap. 
80. de simpl. med. Dioscorides, lib. 4. cap. 123. Pliny much magnifies this 
plant. It may be diversely used; as in broth, in ^ wine, in conserves, syrups, 
&c. It is an excellent cordial, and against this malady most frequently pre- 
scribed ; a herb indeed of such sovereignty, that as Diodorus, lib. 7.bibl. Piinius, 
lib. 25. cap. 2.etlib. 21. cap. 22. Plutarch, symjoos. lib. 1. cap. 1. Dioscorides, 
lib. 5. cap. 40. Caelius, lib. 19. c. 3. suppose it was that famous Nepenthes of 
1 Homer, which Polydamna, Thonis's wife (then king of Thebes in Egypt), sent 
Helena for a token of such rare virtue, " that if taken steeped in wine, if wife 
and children, father and mother, brother and sister, and all thy dearest friends 
should die before thy face, thou couldst not grieve or shed a tear for them." 

" Qui semel id patera mistura Nepenthes laccho 
Hauserit, hiclachrymam, non si suavissima proles, 
Si germanas ei cliarus, materque paterque 
Oppetat, ante oeulos ferro confossus atroci." 

Helena's commended bowl to exhilarate the heart, had no other ingredient 
as most of our critics conjecture, than this of borage. 

£ahn.] Melissa balm hath an admirable virtue to alter melancholy, be it 
steeped in our ordinary drink, extracted, or otherwise taken. Cardan, lib. 8. 
much admires this herb. It h-eats and dries, saith ^Heurnius, in the second 
degree, with a wonderful virtue comforts the heart, and purgeth all melan- 
choly vapours from the spirits, Matthiol. in lib. 3. cap. 10. in Dioscoridem. 
Besides they ascribe other virtues to it, " "as to help concoction, to cleanse the 
brain, expel all careful thoughts, and anxious imaginations : " the same words 
in effect are in Avicenna, Pliny, Simon Sethi, Fuchsius, Leobel, Delacampius, 
and every herbalist. Nothing better for him that is melancholy than to steep 
this and borage in his ordinary drink. 

Matthiolus, in his fifth book of Medicinal Epistles, reckons up scorzonera, 
" "not against poison only, falling sickness, and such as are vertiginous, but 
to this malady; the root of it taken by itself expels sorrow, causeth mirth 
and lightness of heart." 

Antonius Musa, that renowned physician to Csesar Augustus, in his book 
which he writ of the virtues of betony, cap. 6. wonderfully commends that 
herb, animas hominum et corpora custodit, securas de metu reddit, it preserves 
both body and mind, from fears, cares, griefs ; cures falling sickness, this and 
many other diseases, to whom Galen subscribes, lib. 7. simpl. med. Dioscorides, 
lib. 4. cap. 1. &c. 

Marigold is much approved against melancholy, and often used therefore in 
our ordinary broth, as good against this and many other diseases. 

Hop^ Lupulus, hop, is a sovereign remedy; Euchsius, cap. 58. Plant, hist. 
much extols it; "^it purges all choler, and purifies the blood. Matthiol. cap. 
140. in 4. Dioscor. wonders the physicians of his time made no more use of 
it, because it rarifies and cleanseth : we use it to this purpose in our ordinary 
beer, which before was thick and fulsome. 

Wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal, are likewise magnified and much pre- 
scribed (as I shall after show), especially in hypochondriac melancholy, daily 
to be used, sod in whey : and as Rutfus Ephesias, ^ Areteus relate, by breaking 
wind, helping concoction, many melancholy men have been cured with the 
frequent use of them alone. 

i Dicor borago, gaudia semper ago. k Vino infusum liilaritatem facit. 1 Odyss. A. ™ Lib. 2. 

cap. 2. prax. med. mira vi liEtitiam pr^bet et cor conflrmat, vapores melancholicos purgat k spiritibus. 
^Proprlum est ejus animum hilarem reddere, concoctionem juvare, cerebri obstructiones resecare, solici- 
tudines fugare, solicitas imaginationes toUere. ° ScorzonertE non solum ad viperarum morsus, comi- 

tiales, vertiginosos, sed per se accommodata radix tristitiam discutit, hilaritatemque conciliat. PBilem 

utramque detrahit, sanguinem purgat. <lLib. 7. cap. 5. Laet. occid. Indiaa descript. lib. 10. cap. 2. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 4.] Medicinal Phj sic. 433 

And because tlie spleen and blood are often misaffected in melancholy, I 
may not omit endive, succory, dandelion, fumitory, &c., which cleanse the 
blood. ScolojDendria, cuscuta, ceterache, mugwort, liverwort, ash, tamarisk, 
genist, maidenhair, &c., which must help and ease the spleen. 

To these I may add roses, violets, capers, featherfew, scordiiim, stoechas, 
rosemary, ros solis, saffron, ochyme, sweet apples, wine, tobacco, sanders, &c. 
That Peruvian chamico, monstrosd fcccuUate, &c., Linshcosteus Datura; and 
to such as are cold, the ^ decoction of guaiacuin, China, sarsaparilla, sassafras, 
the flowers of carduus benedictus, which I find uiuch used by Montanus in his 
Consultations, Julius Alexandrinus, Lselius Eugubinus, and others. ^Bernardus 
Penottus prefers his herba solis, or Dutch sindaw, before all the rest in this 
disease, "and will admit of no herb upon the earth to be comparable to it." 
It excels Homer's moly, cures this, falling sickness, and almost all other infir- 
mities. The same Penottus speaks of an excellent balm out of Aponensis, 
which, taken to the quantity of three drops in a cup of wine, '•' * will cause a 
sudden alteration, drive away dumps, and cheer up the heart." Ant. Guiane- 
rius, in his Antidotary, hath many such. ^ Jacobus de Dondis the aggregator, 
repeats ambergrease, nutmegs, and allspice amongst the rest. But that cannot 
be general. Amber and spice will make a hot brain mad, good for cold and 
moist. Garcias ab Horto hath many Indian plants, whose virtues he much 
magnifies in this disease, Lemnius, instit. cap, 58. admires rue, and com- 
mends it to have excellent virtue, " ^ to expel vain imaginations, devils, and 
to ease afflicted souls." Other things are much magnified ^ by writers, as an 
old cock, a ram's head, a wolf's heart borne or eaten, which Mercurialis ap- 
proves; Prosper Altinus, the water of JSTilus; Gomesius all sea- water, and at 
seasonable times to be sea-sick : goat's milk, whey, &c. 

SuBSECT. I v. — Precious Stones, Metals, Minercds, Alteratives. 

Precious stones are diversely censured ; many explode the use of them or 
any mineral in physic, of whom Thomas Erastus is the chief, in his tract 
against Paracelsus, and in an epistle of his to Peter Monavius, " ^ That stones 
can work any wonders, let them believe that list, no man shall persuade me; 
for my part, I have found by experience there is no virtue in them." But 
Matthiolus, in his comment upon ^ Dioscorides, is as profuse on the other 
side, in their commendation ; so is Cardan, Renodeus, Alardus, Rueus, Encelius, 
Marbodeus, &c. ^ Matthiolus specifies in coral : and Oswaldus Crollius, Basil. 
Chym. prefers the salt of coral. '^Christoph. Encelius, lib. 3. cap. 131. will 
have them to be as so many several medicines against melancholy, sorrow, fear, 
dulness, and \hQ like; ^Benodseus admires them, " besides'they adorn kings' 
crowns, grace the fingers, enrich our household stuff, defend us from enchant- 
ments, preserve health, cure diseases, they drive away grief, cares, and exhi- 
larate the mind." The particulars be these. 

Granatus, a precious stone so called, because it is like the kernels of a pome- 
granate, and imperfect kind of ruby, it comes from Calecut ; " ® if hung about 
the neck, or taken in drink, it much resisteth sorrow, and recreates the heart." 
The same properties I find ascribed to the hyacinth and topaz. ^ They allay 

THeurnius, 1. 2. consil. 185. Scoltzii consil. 77. spj-gof denar. med. Omnes capitis dolores et 

pliantasmata tollit; scias nullam lierbam in terris huic comparandam viribus et bonitate nasci. t Optimum 
inedicamentum in celeri cordis confortatione, et ad omues qui tristantur, &c. '^ llondoletius. Elenura 

quod vim liabet miram ad liilaritateni et multi pro secreto liabent. Sckenldus, observ. med. cen. 5. observ. 8G. 
^ Af&ictas mentes relevat, animi iniaginationes et dasmones expellit. y Sckenkius, Mizaldus, Kliasis. 

2 Cratonis ep. vol. 1. Credat qui vult gemmas mirabilia efficere; milii qui et ratione et experientia didici 
aliter rem liabere, nullus facile persuadebit falsum esse verum. ^ L. de gemmis. b Margaritae et 

corallum ad melanclioliam prtecipue valent. •'MargaritiB et gemmjB spiritus confortant et cor, melan- 

choliam fugant. d I'rffifat. ad lap. prec. lib. 2. sect. '2. de mat. med. Regum coronas ornant, digitos 

illustrant, supellectilem ditant, e fascine tueutur, morbis medentur, sanitatem conservant, mentem exlii- 
larant, tristitiam pellunt. "- Encelius, 1.3. c. 4. tjuspensus vel ebibitus tristitiai multura resistit, et cox 
lecreat. f Idem, cap. 5, et cap. 6. de Hyacintho et Topazio. Irani sedat et animi tristitiam pellit. 

2f 



434 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. L 

anger, grief, diminisli madness, miicli delight and exhilarate the mind. '' ^ If it 
be either carried about, or taken in a potion, it will increase wisdom," saith 
Cardan, "expel fear; he brags that he hath cured many madmen with it, 
which, when they laid by the stone, were as mad again as ever they were at 
first." Petrus Bayerus, lih. 2. caj^. 13. veni mecum, Fran. Rueus, cap. 19. de 
gemmis, say as much of the chrysolite, ^ a friend of wisdom, an enemy to 
folly. Pliny, lib. 37, Solinus, cap. 52, Albertus de Lapid., Cardan,, Encelius, 
lib. 3. cap. 66. highly magnifies the virtue of the beryl, " ^ it much avails to a 
good understanding, represseth vain conceits, evil thoughts, causeth mirth," 
&c. In the belly of a swallow there is a stone found called chelidonius, 
'• ^ which if it be lapped in a fair cloth, and tied to the right arm, will cure 
lunatics, madmen, make them amiable and merry." 

There is a kind of onyx called a chalcedony, which hath the same qualities, 
" ^ avails much against fantastic illusions which proceed from melancholy," 
preserve the vigour and good estate of the whole body. 

The Eban stone, which goldsmiths use to sleeken their gold with, borne 
about or given to drink, ^ hath the same properties, or not much unlike. 

Levinus Lemnius, Institut. ad. vit. cap. 58. amongst other jewels, makes 
mention of two more notable ; carbuncle and coral, " ^ which drive away 
childish fears, devils, overcome sorrow, and hung about the neck repress 
troublesome dreams," which properties almost Cardan gives to that green- 
coloured ^emmetris if it be carried about, or worn in a ring; Kueus to the 
diamond. 

Nicholas Cabeus, a Jesuit of Ferrara, in the first book of his Magnetical 
Philosophy, cap. 3. speaking of the virtues of a loadstone, recites many several 
opinions; some say that if it be taken in parcels inward, si quis per frusta 
voret, juventutem restituet, it will, like viper's wine, restore one to his youth ; 
and yet, if carried about them, others will have it to cause melancholy ; let 
experience determine. 

Mercurialis admires the emerald for its virtues in pacifying all afifections of 
the mind; others the sapphire, which is "the p fairest of all precious stones, of 
sky colour, and a great enemy to black choler, frees the mind, mends manners," 
&c. Jacobus de Dondis, in his catalogue of simples, hath ambergrease, os in 
corde cervi, '^ the bone in a stag's heart, a monocerot's horn, bezoar's stone 
(^ of which elsewhere), it is found in the belly of a little beast in the East 
Indies, brought into Europe by Hollanders, and our countrymen merchants. 
Renodeus, cap. 22. lib. 3. de ment. med. saith he saw two of these beasts alive, 
in the castle of the Lord of Vitry at Coubert. 

Lapis lazuli and armenus, because they purge, shall be mentioned in their 
place. 

Of the rest in brief thus much I will add out of Cardan, Kenodeus, cap. 23. 
lHh. 3. E/ondoletius, lib, 1. de Testat. c. 15, &c. "^That almost all jewels and 
precious stones have excellent virtues to pacify the affections of the mind, for 
which cause rich men so much covet to have them : * and those smaller unions 
which are found in shells amongst the Persians and Indians, by the consent of 
all writers, are very cordial, and most part avail to the exhilaration of the 
heart. 

g Lapis hie gestatus aut ebibitus prudentiam auget, noeturnos timores pellit ; insanos hac sanavi, et 
quum lapidem abjecerint, erupit iterura stultitia. h Inducit sapientiam, fagat stultitiam. Idem 

Oardanus, lunaticos juvat. i Confert ad bonum intellectum, comprimit malas cogitationes, &c. Alacres 
reddit. k Albertus, Encelius, cap. 44. lib. 3. Plin. lib. 37. cap. 10. Jacobus de Dondis : dextro brachio 

alligatus sanat lunaticos, insanos, facit amabiles, jucundos. 1 Valet contra phantasticas illusiones ex 

melancholia. ™ Amentea sanat, tristitiam pellit, irara, &c. ^ Valet ad fugandos timores et 

dEemones, turbulenta somnia abigit, et noeturnos paerorum timores compescit. ° Somnia Iseta facit 

argenteo annulo gestatus. P Atrse bill adversatur, omnium geminarum pulcherrima, coeli colorem 

refert, animum ab errore liberat, mores in melius mutat. ^ Longis moeroribus feliciter medetur, 

deliquiis, &c. r gee. 5. Memb. 1. Sabs. 5. ^ Gestamen lapidum et gemmarum maximum fert 

- auxilium et juvamen ; unde qui dites sunt gemmas secura ferre student. t Margaritas et uniones qusi 

h. conelus et piscibus apud Persas et Indos, valde cordiales sunt, &c. 



Rlem. 1. Subs. 4.] Medicinal Physic. ^ 435 

Minerals^ Most men say as much of gold and ^ome otlier minerals, as these 
have done of precious stones. Erastus still maintains the opposite part. Dis- 
2mt in Faracelsum, cap. ^,fol. 196. he confesseth of gold, ''""that it makes 
the heart merry, but in no other sense but as it is in a miser's chest:" at 
mihi plaudo siimd ac ommmos coniemplor in area, as he said in the poet, it so 
revives the spirits, and is an excellent recipe against melancholy, 

"^ For gold in physic is a cordial, -^ 

Therefore he loved gold in special. 

Aurum pofahile, ^he discommends and inveighs against it, by reason of the 
corrosive waters which are used in it : which argument our Dr. Guin urgeth 
against D. Antonius. ^Erastus concludes their philosophical stones and pot- 
able gold, &c., " to be no better than poison," a mere imposture, a no7i ens; 
dug out of that broody hill belike this golden stone is, uhi nascetur ridiculus 
mus. Paracelsus and his chemistical followers, as so many Promethei, will 
fetch fire from heaven, will cure all manner of diseases with minerals, account- 
ing them the only physic on the other side. ^Paracelsus calls Galen, Hippo- 
crates, and all their adherents, infants, idiots, sophisters, &c. Apagesis istos 
qui Vidcanias istas metamorphoses sugillant, inscitice soholes, supince pertinacm 
alumnos, &c., not worthy the name of physicians, for want of these remedies : 
and brags that by them he can make a man live 160 years, or to the world's 
end, with their ^ Alexipharmaciims, Panaceas, Miimmias, unguentum Arma- 
rium, and such magnetical cures, Lampas vitce et mortis. Balneum Diance, 
Balsamum, Electrum Magico-p)hysicum, Amuleta Martialia, &c. What will not 
he and his followers effect? He brags, moreover, that he was ^;?'^?Jl^ts medi- 
corum, and did more famous cures than all the physicians in Europe besides, 
"^a drop of his preparations should go farther than a drachm, or ounce of 
theirs," those loathsome and fulsome filthy potions, heteroclitical pills (so he 
calls them), horse medicines, ad quorum aspectian Cyclop)s Polyphemus exhor- 
resceret. And though some condemn their skill and magnetical cures as tend- 
ing to magical superstition, witchery, charms, &c., yet they admire, stiffly 
vindicate nevertheless, and infinitely prefer them. But these are both in 
extremes, the middle sort approve of minerals, though not in so high a degree. 
Lemnius, lib. 3. cap. 6. de occult, nat. mir. commends gold inwardly and out- 
wardly used, as in rings, excellent good in medicines ; and such mixtures as 
are made for melancholy men, saith Wecker, antid. spec. lib. 1. to whom 
Renodseus subscribes, lib. 2. cap. 2. Eicinus, lib. 2. cap. 19. Eernel. melh. med. 
lib. 5. cap. 21. de Gardiacis. Daniel Sennertus, lib. 1. pari5. 2. cap. 9. Auder- 
nacus, Libavius, Quevcetanus, Oswaldus CroUius, Euvonymus, Eubeus, and 
IMatthiolus in the fourth book of his Epistles, Andreas a Blawen epist. ad 
Matthiolum., as commended and formerly used by Avicenna, Arnoldus, and 
many others: "^^Matthiolus in the same place approves of potable gold, mer- 
cury, with many such chemical confections, and goes so far in approbation of 
them, that he holds " ®no man can be an excellent physician that hath not 
some skill in chemistical distillations, and that chronic diseases can hardly be 
cured without mineral medicines:" look for antimony among purgers. 

^ Aurum Isetitiam generat, non in corde, sed in area rirorum. ^ Chaucer. y Ai;rum non aurum. 

Noxium ob aquas rodentes. ^ Ep. ad Monavium. Metallica omnia in universum quovismodo parata, nee 
tuto nee eommode intra corpus sumi. a jn parag. Stultissimus pilus occipitis mei plus scit quam omnes 

vestri doetores, et calceorum meorum annuli doctiores sunt quam vester Galenus et Avicenna, barba mea 
plus experta est quam vestrse omnes Academiaj. b Vide Ernestum Bm-gratium, edit. Franaker. 8vo. 

IGll . Crollius and others. « piu.s proficiet gutta mea, quam tot eorum drachmae et uncise. d Nonnulli 
liuic supra modum indulgent, usum etsi non adeo magnum, non tamen abjiciendum censeo. ^ Ausim 

dicere nemiuem medicum excellentem, qui non in hac distillatione chymica sit versatus. Morbi chronici 
devinci citra metallica vix possint, aut ubi sanguis corrumpitur. 



436 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 4. 

SuBSECT. Y. — Compound alteratives ; censure of compounds, and mixed physic. 

Pliny, lib. 24. c. 1, bitterly taxeth all compound medicines, "^Men's 
knavery, imposture, and captious wits, have invented these shops, in which 
every man's life is set to sale : and by and by came in those compositions and 
inexplicable mixtures, far-fetched out of India and Arabia; a medicine for a 
botch must be had as far as the E-ed Sea." And 'tis not without cause which 
he saithj for out of question they are much to ^ blame in their compositions, 
whilst they make infinite variety of mixtures, as ^Fucbsius notes. "They think 
they get themselves great credit, excel others, and to be more learned than 
the rest, because they make many variations , but he accounts them fools, and 
whilst they brag of their skill, and think to get themselves a name, they 
become ridiculous, betray their ignorance and error." A few simples well 
prepared and understood, are better than such a heap of nonsense, confused 
compounds, which are in apothecaries' shops ordinarily sold. " In which many 
vain, superfluous, corrupt, exolete, things out of date are to be had (saith Cor- 
narius); a company of barbarous names given to syrups, juleps, an unneces- 
sary company of mixed medicines;" rudis indigestaqiie moles. Many times (as 
Agrippa taxeth), there is by this means "^more danger from the medicine 
than from the disease," when they put together they know not what, or leave 
it to an illiterate apothecary to be made, they cause death and horror for 
health. Those old physicians had no such mixtures; a simple potion of helle- 
bore in Hippocrates' time was the ordinary purge; and at this day, saith 
^Mat. Riccius, in that flourishing commonwealth of China, "their physicians 
give precepts quite opposite to ours, not unhappy in their physic; they use 
altogether roots, herbs, and simples in tlieir medicines, and all their physic in 
a manner is comprehended in a herbal: no science, no school, no art, no 
degree, but like a trade, every man in private is instructed of his master." 
^Cardan cracks that he^can cure all diseases with water alone, as Hippocrates 
of old did most infirmities with one medicine. Let the best of our rational 
physicians demonstrate and give a sufficient reason for those intricate mix- 
tures, why just so many simples in mithridate or treacle, why such and such 
quantity; may they not be reduced to half or a (quarter? Frustrafitper plura 
(as the saying is) quodferi j^otest per pauciora; 300 simples in a julep, potion, 
or a little pill, to what end or purpose? I know not what °^ Alkindus, Capi- 
vaccius, Montagna, and Simon Eitover, the best of them all and most rational, 
have said in this kind; but neither he, they, nor any one of them, gives his 
reader, to my j udgment, that satisfaction which he ought; why such, so many 
simples? Hog. Bacon hath tax'ed many errors in his tract de graduationibus, 
explained some things, but not cleared. Mercurialis, in his book de composit. 
medecin. gives instance in Hamech, and Philonium Komanum, which Hamech 
an Arabian, and Philonius a Roman, long since composed, but crasse as the 
rest. If they be so exact, as by him it seems they were, and those mixtures 
so perfect, why doth Fernelius alter the one, and why is the other obsolete? 
^Cardan taxeth Galen for presuming out of his ambition to correct Theriacum 
Andromachi, and we as justly may carp at all the rest. Galen's medicines are 
now exploded and rejected; what i^icholas Meripsa, Mesue, Celsus, Scribanius, 



f Fraudes hominum et ingeniorum capture, officinas invenere istas, in quibus sua cuique venalis promit- 
titur vita; statim compositiones et raixturse inexplicabiles ex Arabia et India, ulceri parvo medicina a Rubro 
Mari importatur. S Arnoldus Aplior. 15. Fallax medicus qui potens mederi siinplicibus, composita dolose 
aut frustra quserit. hLib. 1. sect. 1. cap. 8. Dum infinita medicamenta miscent, laudem sibi comparare 
student, et in hoc studio alter alterura superare conatur, dum quisque, quo plura miscuerit, eo se doctiorem 
putet, inde fit ut suam prodant inscitiam, dum ostentant peritiara, et se ridiculos exhibeant, &c. i Multo 
plus peri'juli a medicamento, quam a morbo, &c. kExpedit. in Sinas. lib. 1. cap. 5. Prsecepta medici dant 
nostris diversa, in medendo non infelices, phavmacis utuntur simplicibus, herbis, radicibus, &c. tota eorum 
medicina nostrse herbaria; prasceptis contiiietur; nuUus ludus hujus artis, quisque privatus a quolibet ma- 
gistro eruditiu*. 1 Lib. de Aqut. '" Opusc de Dos. ^ Subtil, cap. de scientiis. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 5.] Compound Alteratives. 437 

Actnaiius, (fee, writ of okl, are most part contemned. Mellicliiiis, Cordas, 
Wecker, QuercetanKenodte as, the Venetian, Florentine states have their several 
receipts and magistrals: they of Nuremburg have theirs, and Augustana 
Pharmacopeia, peculiar medicines to the meridian of the city : Loudon hers, 
every city, town, almost every private man hath liis own mixtures, com- 
positions, receipts, magistrals, precepts, as if he scorned antiquity, and all 
others in respect of himself. But each man must correct and alter to show his 
skill, every opinionative fellow must maintain his own paradox, be it what it 
will; Delirant reges, 2>lectuntur Achivi: they dote, and in the meantime the 
poor patients pay for their new experiments, the commonalty rue it. 

Thus others object, thus I may conceive out of the weakness of my appre- 
hension ; but to say truth, there is no such fault, no such ambition, no novelty, 
or ostentation, as some suppose; but as °one answers, this of compound medi- 
cines, "is a most noble and profitable invention found out, and brought into 
physic with great judgment, wisdom, counsel and discretion." Mixed diseases 
must have mixed remedies, and such simples are commonly mixed as have 
reference to the part affected, some to qualify, the rest to comfort, some one 
part, sonie another. Cardan and Brassivola both hold that Nullum simplex 
medicamentum sinenoxd, no simple medicine is without hurt or offence; and 
although Hippocrates, Erasistratus, Diodes of old, in the infancy of this art, 
were content with ordinary simples: yet now, saith ^"^tius, necessity com- 
pelleth to seek for new remedies, and to make compounds of simples, as well 
to correct their harms if cold, dry, hot, thick, thin, insipid, noisome to smell, 
to make them savoury to the palate, pleasant to taste and take, and to preserve 
them for continuance, by admixtion of sugar, honey, to make them last months 
and years for several uses." In such cases, compouud medicines may be 
approved, and Arnoldus, in his 18. aphorism, doth allow of it. " *^If simples 
cannot, necessity compels us to use compounds ;" so for receipts and magistrals, 
dies diem docet, one day teacheth another, and they are as so many words or 
phrases, Qu<je nunc sunt in honore vocahula si volet usus, ebb and flow with the 
season, and as wits vary, so they may be infinitely varied. " Quisque suum 
placitum, quo capiatur, hahet.'' "Every man as he likes, so many men so many 
minds," and yet all tending to good purpose, though not the same way. As 
arts and sciences, so physic is still perfected amongst the rest ; Horce musarum 
Qiutrices, and experience teacheth us every day ' many things which our pre- 
decessors knew not of. Nature is not effete, as he saith, or so lavish, to 
bestow all her gifts upon an age, but hath reserved some for posterity, to 
show her power, that she is still the same, and not old or consumed. Birds 
and beasts can cure themselves by nature, ^naturce usu ea 2}lerumqu£ cog- 
Qioscunt, qucB hombies vix longo labore et doctrind assequuntur, but " men 
must use much labour and industry to find it out." But I digress. 

Compound medicines are inwardly taken or outwardly applied. Inwardly 
taken, be either liquid or solid : liquid, are fluid or consisting. Fluid, as wines, 
and syrups. The v/ines ordinarily used to this disease are wormwood wine, 
tamarisk, and buglossatum, wine made of borage and bugloss, the composition 
of which is specified in Arnoldus Villanovanus, lib. de vinis, of borage, balm, 
bugloss, cinnamon, &c., and highly commended for its virtues: "^it drives 

OQuercetan. pharmacop. restitut. cap. 2. NoMissimum et utilissimum inventum summa cum necessi- 
tate adinventum et iutroductum. P Cap. 25. Tetraljib. 4. ser. 2. Necessitas nunc cogit aliquando noxia 
qu£Brere remedia, et ex simplicibiis compositas facere, turn ad saporem, odorem, palati gi'atiam, ad cor- 
rectionem simplicium, turn ad futures usus, conservationem, &c. iCum siraplicia uon possant, necessitas 
cogit ad composita. i" Lips. Epist. ^ Theod. Prodromus Amor. lib. 9. tSanguinemcorruptuin 

emaculat, scabiem abolet, lepram curat, spiritus recreat, et animum exhilarat. Melancholicos humores per 
■urinam educit, et cerebrum a crassis, a^rumnosis melancliolite fumis purgat, quibus addo dementes et 
furiosos vinculis retinendos plurimum juvat, et ad rationis usum ducit. Testis est mihi conscientia, quod 
viderim matronam quandam hiuc liberatam, quae frequentiiis ex iracundia demens, et iuipos animi dicenda 
taceiida loquebatur, adco furens ut ligari cogeretur. Fuit ei pra^stantissinio remedio viui istiua usufit. 
iudicatus a pei'egrino homine meudico, eleemosynum praj foribus dictai matrouaj implorante. 



438 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 4. 

away leprosy, scabs, clears tlie blood, recreates tbe spirits, exhilarates tlie 
niind,purgeth the brain of those anxious black melancholy fumes, and cleanseth 
the whole body of that black humour by urine. To which I add," saith Yil- 
lanovanus, "that it will bring madmen, and such raging bedlamites as are 
tied in chains, to the use of their reason again. My conscience bears me witness, 
that I do not lie, I saw a grave matron helped by this means; she was so cho- 
leric, and so furious sometimes, that she was almost mad, and beside herself; 
she said and did she knew not what, scolded, beat her maids, and was now 
ready to be bound till she drank of this borage wine, and by this excellent 
remedy was cured, which a poor foreigner, a silly beggar, taught her by chance, 
that came to crave an alms from door to door." The juice of borage, if it be 
clarified, and drunk in wine, will do as much, the roots sliced and steeped, &c. 
saith Ant. Mizaldus, art. med. who cites this story verbatim out of Yillanova- 
nus, and so doth Magninus, a physician of Milan, in his regimen of health. 
Such another excellent compound water I find in E-ubeus de distil, sec. 3. 
which he highly magnifies out of Savanarola, ""for such as are solitary, dull, 
heavy, or sad without a cause, or be troubled with trembling of heart." 
Other excellent compound waters for melancholy, he cites in the same place, 
" ^ if their melancholy be not inflamed, or their temperature over-hot." 
Evonimus hath a precious aquavitce to this purpose, for such as are cold. 
But he and most commend aurum potabile, and every writer prescribes 
clarified whey, with borage, bugloss, endive, succory, &c. of goat's milk 
especially, some indefinitely at all times, some thirty days together in 
the spring, every morning fasting, a good draught. Syrups are very good, 
and often used to digest this humour in the heart, spleen, liver, &c. As 
syrujD of borage (there is a famous syrup of borage highly commended by 
Laurentius to this purpose in his tract of melancholy), de pomis of king 
Sabor, now obsolete, of thyme and epithyme, hops, scolopendria, fumitory, 
maidenhair, bizantine, &c. These are most used for preparatives to other 
physic, mixed with distilled waters of like nature, or in j uleps otherwise. 

Consisting, are conserves or confections; conserves of' borage, bugloss, 
balm, fumitory, succory, maidenhair, violets, roses, wormwood, &c. Confec- 
tions, treacle, mithridate, eclegms, or linctures, &c. Solid, as aromatical con- 
fections : hot, diambra, diamargaritum calidum, dianthus, diamoschum didce, 
electuarium de gemmis, Icetificans Galeni et Rhasis, diagalinga, diacimyiwim^ 
dianisinn, diatrion pij^erion, diazinziber, diacapers, diacinnamonimi : Cold, 
as diamargaritimi frigidum, diacorolli, diarrhodon abbatis, diacodion, &c. as 
every pha^-macopceia will show you, with their tables or losings that are made 
out of them ; with condites and the like. 

Outwardly used as occasion serves, as amulets, oils hot and cold, as of 
camomile, stsechados, violets, roses, almonds, J)0PP7; nymphea, mandrake, &c. 
to be used after bathing, or to procure sleep. 

Ointments composed of the said species, oils and wax, &c., as Alablastritum 
Populeum, some hot, some cold, to moisten, procure sleep, and correct other 
accidents. 

Liniments are made of the same matter to the like purpose : emplasters of 
herbs, flowers, roots, &c,, with oils, and other liquors mixed and boiled 
together. 

Cataplasms, salves, or poultices made of green herbs, pounded or sod in 
water till they be soft, which are applied to the hypochondries, and other 
parts when the body is empty. 

Cerotes are applied to several parts and frontals, to take away pain, grief, 

" lis qui tristantur sine causa, et vitant amicorum societatem et tremunt corcle ^ Modo non inflara- 

metur meiaixcliolia, aut calidiore temperameuto sinl. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 1.] Purging Simples. 439 

heat, procure sleep. Fomentations or sponges, wet in some decoctions, &c., 
epitliemata, or those moist medicines, hiid on linen, to bathe and cool several 
parts misaffected. 

Sacculi, or little bags of herbs, flowers, seeds, roots, and the like, applied 
to the head, heart, stomach, &c., odoraments, balls, perfumes, posies to smell 
to, all which have their several uses in melancholy, as shall be shown, when. 
I treat of the cure of the distinct species by themselves. 



MEMB. II. 
SuBSECT. I. — Purging Simples upward. 

Melanagoga, or melancholy purging medicines, are either simple or com- 
pound, and that gently, or violently, purging upward or downward. These 
follomng purge upward, ■^Asarum or Assarabacca, Avhich, as Mesne saith, is 
hot in the second degree, and dry in the third, '• it is commonly taken in 
wine, whey," or as with us, the juice of two or three leaves, or more some- 
times, pounded in posset drink qualified with a little liquorice, or aniseed, to 
avoid the fulsomeness of the taste, or as Diaserwn Fernelii, Brassivola, in 
Catart. reckons it up amongst those simples that only purge melancholy, and 
Ptuellius confirms as much out of his experience, that it purgeth ^ black choler, 
like hellebore itself. Galen, lib. 6. simplic. and "^Matthiolus ascribe other vir- 
tues to it, and will have it purge other humours as well as this. 

Laurel, by Heurnius's method, adprax. lib. 2, cap. 24. is put amongst the 
strong purgers of melancholy; it is hot and dry in the fourth degree. Dios- 
corides, lib. 11. cap. 114. adds other effects to it.^ Pliny sets down fifteen 
berries in drink for a sufficient potion : it is commonly corrected with his 
opposites, cold and moist, as juice of endive, purslane, and is taken in a potion 
to seven grains and a half. But this and assarabacca, every gentlewoman in 
the country knows how to give ; they are two common vomits, 

Scilla, or sea-onion, is hot and dry in the third degree. Brassivola in 
Catart. out of Mesne, others, and his own experience, will have this simple to 
purge ^melancholy alone. It is an ordinary vomit, vinum scilliticum, mixed 
with rubel in a little white wine. 

White hellebore, which some call sneezing-powder, a strong purger up- 
ward, which many reject, as being too violent : Mesne and Averroes will not 
admit of it, "^^by reason of danger of suffocation," "^ great pain and trouble 
it puts the poor patient to," saith Dodonseus. Yet Galen, lib. 6, simpl. med. 
and Dioscorides, cap. 145, allow of it. It was indeed " ^terrible in former 
times," as Pliny notes, but now familiar, insomuch that many took it in those 
days, "^that were students, to quicken their wits," which Persius, Sat. 1. ob- 
jects to Accius the poet, Ilias Acciebria veratro. "^It helps melancholy, the 
tailing sickness, madness, gout, &c., but not to be taken of old men, youths, 
such as are weaklings, nice, or effeminate, troubled with headache, high- 
coloured, or fear strangling," saith Dioscorides. ^ Oribasius, an old ph3'sician, 
hath written very copiously, and approves of it, " in such affections which can 
otherwise hardly be cured," Heurnius, lib. 2. prax. med. devomitoriis, will not 
have it used "^but with great caution by reason of its strength, and then when 
antimony will do no good," which caused Hermophilus to compare it to a stout 

y Heurnius: datur in sero lactis, aut vino. ^Veratri modo espurgat cerebrum, roborat memoriara, 

Fuchsius. ^ Grasses et biliosos immores per vomitum educit. b Vomitum et menses cit ; valet ad 

hydrop. &c. ''Materias atras educit. d Ab arte ideo rejiciendum, ob periculum suffocationis. 

^Cap. 16. magna vi educit, et molestia cum summa. f Quondam terribile. S Multi studiorum gratia 
ad provideuda acrius quie comraentabantur. hMedetur comitialibus, melancholicis, podagricis; vetatur 
senibiis, pueris, mollibus et effteminatis. i Collect, lib. 8. cap. 3. in affectionibus iis quce difficulter 

curantur, Helleborum damns. kXon sine summa cautione hoc remedio utenim", estenim validissiuiuui, 
et quum vires Antimonii contemnit morbus, in auiiiium evocatur, modo valide vires efflorescant. 



440 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 4. 

captain (as Codronclius observes, cap. 7. comment, de Helleb.) that will see all 
his soldiers go before him and come post principia, like the bragging soldier, 
last himself; ^when other helps fail in inveterate melancholy, in a desperate 
case, thisvomit is to be taken. And yet for all this, if it be well prepared, it may 
be "^securely given at first. "^Matthiolus brags, that he hath often, to the good 
of many, made use of it, and Heurnius, "°that he hath happily used it, pre- 
pared after his own prescript," and with good success. Christophorus a Yega, 
lib. 3. c. 41, is of the same opinion, that it may be lawfully given; and our 
country gentlewomen find it by their common practice, that there is no such 
great danger in it. Dr. Turner, speaking of this plant in his Herbal, tellcth 
us, that in his time it was an ordinary receipt among good wives, to give hel- 
lebore in powder to ii^ weight, and he is not much against it. But they do 
commonly exceed, for who so bold as blind Bayard, and prescribe it by penny- 
worths, and such irrational ways, as I have heard myself market folks ask for 
it in an apothecary's shop : but w^ith what success God knows; they smart often 
for their rash boldness and folly, break a vein, make their eyes ready to start 
out of their heads, or kill themselves. So that the fault is not in the physic, 
but in the rude and indiscreet handling of it. He that will know, therefore, 
when to use, how to prepare it aright, and in what dose, let him read Heur- 
nius, lib. 2. prax. med., Brassivola de Catart, Godefridus Stegius, the emperor 
Eudolphus' physician, cap. 16. Matthiolus in Dioscor. and that excellent com- 
mentary of Baptista Codronchus, which is instar omnium de Helleb. alb. where 
we shall find great diversity of examples and receipts. 

Antimony or stibium, which our chemists so much magnify, is either taken 
in substance or infusion, &c., and frequently prescribed in this disease. " It 
helps all infirmities," saith ^ Matthiolus, " which proceed from black choler, 
falling sickness, and hypochondriacal passions;" and for farther proof of his 
assertion, he gives several instances of such as have been freed with it : ^one 
of Andrew Gallus, a physician of Trent, that after many other essays, " im- 
putes the recovery of his health, next after God, to this remedy alone." An- 
other of George Handshius, that in like sort, when other medicines failed, 
" ^' was by this restored to his former health, and which of his knowledge others 
have likewise tried, and by the help of this admirable medicine, been reco- 
vered." A third of a parish priest at Prague in Bohemia," ^ that was so far 
gone with melancholy that he doted, and spake he knew not what ; but after 
he had taken twelve grains of stibium (as I myself saw, and can witness, for 
I was called to see this miraculous accident), he was purged of a deal of black 
choler, like little gobbets of flesh, and all his excrements were as black blood 
(a medicine fitter for a horse than a man), yet it did him so much good, that 
the next day he was perfectly cured." This very story of the Bohemian 
priest, Sckenkius relates verbatim, JSxoter. experhnent. ad var. morb. cent. 6. 
observ. 6. with great approbation of it. Hercules de Saxonia calls it a pro- 
fitable medicine, if it be taken after meat to six or eight grains, of such as 
are apt to vomit. E-odericus a Fonseca the Spaniard, and late professor of 
Pad uainltaly, extols it to this disease, Tom. 2. consul. 85. sodothLod. Mercatus 
de inter, morb. cur. lib. 1. cap. 17. with many others. Jacobus Gervinus a 
French physician, on the other side, lib. 2. de venenis confut. explodes all this, 
and saith he took three grains only upon Matthiolus and some others' com- 

1 iEtius tetrab. cap. 1. ser. 2. lis solum dari vult Helleborum album, qui secus spem non babent, non iis 
qui Syncopem timeut, &c. '^ Cam salute multorum. ^Cap. 12. de morbis cap. ^ Noa 

facillime utimur nostro preparato Helleboro albo. P In lib. 5. Dioscor. cap. 3. Omnibus opitulatur morbis, 
quos atrabilis excitavit, comitialibus, iisque presertim qui Hypochondriacas obtinent passiones. 1 Andreas 
Gallus, Tridentinus medicus, salutem huic medicamento post Deuni debet. ^^ Integra sanitati, brevi 

restitutus. Id quod aliis accidisse scio, qui hoc mirabili medicamento usi sunt. '^ Qui melancholicus 

factus planfe desipiebat, multaque stulte loquebatur, haic exhibitum 12. gr. stibium, quod paulo post atram 
bilem ex alvo eduxit (ut ego vidi, qui vocatus tanquam ad miraculum adfixi testari possum), et ramenta 
tajaquam caniis dissecta in partes totum excrementum tanquaiu sanguiiiem nig&rrimumrepraiseaital'at. 



Mem. 2. Subs, 2.] Compound Purgers. 441 

mendation, but it almost killed him, whereupon he concludes, "*^ antimony 
is rather poison than a medicine." Th. Erastus concurs with him in his 
opinion, and so doth ^lian Montaltus, c«/;. 30. de melan. But what do I 
talk? 'tis the subject of whole books; I might cite a century of authors pro 
and con. I will conclude with ^Zuinger, antimony is like Scanderbeg's sword, 
which is either good or bad, strong or weak, as the party is that prescribes, 
or useth it : '" a worthy medicine if it be rightly applied to a strong man, 
otherwise poison." For the preparing of it, look in Evonhni thesaurus, 
Quercetan, Oswaldus CrolUus, Basil. Chim. Basil. Valentius, &c. 

Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the 
panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereign remedy to all 
diseases. A good vomit, I confess, a virtuous herb, if it be well qualified, 
opportunely taken, and medicinally used ; but as it is commonly abused by 
most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent 
purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin 
and overthrow of body and soul. 

SuBSECT. II. — Simples purging Melancholy downward. 

Polypody and epithyme are, without all exceptions, gentle purgers of me- 
lancholy. Dioscorides will have them void phlegm; but Brassivola out of 
his experience averreth, that they purge this humour; they are used in decoc- 
tion, infusion, (fcc, simple, mixed, &c. 

Myrobalanes, all five kinds, are happily ^prescribed against melancholy and 
quartan agues; Brassivola speaks out "^of a thousand" experiences, he gave 
them in pills, decoctions, &c., look for peculiar receipts in him. 

Stoechas, fumitory, dodder, herb mercury, roots of capers, genista or broom, 
pennyroyal and half- boiled cabbage, I find in this catalogue of purgei-s of 
black choler, origan, featherfew, ammoniac^ salt, saltpetre. But these are very 
gentle ; alyppus, dragon root, centaury, dittany, colutea, which Fuchsius, cap. 
168, and others take for senna, but most distinguish. Senna is in the mid- 
dle of violent and gentle purgers downward, hot in the second degree, dry in 
the first. Brassivola calls it " ^a wonderful herb against melancholy, it scours 
the blood, lightens the spirits, shakes off sorrow, a most profitable medicine," 
as ^Dodonagus terms it, invented by the Arabians, and not heard of before. 
It is taken diverse ways, in powder, infusion, but most commonly in the in- 
fusion, with ginger, or some cordial flowers added to correct it. Actuarius 
commends it sodden in broth, with an old cock, or in whey, which is the 
common conveyer of all such things as purge black choler; or steeped in 
wine, which Heurnius accounts sufficient without any farther correction. 

Aloes by most is said to purge choler, but Aurelianus, lib. 2. c. 6. de morb. 
chron., Arculanus, caj). 6. in 9, Bhasis, Juhus Alexandrinus, consil. 185, 
Scoltz., Crato, consil. 189. Scoltz. jDrescribe it to this disease; as good for the 
stomach and to open the hfemorrhoids, out of Mesne, Rhasis, Serapio, Avicenna : 
Menardus, ep. lib. 1. ejjist. 1. opposeth it, aloes, "^doth not open the veins," 
or move the hsemorrhoids, which Leonhartus Fuchsius, paradox, lib. 1. lilie- 
wise affirms ; but Brassivola and Dodonseus defend Mesne out of their expe- 
rience; let '^Yalesius end the controversy. 

Lapis armenus and lazuli are much magnified by ® Alexander, lib. 1. cap. 
16, Avicenna, ^tius, and Actuarius, if they be well washed, that the water 

t Antimonium venenum, non medicamentum. "Cratonis ep. sect, rel ad Monavium ep. In Titramque 
partem dignissimum medicamentum, si recte iitentur, secus venenum. ^ Mcerores fugant; utilissimfe 

dautur melancliolicis et quaternariis. y Millies horum vires expertus sum. ^Sal nitrum, sal ammo- 

niacum, dracontij radix, dictamnum. **■ Calet ordine secundo, siccat primo, adversus omnia vitia atrsB 

bills valet, sanguinem mundat, spirittis illustrat, mcerorem discutit, herba mirifica. bCap. 4. lib. 2. 

^ Recentiores negant ora venarum resecare. d Au aloe aperiat ora venarum. lib. 9. cent. 3. ^ Vapores 
abstergit a vitalibus partibus. 



442 Cure of Melancholy, [Part. 2. Sec. 4. 

be no more coloured^ fifty times, some say. " ^ That good Alexander (saith 
Guianerius), puts such confidence in this one medicine, that he thought all 
melancholy passions might be cured by it ; and I for my part have oftentimes 
happily used it, and was never deceived in the operation of it." The like may 
be said of lapis lazuli, though it be somewhat weaker than the other. Gar- 
cias ab Horto, hist. lib. 1. cap. 65. relates, that the ^physicians of the Moors 
familiarly prescribe it to all melancholy passions, and Mat thiol as, ep. lib. 3. 
^ brags of that happy success which he still had in the administration of it. 
Nicholas Meripsa puts it amongst the best remedies, sect. L cap. 12. in Anti- 
dotis; " ^and if this will not serve (saith Rhasis), then there remains nothing 
but lapis armenus and hellebore itself." Yalescus and Jason Pratensis much 
commend pulvis hali, which is made of it. James Damascen. 2. cap. 12. 
Hercules de Saxonifi, &c., speaks well of it. Crato will not approve this ; it 
and both hellebores, he saith, are no better than poison. Victor Trincavellius, 
lib. 2. cap. 14. found it in his experience, "^to be very noisome, to trouble 
the stomach, and hurt their bodies that take it overmuch." 

Black hellebore, that most renowned plant, and famous purger of melan- 
choly, which all antiquity so much used and admired, was first found out by 
Melanpodius a shepherd, as Pliny records, lib. 25. cap. 5. ^vvho, seeing it to 
purge his goats when they raved, practised it upon Elige and Calene, King 
Prsetus' daughters, that ruled in Arcadia, near the fountain Clitorius, and 
restored them to their former health. In Hippocrates's time it was in only 
request, insomuch that he writ a book of it, a fragment of which remains yet. 
Theophrastus, "^ Galen, Pliny, Gtelius Aurelianus, as ancient as Galen, lib. 1. 
cap. 6, Aretus, lib. 1. cap. 5, Oribasius, lib. 7. collect, a famous Greek, ^tius, 
ser. 3. cap. 112 & 113 p. ^gineta, Galen's Ape, lib. 7. cap. 4, Actuarius, 
Trallianus, lib. 5. cap. 15, Cornelius Celsus only remaining of the old Latins, 
lib. 3. cap. 23. extol and admire this excellent plant; and it was generally so 
much esteemed of the ancients for this disease amongst the rest, that they sent 
all such as were crazed, or that doted, to the Anticyrse, or to Phocis in Achaia, 
to be purged, where this plant was in abundance to be had. In Strabo's time 
it was an ordinary voyage, Naviget Anticyras ; a common proverb among the 
Greeks and Latins, to bid a dizzard or a mad man go take hellebore j as in 
Lucian, Menippus to Tantalus, Tantale, desipis, helleboro epoto tibi opus est, eoque 
sane ineraco, thou art out of thy little wit, O Tantalus, and must needs drink 
hellebore, and that without mixture, Aristophanes in Vesptis, drink hellebore, 
&c., and Harpax in the ^Comedian, told Simo and Ballio, two doting fellows, 
that they had need to be purged with this plant. When that proud Mena- 
crates 6 ^sOg, had writ an arrogant letter to Philip of Macedon, he sent back 
no other answer but this, Gonsulo tibi ut ad Anticyram, te conferas, noting 
thereby that he was crazed, atque helleboro indigere, had much need of a good 
purge. Lilias Geraldus saith, that Hercules, after all his mad pranks upon his 
wife and children, was perfectly cured by a purge of hellebore, which an Anti- 
eyrian administered unto him. They that were sound commonly took it to 
quicken their wits (as Ennius of old), ° Qui non nisi potus ada7'ma — prosiluit 
dicenda, and as our poets drink sack to improve their inventions (I find it so 
registered by Agellius, lib. 17, cap. 15.) Carneades the academic, when he was 
to write against Zeno the stoic, purged himself with hellebore first, which 
PPetronius puts upon Chrysippus. In such esteem it continued for many ages, 

fTract. 15. c. 6. Bonus Alexander, tantam lapicle Armeno confidentiam habiiit, ut omnes melancholicas 
passiones ab eo curari posse crederet, et ego inde sajpissime usus sum, et in ejus exhibitione nunquam 
fraudatus fui. 8 Maui'orum medici hoc lapide pleruinque purgant melancholiam, &c. h Quo ego 

ssepe feliciter usus sum, et raagno cum auxilio. iSi non hoc, nihil restat nisi helleborus, et lapis 

armenus. Consil. 184. Scoltzii. kMulta corpora vidi gravissime hinc agitata, et stomacho multum 

obfuisse. 1 Cum vidisset ab eo curari capras furentes, &c. "'^ Lib. 6. simpl. med. i^Pseudolo, act. 4. 
cen. alt. helleboro hisce hominibua opus est. ^ Hor» P la Satyr. 



Mem. 2. Sabs. 2.] Compound Pargers. 443 

till at length Mesne and some other Arabians begin to reject and reprehend it, 
upon whose authority for many folio wing lustres, it was much debased and quite 
out of request, held to be poison and no medicine; and is still oppugned to 
this day by '^Crato and some junior physicians. Their reasons are, because 
Aristotle, I. 1. defiant, c, 3. said, henbane and hellebore were poison; and 
Alexander Aphrodiseus, in the preface of his problems, gave out, that (speak- 
ing of hellebore) "'Quails fed on that which was poison to men." Galen, I. 6. 
Epid. com. 5. Text. 35. confirms as much: ^Coostantine the emperor in his 
Geoponicks, attributes no other virtue to it, than to kill mice and rats, flies 
and mould warps, and so Mizaldas, Nicander of old, Gervinus, Sckenkius, and 
some other Neoterics that have written of poisons, speak of hellebore in a chief 
place. * Nicholas Leonicus hath a story of Solon, that besieging, I know not 
what city, steeped hellebore in a spring of water, which by pipes was conveyed 
into the middle of the town, and so either poisoned, or else made them so feeble 
and weak by purging, that they were not able to beararuis. Nothwithstandhig 
all these cavils and objections, most of our late writers do much approve of it. 
"Gariopontus, lib. 1. cap. 13, Oodronchus, com. de helleb., Fallopius,Z'i6. de. med. 
purg. simpl. cap. 69. et consil. 15. Trincavelii, Montanus 239, Frisemelica 
coRsil. 14, Hercules de Saxonia, so that it be opportamely given. Jacobus de 
Dondis, Agg. Amatus, Lucet. cent. QQ, Godef. Stegius, cap. 13, HoUerius, and 
all our herbalists subscribe. Fernelius, metli. med. lib. 5. cap. 16, "confesseth 
it to be a ^terrible purge and hard to take, yet well given to strong men, and 
such as have able bodies." P. Forestus and Gapivaccius forbid it to be taken, 
iu substance, but allow it in decoction or infusion, both which ways, P. Mona- 
vius approves above all others, jEpist. 231. Scoltzii; Jacchinus in 9. Phasis 
commends a receipt of his own preparing; Penottus another of his chemically 
prepared, Evonimus another. Hildesheim, spicel. 2. de mel. hath many examples 
how it should be used, with diversity of receipts. Heurnius, lib. 7. prax. med.' 
cap. 14, "calls it an ^innocent medicine howsoever, if it be well prepared." 
The root of it is only in use, which may be kept many years, and by some 
given in substance, as by Fallopius and Brassivola amongst the rest, who 
^ brags that he was the first that restored it again to its use, and tells a story 
how he cured one Melatasta, a madman, that was thought to be possessed, in 
the Duke Ferrara's court, with one purge of black hellebore in substance : the 
receipt is there to be seen; his excrements were like ink, *he perfectly healed 
at once ; Yidus Yidius, a Dutch physician, will not admit of it in substance, 
to whom most subscribe, but as before in the decoction, infusion, or which is 
all in all, in the extract, which he prefers before the rest, and calls suave 
medicamentii'in, a sweet medicine, an easy, that may be securely given to 
women, children, and weaklings. Baracellus, horto geniali, terms it maximce 
prcestantice medicamentum, a medicine of great worth and note. Quercetan in 
his Spagir. Phar. and many others, tell wonders of the extract. Paracelsus, 
above all the rest, is the greatest admirer of this plant; and especially the 
extract, he calls it theriacum, terrestre 6a?sm?^^t??^,' another treacle, a terres- 
trial balm, instar omnium, '-'all in all, the ''sole and last refuge to cure this 
malady, the gout, epilepsy, leprosy," &c. If this will not help, no physic in 
the world can but mineral, it is the upshot of all. Matthiolus laughs at those 
that except against it, and though some abhor it out of the authority of Mesne, 

<l Crato, consil. 16. 1. 2, Etsi vavXix magni viri probent, in bonam partem accipiant medici, non probera. 
rVescuntnr veratro cotnrnices quod liominibus toxicum est. ^Lib. 23. c. 7. 12. 14. tDe var. hist. 

" Corpus incolame reddit, et juvenile efficit. ^ Veteres non sine causa usi sunt : Difficilis ex Helleboro 

purgatio, et terroris plena, sed robustis datur tamen, &c. yjnnocens medicamentum, modo rite paretur. 
^ Absit jactantia, ego primus prtebere coepi, &c. * In Catart. Ex una sola evacuatione furor cessavit 

et quietus inde vixit. Tale exemplum apud Sckenldum et apud Scoltzium, ep. 231. P. Monavius se 
stolidum curasse jactat hoc epoto tribus aut quatuur vicibas. bUltimum refiigium, extremum medica- 

mentum, quod cjetera omnia claudit, quEecunque caJtcris laxativis pelli non possunt ad hunc pertinent; si 
non huic, nulll cedunt. 



444 Cure of Melanclwly. [Part. 2. Sec. 4. 

and dare not adveliture to prescribe it, '"'yet I, (saith he) have happily used 
it six hundred times without offence, and communicated it to divers worthy 
physicians, who have given me great thanks for it." Look for receipts, dose, 
preparation, and other cautions concerning this simple, in him, Brassivola, 
Paracelsus, Codronchus, and the rest. 

SuBSECT. III. — Compound Purgers. 

Compound medicines which purge melancholy, are either taken in the supe- 
rior or inferior parts : superior at mouth or nostrils. At the mouth swallowed 
or not swallowed : If swallowed liquid or solid : liquid, as compound wine of 
hellebore, scilla or sea-onion, senna, Vmum Scilliticum, Helleb'^ratum, which 
^Quercetan so much applauds "for melancholy and madness, either inwardly 
taken, or outwardly applied to the head, with little pieces of linen dipped warm 
in it." Oxymel Scilliticum, Syrupus Helleboratus maj or and minor in Quercetan, 
and Syrupus Genistce for hypochondriacal melancholy in the same author, com- 
pound syrup of succory, of fumitory, polypody, &c. Heurnius his purging 
cockbroth. Some except against these syrups, as appears by ^Udalrinus Leono- 
rus his epistle to Matthiolus, as most pernicious, and that out of Hippocrates, 
cocta movere, et medicari, non cruda, no raw things to be used in physic ; but 
this in the following epistle is exploded and soundly confuted by Matthiolus : 
many juleps, potions, receipts, are composed of these, as you shall find in Hil- 
desheim, spiced. 2. Heurnius, lib. 2. cap. 14. George Sckenkius, /^a^. med.prax. &c. 

Solid purges are confections, electuaries, pills by themselves, or o-ompound 
with others, as de lapide lazulo, armeno, 2^il- indcB, of fumitory, &c. Confec- 
tion of Plamech, which though most approve, Solenander, sec. 5. consil. 22. bit- 
terly inveighs against, so doth Rondoletius Pharmacop. officina, Fernelius and 
others ; diasena, diapolypodium, diacassia, diacatholicon, Wecker's electuarie 
de Epithymo, Ptolemy's hierologadium, of which divers receipts are daily made. 

^tius, 22. 23. commends Hieram Rujfl. Trincavellius, consil. 12. lib. 4. ap- 
proves of Hiera; non, inquit, invenio melius medicamentum, I find no better 
medicine, he saith. Heurnius adds pil. aggregat. pills de Epithymo, pil. Ind. 
Mesne describes in the Florentine Antidotary, Pilulce sine quibus esse nolo, 
FilulcB Cochice cum Helleboro, Pil. Arabicce, Foetidm, de quinque generibus 
Diirabolanorum, &c. More proper to melancholy, not excluding in the meantime, 
turbith, manna, rhubarb, agaric, elescophe, &c., which are not so proper to this 
humour. For, as Montaltus holds cap. 30. and Montanus, cfioleraetiampurganda, 
quod atrce sit pabulum, choler is to be purged because it feeds the other: ' and 
some are of an opinion, as Erasistratus and Asclepiades maintained of old, 
against whom Galen disputes, "^that no physic doth purge one humour alone, 
but all alike or what is next." Most therefore in their receipts and magistrals 
whichare coined here, make a mixture of several simplesand compoundsto purge 
all humours in general as well as this. Some rather use potions than pills to 
purge this humour, because that as Heurnius and Crato observe, hie succus a 
sicco remedio cegre trahitur, this juice is not so easily drawn by dry remedies, 
and as Montanus adviseth 25 cons. " All ^drying medicines are to be repelled, 
as aloe, hiera," and all pills whatsoever, because the disease is dry of itself 

I might here insert many receipts of prescribed potions, boles, &c. The 
doses of these, but that they are common in every good physician, and that I 
am loth to incur the censure of Porestus, lib. 3. cap. 6. de urinis, "'^ against 

c Testari possum me sexcentis hominibus Helleborum nigrum exhibuisse, nullo prorsus incommodo, <fec. 
d Pharmacop. Optimum est ad maniam et omnes melancholicos affectus, turn intra assumptum, turn extrin- 
secus capiti cum linteolis in eo madefactis tepide admotum. ® Epist. Math. lib. 3. Tales Syrupi nocen- 

tissimi et omnibus modis extirpandi. f Purgantia censebant medicamenta, non unum humorem attrahere, 
sed quemcunque attigerint in suam naturam convertere. SReligantur omnes exsiccantes medicinae, Lit 

Aloe, Hiera, pilulse quaecunque. h Contra eos qui lingua vulgari et vernacula remedia et medicamenta 

pra;i,cribuut, et quibusvis eommunia faciunt. 



Mem, 3.] Chirurgical Remedies. 445 

those that divulge and publish medicines in their mother-tongue," and lest I 
should give occasion thereby to some ignorant reader to practise on himself^ 
■without the consent of a good physician. 

Such as are not swallowed, but only kept in the mouth, are gargarisms 
used commonly after a purge, when the body is soluble and loose. Or 
apophlegmatisms, masticatories, to be held and chewed in the mouth, which 
are gentle, as hyssop, origan, pennyroyal, thyme, mustard ; strong, as pelli- 
tory, pepper, ginger, &c. 

Such as are taken into the nostrils, errhina are liquid or dry, juice of 
pimpernel, onions, &c., castor, pepper, white hellebore, &c. To these you 
m.ay add odoraments, perfumes, and sufFumi gat ions, (fee. 

Taken into the inferior parts are clysters strong or weak, suppositories of Cas- 
tilian soap, honey boiled to a consistence; orstrongerofscammony, hellebore, &c. 

These are all used, and prescribed to this malady upon several occasions, 
as shall be shown in its place. 



MEMB. III. 

Chirurgical Remedies. 

In" letting of blood three main circumstances are to be considered, " ^ Who, 
how much, when." That is, that it be done to such a one as may endure it, 
or to whom it may belong, that he be of a competent age, not too young, nor 
too old, overweak, fat, or lean, sore laboured, but to such as have need, are 
full of bad blood, noxious humours, and may be eased by it. 

The quantity depends upon the party's habit of body, as he is strong or 
weak, full or empty, may spare more or less. 

In the morning is the fittest time : some doubt whether it be best fasting, 
or full, whether the moon's motion or aspect of planets be to be observed; 
some affirm, some deny, some grant in acute, but not in chronic diseases, 
whether before or after physic. ' Tis Heurnius' aphorism a phlebotomia auspi- 
candum esse curationem, non a yharmacia, you must begin with blood- 
letting and not physic ; some except this peculiar malady. But what do I ? 
Horatius i^ugenius, a physician of Padua, hath lately writ 17 books of this 
subject, Jobertus, &c. 

Particular kinds of blood-letting in ^use are three, first is that opening a 
vein in the arm with a sharp knife, or in the head, knees, or any other parts, 
as shall be thought fit. 

Cupping-glasses with or without scarification, ocyssirr.e compescunt, saith 
Fernelius, they work presently, and are applied to several parts, to divert 
humours, aches, winds, &c. 

Horse-leeches are much used in melancholy, applied especially to the 
hsemorrhoids. Horatius Augenius, ?z6. 10. cap. 10. Platerus, de mentis alienat. 
cap. 3. Altomarus, Piso, and many others, prefer them before any evacu- 
ations in this kind. 

^Cauteries or searing with hot irons, combustions, borings, lancings, 
which, because they are terrible, Dropax and Sinapismus are invented by 
plasters to raise blisters, and heating medicines of pitch, mustard-seed, and 
the like. 

Issues still to be kept open, made as the former, and applied in and to 
several parts, have their use here on divers occasions, as shall be shown. 

iQuis, quantum, quando. b Fernelius, lib. 2. cap. 19. 1 EenodaBus, lib. 5. cap. 21. de his Mercurialis 
lib. 3. de composit. raed. cap. 24. Heui'nius, lib. 1. prax. med. Wecker, &c. 



446 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 5. 

SECT. Y. MEMB. I. 

SuBSECT.I. — Particular Cure of the three several Kinds; of Ilead-Melancholy. 

The general cures thus briefly examined and discussed, it remains now to 
apply these medicines to the three particular species or kinds, that, according 
to the several parts affected, each man may tell in some sort how to help or 
ease himself. I will treat of head-melancholy first, in which, as in all other 
good cures, we must begin with diet, as a matter of most moment, able often- 
times of itself to work this effect. I have read, saith Laurentius, cap. 8. de 
Melanch. that in old diseases which have gotten the upper hand or a habit, the 
manner of living is to more purpose, than whatsoever can be drawn out of the 
most precious boxes of the apothecaries. This diet, as I have said, is not only 
in choice of meat and drink, but of all those other non-natural things. Let 
air be clear and moist most part: diet moistening, of good juice, easy of 
digestion, and not windy : drink clear, and well brewed, not too strong, nor 
too small. " Make a melancholy man fat," as "^ Rhasis saith, " and thou hast 
finished the cure." Exercise not too remiss, nor too violent. Sleep a little 
more than ordinary. ^Excrements daily to be voided by art or nature; and 
which Eernelius enjoins his patient, consil. 44. above the rest, to avoid all 
passions and perturbations of the mind. Let him not be alone or idle (in any 
kind of melancholy), but still accompanied with such friends and familiars he 
most affects, neatly dressed, washed, and combed, according to his ability at 
least, in clean sweet linen, spruce, handsome, decent, and good apparel; for 
nothing sooner dejects a man than want, squalor, and nastiness, foul or old 
clothes out of fashion. Concerning the medicinal part, he that will satisfy 
himself at large (in this precedent of diet) and see all at once, the whole cure 
and manner of it in every distinct species, let him consult with Gordonius, 
Valescus, with Prosper Calenus, lib. de atra bile ad Card. Ccesium, Lau- 
rentius, cap. 8, et 9. de inelan. -^lian Montaltus, de mel. cap. 26, 27, 28, 29, 
30. Donat, ab Altomari, cap. 7. arlis med. Hercules de Saxonia, in Panth. 
cap. 7.et Tract, ejus peculiar, de 'nielan. per Bolzetam, edit. Venetiis, 1620. 
cap. 17, 18, 19. Savanarola, Pub. 82. Tract. 8. cap. 1. Sckenkius, in prax. 
curat. Ital. med. Heurnius, cap. 12. de morb. Victorius Faventinus, pract. 
Magn. et Empir. Hildesheim, Spicel. 2. de man. et mel. Eel. Platter, 
Stockerus, Bruel, P. Bayerus, Eorestus, Euchsius, Cappivaccius, Eondoletius, 
Jason Pratensis, Sallust. Salvian. de remed. lib. 2. cap. 1. Jacchinus, iii 9. 
Rhasis, Lod. Mercatus, de Inter, morb. cur. lib. 1. cap 17. Alexan. Messaria, 
pract. med. lib. 1. cap. 21. de mel. Piso, HoUerius, &c. that have culled out of 
those old Greeks, Arabians, and Latins, whatsoever is observable or fit to be, 
used. Or let him read those counsels and consultations of Hugo Senensis, 
consd. 13. et 14. Renerus Solinander, consil. 6, sec. 1. et consil. 3. sec. 3, 
Orato, consil. 16. lib. 1. Montanus, 20, 22. and his following counsels. 
Lselius a Eonte Eugubinus, consult. 44, 69, 77, 125, 129, 142. Eernelius, 
coTisil. 44, 45, 46. Jul. Caesar Claudinus, Mercurialis, Erambesarius, Sen- 
nertus, &c. Wherein he shall find particular receipts, the whole method, 
preparatives, purgers, correctors, averters, cordials in great variety and abund- 
ance : out of which, because every man cannot attend to read or peruse them, 
I will collect for the benefit of the reader, some few more notable medicines. 

SuBSECT. II. — Blood-letting. 

Phlebotomy is promiscuously used before and after physic, commonly before, 
and upon occasion is often reiterated, if there be any need at least of it. Eor 

'^Cont, lib. 1. e. 9. festines ad impinguationem. et cum impinguantur, removetur malum, ^ Benefl- 

cium ventris. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] Preparatives and Purgers. 447 

Galen, and many others, make a doubt of bleeding at all in this kind of hea:l- 
melancholy. If the malady, saith Piso, cap. 23. and Altomarus, cap. 7. 
Fuchsius, cap. 33. '" shall proceed primarily from the misafFected brain, the 
patient in such case shall not need at all to bleed, except the blood otherwise 
abound, the veins be full, inflamed blood, and the party ready to run mad." 
In immaterial melancholy, which especially comes from a cold distemperature of 
spirits, Hercules de Saxonia, cap. 17. will not admit of phlebotomy ; Laurentius, 
cap. 9, approves it out of the authority of the Arabians ; but as Mesne, E-hasis, 
Alexander appoint, "p especially in the head," to open the veins in the fore- 
head, nose and ears is good. They commonly set cujoping-glasses on the 
party's shoulders, having first scarified the place, they apply horse-leeches on 
the head, and in all melancholy diseases, whether essential or accidental, they 
cause the hsemorrhoids to be opened, having the eleventh aphorism of the sixth 
book of Hippocrates for their ground and warrant, which saith, " That in 
melancholy and mad men, the varicose tumour or haemorrhoids appearing doth 
heal the same." Yalescus prescribes blood-letting in all three kinds, whom 
Sallust. Salvian follows. " "^If the blood abound, which is discerned by the 
fulness of the veins, his precedent diet, the party's laughter, age, &c. begin 
with the median or middle vein of the arm : if the blood be ruddy and clear, 
stop it, but if black in the spring time, or a good season, or thick, let it run, 
according to the party's strength : and some eight or twelve days after, open 
the head vein, and the veins in the forehead, or provoke it out of the nostrils, 
or cupping glasses," &c. Trallianus allows of this, "^If there have been any 
suppression or stopping of blood at nose, or haemorrhoids, or women's months, 
then to open a vein in the head or about the ankles." Yet he doth hardly 
approve of this course, if melancholy be situated in the head alone, or in any 
other dotage, "^except it primarily proceed from blood, or that the malady 
be increased by it; for blood-letting refrigerates and dries up, except the body 
be very full of blood, and a kind of ruddiness in the face." Therefore I con- 
clude with Areteus, "* before you let blood, deliberate of it," and well consider 
all circumstances belonging to it. 

SuBSECT. III. — Preparatives and Purgers. 

After blood-letting we must proceed to other medicines ; first prepare, and 
then purge, Augece stahidum purgare, make the body clean before we hope to 
do any good. ^Yalter Bruel would have a practitioner begin first with a 
clyster of his, which he prescribes before blood-letting: the common sort, as 
Mercurialis, Montaltus, cap. 30. &c. proceed from lenitives to preparatives, and 
so to purgers. Lenitives are well known, electuarium lenitivum, diaphenicum, 
diacatholicon, &c. Preparatives are usually syrups of borage, bugloss, apples, 
fumitory, thyme and epithyme, with double as much of the same decoction or 
distilled water, or of the waters of bugloss, balm, hops, endive, scolopendry, 
fumitory, <fec. or these sodden in whey, which must be reiterated and used for 
many days together. Purges come last, " which must not be used at all, if 
the malady may be otherwise helped," because they weaken nature and dry so 
much; and in giving of them, "^we must begin with the gentlest first.'* 
Some forbid aU hot medicines, as Alexander, and Salvianus, &c. Ne insa- 

° Si ex primario cerebri affectu melancholiei evaserint, sanguinis detractions non indigent, nisi ob alias 
causas sanguis mittatur, si multus in vasis, &c. frustra enim fatigatur corpus, <fcc. ^ Competit iig 

plilebotoinia frontis. isi sanguis abundet, quod scitur ex venarura repletione, victiis ratione 

prsecedente, risu asgri, setate et aliis, tundatur mediana ; et si sanguis apparet clarus et ruber, suppri- 
matur; aut si vere, si niger aut crassus permittatur fluere pro viribus asgri, dein post 8 vel 12 diem 
aperiatur cephalica partis niagis affectse, et vena frontis, aut sanguis provocetur setis per nares, &c. ^ Si 
quibus consuetas suae suppressoj sunt menses, &c. talo secare oportet, aut vena fi-ontis si sanguis peccet 
cerebro. ^ Nisi ortum ducat a sanguine, ne morbus inde augeatur : phlebotomia refrigerat et exsiccat, 

nisi corpus sit valde sanguineum, rubicundum. t Cum sanguinem detrahere oportet, deliberatione indigct. 
Areteus, lib. 7. c. 5. ^ A lenioribus auspicandum. (Valescus, Piso, Bruel) rariusque medicamentis pur- 
gantibus utendum, ni sit opus. 



448 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 5. 

niores indejiant, hot medicines increase the disease "^by drying too much." 
Purge downward rather than upward, use potions rather than pills, and when 
you begin physic, persevere and continue in a course; for as one observes, 
^ movere et non educere in omnibus malum est; to stir up the humour (as one 
purge commonly doth) and not to prosecute, doth more harm than good. They 
must continue in a course of physic, yet not so that they tire and oppress 
nature, danda quies naturce, they must now and then remit, and let nature 
have some rest. - The most gentle purges to begin with, are ^ senna, cassia, 
epithyme, myrobalanes, catholicon : if these prevail not, we may proceed to 
stronger, as the confection of hamech, pil. Indae, fumitorise, de assaieret, of 
lapis armenus and lazuli, diasena. Or if pills be too dry; ^some prescribe 
both hellebores in the last place, amongst the rest Aretus, "^because this dis- 
ease will resist a gentle medicine." Laurentius and Hercules de Saxonia 
would have antimony tried last, " if the ^ party be strong, and it warily given." 
^ Trincavellius prefers liierologodium, to whom Francis Alexander in his Apol. 
rad. 5. subscribes, a very good medicine they account it. But Crato in a 
counsel of his, for the Duke of Bavaria's chancellor, wholly rejects it. 

I find a vast chaos of medicines, a confusion of receij)ts and magistrals, 
amongst writers, appropriated to this disease; some of the chiefest I will 
rehearse. ^To be sea-sick first, is very good at seasonable times. Helle- 
borismus Matthioli, with which he vaunts and boasts he did so many several 
cures, " ^ I never gave it (saith he), but after once or twice, by the help of God, 
they were happily cured." The manner of making it he sets down at large in 
his third book of Epist. to George Hankshius a physician. Walter Bruel, and 
Heurnius, make mention of it with great approbation; so doth Sckenkius in 
his memorable cures, and experimental medicines, cen. 6. obse7'. 37. That 
famous Helleborisme of Montanus, which he so often repeats in his consulta- 
tions and counsels, as 28. 2^'^'(> melan. sacerdote, et consil. 148. pro hypochon- 
driaco, and cracks, "^'to be a most sovereign remedy for all melancholy per- 
sons, which he hath often given without ofience, and found by long experi- 
ence and observations to be such." 

Quercetan prefers a syi^up of hellebore in his Spagirica Pharmac. and Helle- 
bore's extract cap. 5. of his invention likewise (" a most safe medicine ^ and 
not unfit to be given children") before all remedies whatsoever. 

Paracelsus, in his book of black hellebore, admits this medicine, but as it 
is prepared by him. "^It is most certain (saith he) that the virtue of this 
herb is great, and admirable in effect, and little differing from balm itself; and 
he that knows well how to make use of it, hath more art than all their books 
contain, or all the doctors in Germany can show." 

-^lianus Montaltus in his exquisite work de morh. capitis, cap. 31. de met. 
sets a sj^ecial receipt of his own, which in his practice " ^ he fortunately used ; 
because it is but short I will set it down." 

" 1^ Syrupi de pomis 5ij) aquas borag. §iiij. 
EUebori nigri per noctem infusi in ligatura 
6 vel 8 gr. manfe facta coUatura exhibe." 

Other receipts of the same to this purpose you shall find in him, Valescus 
admires pulvis Hali, and Jason Pratensis after him : the confection of which 

^ Quia corpus exiccant, moi-bum augent. yGuianei'ius, Tract. !">. c. 6. ^Piso. ^Rhasis, sfepe valent 
ex Helleboro. b Lib. 7. Exiguis medicamentis morbus non obsequitur. ^ Modo caute detur et 

robastis. dConsil. 10. 1. 1. ^Plin. 1. 31. c. 6. Navigationes ob vomitionera prosunt plurimis morbis 
capitis, et omnibus ob quos Helleborum bibitur. Idem Dioscorides, lib. 5. cap. 13. Avicenna tertia imprimis. 
2Munquam dedimus, quin ex una aut altera assumptione, Deo juvante, fuerint ad salutem restituti. 
S Lib. 2. Inter composita purgantia melancholiara. h Longo experimento a se observatum esse, melan- 
cholicos sine offensa egregie curandos valere. Idem responsione ad Aubertum, veratrum nigrum, alias 
timidiim etpericulosum vini spiritii etiam et oleo commodum sicusui redditur, ut etiam pueris tuto adminis- 
trari possit. i Certum est hujus lierbse virtutem maximara et mirabilem esse, parumque distare a balsamo, 
Et qui norit eo recte uti, plus habet artis quam tota scribeutium cohors, aut omnes doctores in Germai.ia. 
k Quo fcliciter usu3 sura. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3,] Freparntives and Furgers. 449 

our new London Pharniacopo3ia hath lately revived. " ^Put case (saith he), all 
other medicines fail, by the help of God this alone shall do it, and 'tis a 
crowned medicine which must be kept in secret." 

" 1^. Epithymi sernuBC, lapidis lazuli, agarici ana ^ij. 
Scammonii, 5j) Chariophillorum nu^nero 20 : pulverisentnir 
Omnia, et ipsius pulveris scrup. 4. singulis septimanis assumat." 

To these I may add Arnoldi vinum Buglossatum, or borage wine before men- 
tioned, which °^Mizaldus calls vinum mirabile, a wonderful wine, and Sbockerus 
vouches to repeat verbatim amongst other receipts. Rubeus his ^compound 
water out of Savanarola : Pinetus his balm ; Cardan's Fulvis Hyacinthi, with 
which, in his book de curis admirandis, he boasts that he had cured many 
melancholy persons in eight days, which °Sckenkius puts amongst his observa- 
ble medicines; Altomarus his syrup, with which ^he calls God so solemnly to 
witness, he hath in his kind done many excellent cures, and which Sckenkius 
cent. 7. observ. 80. mentioneth, Daniel Sennertus, lib. 1. part. 2. cap. 12. so 
much commends ; Rulandus' admirable water for melancholy, which cent. 2. 
cap. 96. he names Spiritum vitce aureum, Faiiaceam, what not, and his absolute 
medicine of 50 eggs, curat. Empir. cent. 1. cur. 5. to be taken three in a morn- 
ing, with a poAvder of his. ^Faventinus, prac. Empir. doubles this number of 
eggs, and will have 101 to be taken by three and three in like sort, which. 
Sallust Salvian approves, de red. med. lib. 2. c. 1 . with some of the same powder, 
till all be spent, a most excellent remedy for all melancholy and mad men. 

" ]J. Epithymi, thvmi, ana drachmas duas, sacchari albi unciam unEnn> croci grana tria, 
Cinnamomi diachmam unaua; misce, fiat pulvis." 

All these yet are nothing to those *' chemical preparatives of ^gwa Chaltdonicc, 
quintessence of hellebore, salts, extracts, distillations, oils, Aurum potabile, &c. 
JDr. Anthony in his book de auropotab., edit. 1 600, is all and all for it. " ^ And 
though all the schools of Galenists, with a wicked and unthankful pride and 
scorn, detest it in their practice, yet in more grievous diseases, when their vege- 
tals will do no good, tiiey are. compelled to seek the help of minerals, though 
they use them rashly, unprofibably, slackly, and to no purpose." Rhenanus, 
a Dutch chemist, in his book de Sale e puteo emergente, takes upon him to 
apologise for Anthony, and sets light by all that speak against him. But what 
do I meddle with this great controversy, which is the subject of many volumes'? 
Let Paracelsus, Quercetan, Crollius, and the brethren of the rosy cross, defend 
themselves as they may. Crato, Erastus, and the Galenists oppugn. Para- 
celsus, he brags on the other side, he did more famous cures by this means, 
than all the Galenists in Europe, and calls himself a monarch ; Galen, Hippo- 
crates, infants, illiterate, &c. As Thessalus of old railed against those ancient 
Asclepiadean writers, "*he condemns others, insults, triumphs, overcomes all 
antiquity (saith Galen as if he spake to him), declares himself a conqueror, and 
crowns his own doings." ^ One drop of their chemical preparatives shall do more 
good than all their fulsome potions. Erastus, and the rest of the Galenists 
vilify them on the other side, as heretics in physic; "^Paracelsus did that in 
pLysic, which Luther in divinity." "^ A drunken rogue he was, a base fellow, a 
magician, he had the devil for his master, devils his familiar companions, and 

iHoc posito quod alice medicinje non valeant, ista tunc Dei misericordii valel)it,et estmedicina coronata 
qu« seci-etissime teneatur. ^ Lib. de artif. med. ° Sect. 3. Optimum remjdium aqua composita 

Savanarolse. ° Sckenkius, obsei-v. 31. PDonatus ab Altomari, cap. 7. Testor Deum, me multos 

melancholicos hujus solius syrupi usu curasse, facta prius purgatione. 1 Centum ova et unum, quolibet 

mai^e sumant ova sorbilia, cum sequent! pulvere supra ovum aspersa, et contineant quousque assumpserint 
centum et unum, maniacis et melancliolicis utilissimum remedium. ^ Quercetan. cap. 4. Phar. Oswaldus 
Ci-ollius. ^ Cap. 1. Licet tota Galeni^tarum schola, mineralia non sine impioet ingrato fastu a sua practica 
detestentiir; tamen in gravioribus morbis, omni vegetabllium derelicto subsidio, ad mineralia conftigiunt, 
licet sa temere, ignaviter, et inutiliter usurpent. Ad finem libri. t Veteres maledictis incessit, vincit, et 
cont^*^ omnem antiquitatem coronatar, ipseque a se victor declaratur. Gal. lib. 1. meth. c. 2. ^ Cod- 

j-onc^'is de sale absynthii. ^ Idem Paracelsus in medicina, quod Lutherus in theologia. yDisput. ia 
euji^em, parte 1. Magus ebrius, illiteratus, dcemonemprieceptorem habuit, daemones familiares, &c. 



450 Cure of Melancholy, [Part. 2. Sec. 5. 

what he did, was done by the help of the devil." Thus they contend and 
rail, and every mart write books pro and con, et adhuc sub judice lis est : let 
them agree as they will, I proceed. 

SuBSECT. IV, — Averters. ^ 

AvERTERS and purgera must go together, as tending all to the same pur- 
pose, to divert this rebellious humour, and turn it another way. In this range, 
clysters and suppositories challenge a chief place, to draw this humour from 
the brain and heart, to the more iguoble parts. Some would have them still 
used a few days between, and those to be made with the boiled seeds of anise, 
fennel, and bastard saffron, hops, thyme, epithyme, mallows, fumitory, bugloss, 
polypody, senna, diasene, hamech, cassia, diacatholicon, hierologodium, oil of 
violets, sweet almonds, &c. For without question, a clyster opportunely used, 
cannot choose in this, as most other maladies, but to do very much good ; 
(Jlysteres nutriunt, sometimes clysters nourish, as they may be prepared, as I 
was informed not long since by a learned lecture of our natural philosophy 
^reader, which he handled by way of discourse, out of some other noted physi- 
cians. Such things as provoke urine most commend, but not sweat. Trinca- 
vellius, consil. 16. cap. 1. in head-melancholy forbid sit. P. Bayerus and others 
approve frictions of the outward parts, and to bathe them with warm water. 
Instead of ordinary frictions. Cardan prescribes rubbing with nettles till they 
blister the skin, which likewise ^Basardus Visontinus so much magnifies. 

Sneezing, masticatories, and nasals are generally received. Montaltus, c. 34. 
Hildesheim, spicel. 3. fol. 136 and 238 give several receipts of all three. 
Hercules de Saxonia relates of an empiric in Venice " '^that had a strong 
water to purge by the mouth and nostrils, which he still used in head-melau- 
choly, and would sell for no gold." 

To open months and hsemorrhoids is very good physic, " °if they have 
been formerly stopped." Faventinus would have them opened with horse- 
leeches, so would Hercul. de Sax.; Julius Alexandrinus, consil. 185. Scoltzii 
thinks aloes fitter: '^most approve horse-leeches in this case, to be applied to 
the forehead, ® nostrils, and other places. 

Montaltus, C(X/>. 29. out of Alexander and others, prescribes "^cupping- 
glasses, and issues in the left thigh." Aretus, lib. 7. cap. 5, ^Paulus Kegolinus, 
Sylvius will have them without scarification, " applied to the shoulders 
and back, thighs and feet:" ^Montaltus, cap. 34. " bids open an issue in the 
arm, or hinder part of the head." ^Piso enjoins ligatures, frictions, supposito- 
ries, and cupping-glasses, still without scarification, and the rest. 

Cauteries and hot irons are to be used " ^in the suture of the crown, and 
the seared or ulcerated place suffered to run a good while. 'Tis not amiss to bore 
the skull with an instrument, to let out the fuliginous vapours." Sallust. Salvi- 
anus, de remedies lib. 2. co^j. 1. "^because this humour hardly yields toother 
physic, would have the leg cauterised, or the left leg, below the knee, ™and 
the head bored in two or three places," for that it much avails to the exhalation 
of the vapours: "^I saw (saith he) a melancholy man at Home, that by no 
remedies could be healed, but when by chance he was wounded in the head, 
and the skall broken, he was excellently cured." Another, to the admiration 

^ Master D. Lapworth. ^ Ant. PMlos. cap. de melan. frictio vertice, &c. b Aqua fortissima 

purgans os, nares, quatn non vult auro vendere. ^ Mercurialis, consil. 6. et 30. hasmorroidum et 

mensium proyocatio juvat, modo ex eorum suppressione ortum habuerit. d Lauren tins, Bruel, &c. 

* P. Bayerus, 1. 2. cap. 13. naribus, &c. f Cucurbitulse siccae, et fontanellas crura siuistro. ^ Hildesheim, 
spicel. 2. Vapores h cerebro trahendi sunt frictionibus universi, cucurbitulis siccis, humeris ac dorso 
atflxis, circa pedes et crura. h Fontanellam aperi juxta occipitium, aut brachium. i Balani, ligature, 
frictiones, &c. k Cauterium fiat sutura coronali, diu fluerepermittantur loca ulcerosa. Trepano etiain 
cranii densitas imminui poterit, ut vaporibus fuliginosis exitus pateat. 1 Quoniam difficulter cedit aliis 

medicamentis, ideo fiat in vertice cauterium, aut crure sinistro infra genu. '^ Fiant duo auttria cauteria, 
cum ossis perforatione. ^^ Vidi Romse melancholicum qui, adliibitis piultis remediis, sanari non poterat, 
sed cum cranium gladio fractum esset, optime sanatus est. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 5.] Alteratives. 451 

of tlie beholders, ''"breaking liis bead with a fall from on high, was instantly 
recovered of his dotage." Gordonius, cap. 13. part. 2. would have these 
cauteries tried last, when no other physic will serve. "^The head to be 
shaved and bored to let out fumes, which without doubt will do much good. 
I saw a melancholy man wounded in the head with a sword, his brain-pan 
broken ; so long as the wound was open he was well, but when his wound 
was healed, his dotage returned again." But Alexander Messaria, a professor 
in Padua, lib. 1. pract. med. cap). 21, de melancliol. will allow no cauteries at 
all, 'tis too stiff a humour and too thick as he holds, to be so evaporated. 

Guianerius, c. 8. Tract. 15. cured a nobleman in Savoy, by boring alone, 
""* leaving the hole open a month together," by means of which, after two 
years' melancholy and madness, he was delivered. All approve of this remedy 
in the suture of the crown ; but Arculauus would have the cautery to be made 
with gold. In many other parts, these cauteries are prescribed for melancholy 
men, as in the thighs, {Mercurialis, consil. ^Q.) arms, legs. Idem, consil. G. and 
19 and 25. Montanus, ^Q. Rodericus a Fonseca, torn. 2. consult. 84. pro hypo- 
chond. coxa dextrd, &c., but most in the head, "if other physic will do no good." 



SuBSECT. V. — Alteratives and Cordials, corrohorating, 
the Eeliques, and mending the Temperament. 

Because this humour is so malign of itself, and so hard to be removed, 
the reliques are to be cleansed, by alteratives, cordials, and such means : the 
temper is to be altered and amended, with such things as fortify and strengthen 
the heart and brain, ""which are commonly both affected in this malady, 
and do mutually misaffect one another : which are still to be given every 
other day, or some few days inserted after a purge, or like physic, as 
occasion serves, and are of such force, that many times they help alone, and 
as ^Arnoldus holds in his Aphorisms, are to be "preferred before all other 
medicines, in v/hat kind soever." 

Amongst this number of cordials and alteratives, I do not find a more present 
remedy, than a cup of wine or strong drink, if it be soberly and opportunely 
used. It makes a ma.n bold, hardy, courageous, "*whetteth the wit," if 
moderately taken, (and as Plutarch ""saith, Symp. 7. quoist, 12.) "it makes 
those which are otherwise dull, to exhale and evaporate like frankincense, or 
quicken, (Xenophon adds) ^as oil doth fire." "^A famous cordial," Matthiolus 
in Dioscoridem calls it, "an excellent nutriment to refresh the body, it makes 
a good colour, a flourishing age, helps concoction, fortifies the stomach, takes 
away obstructions, provokes urine, drives out excrements, procures sleep, clears 
the blood, expels wind and cold poisons, attenuates, concocts, dissipates all 
thick vapours, and fuliginous humours." And that which is all in all to my 
purpose, it takes away fear and sorrow. ^ Cur as edaces dissipat Evius. " It glads 
the heart of man," Psal. civ. 15. hilaritatis dulce seminarium. Helena's bowl, 
the sole nectar of the gods, or that true nepenthes in ^ Homer, which puts away 
care and grief, as Oribasius, 5. Collect, cap. 7. and some others will, was nought 
else but a cup of good wine. It makes the mind of the king and of the 
fatherless both one, of the bond and free man, poor and rich ; it turneth all 
his thoughts to joy and mirth, makes him remember no sorrow or debt, but 

oEt alterum vidi melancholicum, qui ex alto cadens non sine astantium admiratione, liberatus est. 
P Radatur caput et fiat cauterium in capite; procul dubio ista faciunt ad fumorura exhalationem ; vidi 
melancholicum h, fortuna gladio vulneiatum, et cranium fi-actum, quamdiu vulnus apertum, curatus 
optime; at cum vulnus sanatum, reversa est mania. 1 Usque ad duram matrem trepanari feci, et per 

mensem aperte stetit. i' Cordis ratio semper habenda quod cerebro compatitur, et sese invicem officiunt. 
^ Aphor. 38. Medicina Tlieriacalis praj cffituris eligenda. t Galen, de temp. lib. 3. c. 3. moderate vinum 

sumptura acuit ingenium. ^ Tardos alitor et tristes thuris in modum exhalare facit. ^ Plilaritatem 

ut oleum flammara excitat. ^ Viribus retinendis cardiacmn eximium, nutriendo corpori alimentum 

optimum, aatatem floridam facit, calorem innatum fovet, concoctionem juvat, storaachum roborat, excre- 
mentis vlam parat, urinam movet, somnum conciliat, venena, frigidos flatus dissipat, crassos humores 
atteiiuat, coquit, discutit, &c. ^B.ov. lib. 2. od. 11. "Bacchus dissipates corroding cares." ^Odyss. A. 



452 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 5. 

enriclietli his heart, and makes him speak by talents," Esdras iii. 19, 20, 21. 
It gives life itself, spirits, wit, &c. For which cause the ancients called Bacchus, 
Liher pater a liber ando, and ^sacrificed to Bacchus and Pallas still upon an 
altar. "^ Wine measureably drunk, and in time, brings gladness and cheerful- 
ness of mind, it cheereth God and men," Judges ix. 13. Imtiiim Bacchus dator, it 
makes an old wife dance, and such as are in misery to forget evil, and be "* merry. 

" Bacchus et affiictis requiem mortalibiis affert, " Wine makes a troubled soul to rest, 

Crura licet duro compede vincta forent." Thougli feet with fetters be opprest." 

Demetrius in Plutarch, when he fell into Seleucus's hands, and was prisoner 
in Syria, " ''spent his time with dice and drink that he might so ease his dis- 
contented mind, and avoid those continual cogitations of his present condition 
wherewith he was tormented." Therefore Solomon, Prov. xxxi. 6, bids " wine 
be given to him that is ready to ^'perish, and to him that hath grief of heart, 
let him drink that he forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." 
Solicitis animis onus eximit, it easetli a burdened soul, nothing speedier, 
nothing better ; which the prophet Zachariah perceived, when he said, "that in 
the time of Messias, they of Ephraim should be glad, and their heart should 
rejoice as through wine." All which makes me very well approve of that pretty 
description of a feast in ^Bartholomeus Anglicus, when grace was said, their 
hands washed, and the guests sufficiently exhilarated, with good discourse, sweet 
music, dainty fare, exhilarationis gratid, pocula iterum atque iterum offeruntur, 
as a corollary to conclude the feast, and continue their mirth, a grace cup came 
in to cheer their hearts, and they drank healths to one another again and again. 
"Which as I. Fredericus Matenesius, Crit. Christ, lib. 2. cap. 5, 6, & 7, was an 
old custom in all ages in every commonwealth, so as they be not enforced, 
bibere per violent iam, but as in that royal feast of ^ Ahasuerus, which lasted 
180 days, "without compulsion they drank by order in golden vessels," when 
and what they would themselves. This of drink is a most easy and parable 
remedy, a common, a cheap, still ready against fear, sorrow, and such trouble- 
some thoughts, that molest the mind; as brimstone with fire, the spirits on 
a sudden are enlightened by it. "ISTo better physic" (saith 'Bhasis) " for a 
melancholy man : and he that can keep company, and carouse, needs no other 
medicines," 'tis enough. His countryman Avicenna, 31. doct. 2. cap. 8. pro- 
ceeds farther yet, and will have him that is troubled in mind, or melancholy, 
not to drink only, but now and then to be drunk : excellent good physic it is 
for this and many other diseases. Magninus, Eeg. san. part. 3. c. 31. will have 
them to be so once a month at least, and gives his reasons for it, "^because it 
scours the body by vomit, urine, sweat, of all manner of superfluities, and keeps 
it clean." Of the same mind is Seneca the Philosopher, in his book de tranquil. 
lib. 1. c. 15. nonnunquam ut in aliis morbis ad ebrietatem usque veniendum; 
Cur as deprimit, tristitice medetur, it is good sometimes to be drunk, it helps 
sorrow, depresseth cares, and so concludes this tract with a cup of wine : Hahes, 
Serene charissime, quce ad tranquillitatem animce pertinent. But these are 
epicureal tenets, tending to looseness of life, luxury and atheism, maintained 
alone by some heathens, dissolute Arabians, profane Christians, and are 
exploded by Babbi Moses, tract. 4. Guliel. Placentius, lib. 1. cap. 8. Yalescus 
de Taranta, and most accurately ventilated by Jo. Sylvaticus, a late writer 
and physician of Milan, med. cont. cap. 14. where you shall find this tenet 
copiously confuted. 

bPausanias. « Syracides, xxxi. 28. dLegitur et prisci CatonisSsepe mero caluisse virtus, _ ^In 

pocula et aleam se prtecipitavit, et iis fere tempus traduxit, ut asgram crapula mentem levaret, et conditiouis 
prsesentis cogitationes quibus agitabatur sobrius vitaret. f So did the Athenians of old, as Suidas relates, 
and so do the Germans at this day. 8 Lib. 6. cap. 23. et 24. de rerum proprietat. h Esther, i. 8. 

i Tract. 1. cont. 1. 1. Non oestrus laudabilior eo, vel cura melior; qui melancholicus, utatur societate 
hominum et biberia; et qui potest sustinere usum vini, non indiget alia medicina, quod eo sunt omnia ad 
usum necessaria hujus passionis. kTum quod sequatur inde sudor, vouiitio, ui'ina, h quibus 

euperfluitates ti corpore removeutur et remanot corpus mundum, 



Mem. 1. Subs. 5.] Cure of Ilead-MelancJioly. 453 

Howsoever you say, if this be true, that wine and strong drink have such 
virtue to expel fear and sorrow, and to exhilarate the mind, ever hereafter 
let's drink and be merry. 

" 1 Prome reconditum, Lyde strenua, csecuTjum, I " Come, lusty Lyda, fill's a cup of sack, 
Capaciores, puer, hue affer Scyphos, And, sirrali drawer, bigger pots we lack, 

Et Chia villa aut Lesbia." j Aud Scio wines that have so good a smack." 

I say with him in °^A. Gellius, "let's maintain the vigour of our souls with 
a moderate cup of wine," ^Natis in usum IcetiticE scyphis, "and drink to refresh 
our mind; if there be any cold sorrow in it, or torpid bashfulness, let's wash 
it all away."— N unc vino pellite caras ; so saith * Horace, so saith Anacreon, 

MedvovTa yap ^e Ke7a9ai 
IIoXu Kpecaaov t] Oavovra. 

Let's drive down care with a cup of wine : and so say I too (though / drinh 
none myself), for all this may be done, so that it be modestly, soberly, oppor- 
tunely used : so that " they be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess," which 
our ° Apostle forewarns; for as Chrysostom well comments on that place, ad 
Icetitiam datum est vinum, non ad ebrietatem, 'tis for mirth wine, but not for 
madness : and will you know where, when, and how that is to be understood 1 
Vis dicere ubi honum sit vinum ? Audi quid dicat Scripticra, hear the Scrip- 
tures, " Give wine to them that are in sorrow," or as Paul bid Timothy drink 
wine for his stomach's sake, for concoction, health, or some such honest occa- 
sion. Otherwise, as ^ Pliny tells us; if singular moderation be not had, 
" *^nothing so pernicious, 'tis mere vinegar, hlandus doimon, poison itself,'* 
But hear a more fearful doom, Habac. ii. 15. & 16. " Woe be to him that 
makes his neighbour drunk, shameful spewing shall be upon his glory." Let 
not good fellows triumph therefore (saith Matthiolus), that I have so much 
commended wine; if it be immoderately taken, "instead of making glad, it 
confounds both body and soul, it makes a giddy head, a sorrowful heart." 
And 'twas well said of the poet of old, " Wine causeth mirth and grief," 
^nothing so good for some, so bad for others, especially as ^one observes, qui a 
causa calida male habent, that are hot or inflamed. And so of spices, they 
alone, as I have showed, cause head-melancholy themselves, they must not 
use wine as an * ordinary drink, or in their diet. But to determine with 
Laurentius, c. 8. de melan. wine is bad for madmen, and such as are troubled 
with heat in their inner parts or brains ; but to melancholy which is cold (as 
most is), wine, soberly used, may be very good. 

I may say the same of the decoction of China roots, sassafras, sarsaparilla, 
guaiacum: China, saith Manardus, makes a good colour in the face, takes 
away melancholy, and all infirmities proceeding from cold, even so sarsapa- 
rilla provokes sweat mightily, guaiacum dries, Claudinus, considt. 89. & 46. 
Montanus, Capivaccius, considt. 188. ScoUzii, make frequent and good use of 
guaiacum and China, ""so that the liver be not incensed," good for sucli as 
are cold, as most melancholy men are, but by no means to be mentioned in 
hot. 

The Turks have a drink called coffee (for they use no wine), so named of a 
berry as black as soot, and as bitter (like that black drink which was in use 
amongst the Laced£emonians, and perhaps the same), which they sip still of, 
and sup as warm as they can suffer; they spend much time in those coffee- 
houses, which are somewhat like our alehouses or taverns, and there they sit 
chatting and drinking to drive away the time, and to be merry together, 

1 Hor. ™Lib. 15. 2. noct. Att. Vigorem animi moderate vini usu tueamnr, et calefacto simul refo- 

toque animo si quid in eo vel frigidje tristitisB, vel torpentis verecundiiB fuerit, diluamus. ^llov. 1. 1. Od. 
27. * Od. 7. lib. 1. 26. Isam pra^stat ebrium me quam mortuum jacere. ^ Ephes. v. 18. ser. 19. in 

cap. 5. PLib. 14. 5. Kihil perniciosius viiibus, si modus absit, venenum. 1 Theocritus, Idyl. 13. vino 
dan IfEtitiam et dolorem. i^Eenodeus. s jiercurialis, consil. 25. Vinum filgidis optimum, ei? 

pessimum ferina melancholia. tl^'ernelius, consil. 4i et 45, rinum proMbet assiduum, et aromaia. 

^ Modo jecur non iuc^tidatur. 



454 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 5. 

because they find by experience tliat kind of drink, so used, belpetli dio-estion, 
and procuretli alacrity. Some of them take opium to this purpose. 

Borage, balm, saffron, gold, I have spoken of; Montaltus, c. 23. commends 
scorzonera roots condite. Garcias ab Horto, plant, hist. lib. 2. cap. 25. makes 
mention of an herb called datura, "^ which, if it be eaten, for twenty-four 
hours following takes away all sense of grief, makes them incline to laughter 
and mirth:" and another called bauge, like in effect to opium, " which j)uts 
them for a time into a kind of ecstasy," and makes them gently to laugh. One 
of the Roman emperors had a seed, which he did ordinarily eat to exhilarate 
himself. ^Christophorus Ayrerus prefers bezoar stone, and the confection of 
alkermes, before other cordials, and amber in some cases. " ^ Alkermes com- 
forts the inner parts;" and bezoar stone hath an especial virtue against all 
melancholy affections, " ^it refresheth the heart, and corroborates the whole 
body." ^ Amber provokes urine, helps the body, breaks wind, &c. After a 
purge, 3 or 4 grains of bezoar stone, and 3 grains of ambergrease, drunk or 
taken in borage or bugloss water, in which gold hot hath been quenched, will 
do much good, and the purge will diminish less (the heart so refreshed) of the 
strength and substance of the body. 

]^. confect. Alkermes §f5 lap. Bezoar. 9j. 
Succini albi subtiliss. pulverisat. 3jj- cum 
Syrup, de cort. citri; fiat electuarium. 

To bezoar stone most subscribe, Manardus, and ° many others; "it takes 
away sadness, and makes him merry that useth it; I have seen some that 
have been much diseased v/ith faintness, swooning, and melancholy, that tak- 
ing the weight of three grains of this stone, in the water of oxtongue, have 
been cured." Garcias ab Horto brags how many desperate cures he hath done 
upon melancholy men by this alone, when all physicians had forsaken them. 
But alkermes many except against; in some cases it may help, if it be good 
and of the best, such as that of Montpelier in France, which ^lodocus Sin- 
cerus, I tiller ario Gcdlicc, so much magnifies, and would have no traveller omit 
to see it made. But it is not so general a medicine as the other. Fernelius, 
consil. 49, suspects alkermes by reason of its heat, " ^nothing (saith he), sooner 
exasperates this disease, than the use of hot working meats and medicines, 
and would have them for that cause warily taken." I conclude, therefore, of 
this and all other medicines, as Thucydides of the plague at Athens, no 
remedy could be prescribed for it, Nam quod uni profuit, hoc aliis erat exitio : 
there is no catholic medicine to be had : that which helps one is pernicious 
to another. 

Diamargaritum frigidmn, diambra, diahoraginatum, electuarium Icetificans 
Galeni el Rhasis, de gemmis, dianthos, diaTiioschum didce et amarum, electua- 
rium conciliatoris, syrup. Cidoniorum, de pomis, conserves of roses, violets, 
fumitory, enula campana, satyrion, lemons, orange-pills condite, &c., have 
their good use. 

«f ;^^ DiamoscM dulcis et amari, ana ^ij, 
Diabuglossati, Diaboraginati, sacchari yiolacei, 
ana j. misce cum syrupo de pomis." 

Every physician is full of such receipts: one only I will add for the rareness 
of it, wliich I find recorded by many learned authors, as an approved medicine 

^ Per 24 horas sensum doloris omnem tollit, et ridere facit. y Hildesheim, spicel 2. "^ Alkermes 

omnia vitalia viscera mire confortat. ^ Contra omnes melancholicos affectus confert, ac certum est ipsius 
usu omnes cordis et corporis vires mirum in modum refici. b Succinum vero albissimum confortat 

ventriculum, flatum discutit, urinam moret, &c. c Garcias ab Horto, aromatum lib. 1. cap. 15, 

adversus omnes morbos melancholicos conducit, et venenum. Ego (inquit) utor in morbis melancholicis, 
&c ,_et deploratos hujus usu ad pristinam sanitatem restitui. See more in Bauhinus" book de lap. Bezoar 
c. 45. d Edit. 1617. Monspelii electuarium fit preciocissiraum Alcherm. &c. ^ Kihil morbum 

hunc aeque exasperat, ac alimentorum vel calidiorum usus. Alchermes ideo suspectus, et quod semel 
moneam, caute adhibenda calida medicamenta. f Sckenkius, 1. 1. Observat. de Mania, ad mentis aliena- 
tiofieao, et deaipientiam yitio cerebri obortam, in manuscripto codice Germanico, lale medicamentum repexi. 



Mem. l.-Subs. 5.] Cure of Head-Melancholy. 455 

against dotage, head-melanclioly, and such diseases of the brain. Take a 
^ram's head that never meddled with an ewe, cut off at a blow, and the horns 
only take away, boil it well, skin and wool together ; after it is well sod, take 
out the brains, and put these spices to it, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, mace, 
cloves, ana ^ f^, mingle the powder of these spices with it, and heat them in 
a platter upon a chafing-dish of coals together, stirring them well, that they 
do not burn; take heed it be not overmuch dried, or drier than a calf's brains 
ready to be eaten. Keep it so prepared, and for three days give it the patient 
fasting, so that he fast two hours after it. It may be eaten with bread, in an 
egg or broth, or any way, so it be taken. For fourteen days let him use this 
diet, drink no wine, &c. Gesner, hist animal, lib. 1. j^cig. 917, Caricterius, 
{pract. 13. m Nich. demetri. pag. 129. latro: Witenberg. edit. Tubing, pag. 62, 
mention this medicine, though with some variation; he that list may try it, 
*and many such. 

Odoraments to smell to, of rose-water, violet flowers, balm, rose-cakes, 
vinegar, &c., do much recreate the brains and spirits, according to Solomon. 
Prov. xxvii. 9. " They rejoice the heart," and, as some say, nourish: 'tis a 
question commonly controverted in our schools, osri odores nutriant: let Ficinus, 
lib. 2. cap. 18. decide it; ^ many arguments he brings to prove it; as of Demo- 
critus, that lived by the smell of bread alone, applied to his nostrils, for some 
few days, when for old age he could eat no meat. Ferrerius, lib. 2. meth. 
speaks of an excellent confection of his making, of wine, saffron, &c., which 
he prescribed to dull, weak, feeble, and dying men to smell to, and by it to 
have done very much good, ceque fere profuisse olfactu et potu, as if he had 
given them drink. Our noble and learned Lord t Yerulam, in his book de vita 
et morte, commends, therefore, all such cold smells as any way serve to refri- 
gerate the spirits. Montanus, consil. 31, prescribes a form which he would 
bave his melancholy patient never to have oat of his hands. If you will have 
them spagirically prepared, look in Oswaldus CroUius, Basil. Chymica. 

Irrigations of the head shaven, " ^of the flowers of water-lilies, lettuce, 
violets, camomile, wild mallows, wether's-head," kc, must be used many 
mornings together. Montan., consil. 31, would have the head so washed once 
a week. Laelius ^ fonte Eugubinus, consult. 44, for an Italian count, troubled 
with head-melancholy, repeats many medicines which he tried, " ^ but two 
alone which did the cure ; use of whey made of goats' milk, with the extract 
of hellebore, and irrigations of the head with water-lilies, lettuce, violets, 
camomile, &c., upon the suture of the crown." Piso commends a ram's lungs 
applied hot to the fore part of the head, ^or a young lamb divided in the back, 
exenterated, &c. ; all acknowledge the chief cure in moistening throughout. 
Some, saith Laurentius, use powders and caps to the brain; but forasmuch as 
such aromatical things are hot and dry, they must be sparingly administered. 

Unto the heart we may do well to apply bags, epithemes, ointments, of 
which Laurentius, c. 9. de onelan. gives examples. Bruel prescribes an epi- 
theme for tbe heart, of bugloss, borage, water-lily, violet waters, sweet wine, 
balm leaves, nutmegs, cloves, &c. 

For the belly, make a fomentation of oil, ™in which the seeds of cummin, 
rue, carrots, dill, have been boiled. 

Baths are of wonderful great force in this malady, much admired by ° Galen, 

g Caput arietis nondum experti venerem, uno ictu araputatum, cornibus tantum deraotis, integrum cum 
lana €t pelle bene elixabis, turn aperto cerebrum eximes, et addens aroraata, &c. * Cinis testudinia 

ustus, et vino potus melancholiam curat, et rasura cornu Rhinocerotis, &c. Sckenkius. hinstat in 

matrice, qubd sursum et deorsum ad odoris sensum prascipitatur. f Viscount St. Alban's. i Ex 

decocto florum nyrapliese, lactucse, violarum, chamomilis, althens, capitis vervecum, &c. k Inter auxilia 

multa adhibita, duo visa sunt remedium adferre, usus seri caprini cum extracto Hellebori, et irrigatio ex 
lacte Nymphese, violarum, &c. sutune coronali adhibita; liis remediis sanitate pristina adeptus est. 
1 Confert et pulmo arietis, calidus aguus per dorsum divisus, exeuteratus, admotus sincipiti. ™ bemina 

cumiui, rufee, da4ici, auetM cocta. ^ Lib. 3. de locis aft'cct. 



45 G Cure of Melanclioly. [Part. 2. Sec. 5. 

'^^tius, Rhasis, &c., of sweet water, in which are boiled the leaves of mallows, 
roses, violets, water-lilies, wether's-head, flowers of bugloss, camomile, melilot, 
&c. Guianer. ca}^. 8. tract. 15, would have them used twice a day, and when 
they come forth of the baths, their back bones to be anointed with oil of 
almonds, violets, nymphea, fresh capon grease, &c. 

Amulets and things to be borne about, I And prescribed, taxed by some, 
approved by Eenodseus, Platerus (amuleta inquit non negligenda), and others ; 
look for them in Mizaldus, Porta, Albertus, &c. Bassardus Yiscontinus, ant. 
pJiilos. commends hypericon, or St. John's wort gathered on a ^Friday in the 
hour of "Jupiter, when it comes to his effectual operation (that is, about the 
full moon in July); so gathered and borne, or hung about the neck, it mightily 
helps this afiection, and diives away all fantastical spirits." ^Philes, a Greek 
author that flourished in the time of Michael Paleologus, writes that a sheep 
or kid's skin, whom a wolf worried, ^ Hoedus inhumani raptus ah ore lupi, 
ought not at all to be worn about a man, " because it causeth palpitation of 
the heart," not for any fear, but a secret virtue which amulets have. A ring 
made of the hoof of an ass's right fore foot carried about, &c. I say with 
^Kenodseus, they are not altogether to be rejected. Peony doth cure epilepsy; 
precious stones, most diseases; *a wolf's dung borne with one helps the colic, 
"a spider an ag-ue, &c. Being in the country in the vacation time not many 
years since, at Lindley in Leicestershire, my father's house, I first observed 
this amulet of a spider in a nut- shell lapped in silk, &c., so applied for an ague 
by ^my mother; whom, although I knew to have excellent skill in chirurgery, 
sore eyes, aches, &c., and such experimental medicines, as all the country 
where she dwelt can witness, to have done many famous and good cures upon 
diverse poor folks, that were otherwise destitute of help : yet among all other 
experiments, this methought was most absurd and ridiculous, I could see no 
warrant for it. Quid aranea cum febre ? For what antipathy 1 till at length 
rambling amongst authors (as often I do) I found this very medicine in Diosco- 
rides, approved by Matthiolus, repeated by Alderovandus, cap. de Aranea, lib. 
de insectis, I began to have a better opinion of it, and to give more credit to 
amulets, when I saw it in some parties answer to experience. Some medicines 
are to be exploded, that consist of words, characters, spells, and charms, which 
can do no good at all, but out of a strong conceit, as Pomponatius proves ; or 
the devil's policy, who is the first founder and teacher of them. 

SuBSECT. YI. — Correctors of Accidents to procure Sleep. Against fearful 

Dreams, Redness, (he. 

When you have used all good means and helps of alteratives, averters, 
diminutives, yet there will be still certain accidents to be corrected and amended, 
as waking, fearful dreams, flushing in the face to some ruddiness, &c. 

Waking, by reason of their continual cares, fears, sorrows, dry brains, is a 
symptom that much crucifies melancholy men, and must therefore be speedily 
helped, and sleep byall means procured, which sometimes is a sufiicient^ remedy 
of itself without any other physic. Sckenkius, in his Observations, hath an 
example of a woman that was so cured. The means to procure it, are inward 
or outward. Inwardly taken, are simples, or compounds; simples, as poppy, 
nymphea, violets, roses, lettuce, mandrake, henbane, nightshade or solanum, 
safii-on, hemp-seed, nutmegs, willows, with their seeds, juice, decoctions, dis- 

o Tetrab. 2. ser. 1 . cap. 10. P Cap. de mel. collectum die vener. hora Jovis cum ad Energiam venit, i. e. 
ad plenilunium Julii, inde gesta et collo appensa hunc affectum apprime juvat et fanaticos spiritus expellit. 
<l L. de proprietat. animal, ovis a lupo correptse pellem non esse pro indumento corporis usurpandam, cordis 
enim palpitationem excitat, &c. rjiart. sphar. lib. l. cap. 12. t ^tius, cap. 31. Tet. 3. ser. 4. 

^ Dioscorides, Ulysses Alderovandus de aranea. ^ Mistress Dorothy Burton, she died, 1629. ^ riolo 

'somno cui'ata est citra medici aaxilium, foL154. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 6.] Cure of Head-Melancholy. 457 

tilled waters, &c. Compounds are syrups, or opiates, syrup of poppy, violets, 
verbasco, which are commonly taken with distilled waters. 

^. diacodii §j. diascordii 5l^ aquag lactucae ^iij.fi 
mista liat potio ad horam somni sumenda. 

Requies Nicholai, Philonium Romanum, Triphera magna, piluloi de Cyno- 
giossa, Diascordium, Laudanum Paracelsi, Opium, are in use, &c. Country 
folks commonly make a posset of hemp-seed, which Fuchsius in his herbal so 
much discommends; yet I have seen the good effect, and it may be used 
where better medicines are not to be had. 

Laudanum Faracelsi is prescribed in two or three grains, with a drachm of 
DiascordiuTn, which Oswald, Crollius commends. Opium itself is most part 
used outwardly, to smell to in a ball, though commonly so taken by the Turks 
to the same quantity ^for a cordial, and at Goa in the Indies; the dose 40 or 
50 grains. 

Kulandus calls Requiem Nicholai, idtimum refugium, the last refuge ; but 
of this and the rest look for peculiar receipts in Victorius Faventinus, cap. de 
2)hrensi, Heurnius, cap. de mania, Hildesheim, spicel. 4. de somno et vigil. &c. 
Outwardly used, as oil of nutmegs by extraction, or expression with rosewater 
to anoint the temples, oils of poppy, nenuphar, mandrake, purslain, violets, all 
to the same purpose. 

Montan. consil. 24: and 25. much commends odoraments of opium, vine- 
gar, and rosewater. Laurentius, cap. 9. prescribes pomanders and nodules; 
see the receipts in him; Codronchus, ^wormwood to smell to. 

Unguentum Alahastritum, populeum, are used to anoint the temples, nos- 
trils, or if they be too weak, they mix saffron and opium. Take a grain or 
two of opium, and dissolve it with three or four drops of rosweater in a spoon, 
and after mingle with it as much Unguentum populeum as a nut, use it as 
before: or else take half a drachm of opium, Unguentum populeum, oil of 
nenuphar, rosewater, rose- vinegar, of each half an ounce, with as much virgin 
wax as a nut, anoint your temples with some of it, ad horam somni. 

Sacks of wormwood, ^mandrake, ^henbane, roses made like pillows and laid 
under the patient's head, are mentioned by ^Cardan and Mizaldus, "to anoint 
the soles of the feet with the fat of a dormouse, the teeth with ear wax of a 
dog, swine's gall, hare's ears:" charms, &c. 

Frontlets are well known to every good wife, rosewater and vinegar, with 
a little woman's milk, and nutmegs grated upon a rose-cake applied to both 
temples. 

For an emplaster, take of castorium a drachm and a half, of opium half a 
scruple, mixed both together with a little water of life, make two small plasters 
thereof, and apply them to the temples. 

Kulandus, cent. 1. cur. 17. cent. 3. cur. 94. prescribes epithemes and lotions 
of the head, with the decoction of flowers of nymphea, violet-leaves, mandrake 
roots, henbane, white poppy. Here, de Saxonia, stillicidia, or droppings, <fec. 
Lotions of the feet do much avail of the said herbs : by these means, saith 
Laurentius, I think you may procure sleep to the most melancholy man in the 
world. Some use horseleeches behind the ears, and apply opium to the place. 
® Bayerus, lib. 2. c. 13. sets down some remedies against fearful dreams, and 
such as walk and talk in their sleep. Baptista Porta, Mag. nat. I. 2. c. 6. to 
procure pleasant dreams and quiet rest, would have you take hippoglossa, 
or the herb horsetongue, balm, to use them or their distilled waters after 



'^ Bellonius, observat. lib. 3. cap. 15. lassihidinem et labores animi tollunt ; inde Garcias ab Horto, lib. 1. 
cap. 4. simp. med. ^ Absyntbium somnos allicit olfactu. bllead Lcinnius, lib. her. bib. cap. 2. of 

Mandrake. " Hyoscyamas sub cervical! viridis. d Plantain" pedis inungere pingucdine gliris dicunt 

efflcacissimum, et quod vix credi potest, dentes inunctos ex sorditie auriuxa canis somuum profundum con- 
ciliare, &c. Cardan de rerum varietat. ^ Veni meciini lib. 



458 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 5. 

supper, &c. Such men must not eat beans, peas, garlic, onions, cabbage 
venison, hare, use black wines, or any meat hard of digestion at supper, or lie 
on their backs, &c. 

Rusticus 2^udor, bashfulness, flushing in the face, high colour, ruddiness, are 
common grievances, which much torture many melancholy men, when they 
meet a man, or come in ^ company of their betters, strangers, after a meal, or 
if they drink a cup of wine or strong drink, they are as red and fleet, and sweat 
as if they had been at a mayor's feast, prcesertim si rnetus accesserit, it exceeds, 
^ they think every man observes, takes notice of it : and fear alone will effect 
it, suspicion without any other cause. Sckenkius, ohserv. med. lib. 1. speaks of 
a waiting gentlewoman in the Duke of Savoy's court, that was so much 
offended with it, that she kneeled down to him, and offered Biarus, a physician, 
all that she had to be cured of it. And 'tis most true, that ^^ Antony Ludovi- 
cus saith in his book de Fudore^ " bashfulness either hurts or helps," such 
men I am sure it hurts. If it proceed from suspicion or fear, ^ Felix Plater 
prescribes no other remedy but to reject and contemn it: Id populus curat 
scilicet, as a ^ worthy physician in our town said to a friend of mine in like 
case, complaining without a cause, suppose one look red, what matter is it, 
make light of it, who observes if? 

If it trouble at or after meals (as ^ Jobertus observes, 7)ied. pract. I. \.c. 7.), 
after a little exercise or stirring, for many are then hot and red in the face, or 
if they do nothing at all, especially women ; he would have them let blood in 
both arms, first one, then another, two or three days between, if blood abound j 
to use frictions of the other parts, feet especially, and washing of them, be- 
cause of that consent which is between the head and the feet. ^^ And withal 
to refrigerate the face, by washing it often with rose, violet, nenuphar, let- 
tuce, lovage waters, and the like : but the best of all is that lac virginale, or 
strained liquor of litargy : it is diversely prepared ; by Jobertus thus ; ]^. 
lithar. argent, unc. j. cerussce candidissimoi, 5iij. caphurce, 3ij. dissohantur 
aquarum solani, lactucce, et nenupharis ana unc. iij. aceti vini alhi, unc. ij. 
aliquot horas resideat, deinde transmittatur per philt. aqua servetur in vase 
vitreo, ac ed bis terve fades quotidie irroretur. ^ Quercetan spagir. phar. cap. 6. 
commends the water of frogs' spawn for ruddiness in the face. ^ Crato, consil. 
283. Scoltzii would fain have them use all summer the condite flowers 
of succory, strawberry water, roses (cupping-glasses are good for the time), 
consil. 285. e^ 286. and to defecate impure blood with the infusion of senna, 
savory, balm water. ^ Hollerius knew one cured alone with the use of suc- 
cory boiled, and drunk for five months, every morning in the summer. *^ It 
is good overnight to anoint the face with hare's blood, and in the morning to 
wash it with strawberry and cowslip water, the juice of distilled lemons, juice 
of cucumbers, or to use the seeds of melons, or kernels of peaches beaten small, 
or the roots of Aron, and mixed with wheat bran to bake it in an oven, and 
to crumble it in strawberry water, ^ or to put fresh cheese curds to a red face. 
If it trouble them at meal times that flushing, as oft it doth, with sweating 
or the like, they must avoid all violent passions and actions, as laughing, &c., 
strong drink, and drink very little, ^ one draught, saith Crato, and that about 
the midst of their meal; avoid at all times indurate salt, and especially spice 
and windy meat. 

f Aut si quid incautius exciderit ant, &c. 8 Nam qua parte pavor simul est pudor additus illi. Statins. 
Olysipponensis medicus; pudor aut juvat autlsedit. i De mentis alienat. kM. Doctor Ashworth. 

Facies nonnullis maxime calet rubetque, si se paululum exercuerint; nonnullis quiescentibns idem accidit, 
faiminis pr^sertim; causa quicquid fervidum aut halituosum sanguinem facit. ^ Interim faciei pro- 

spiciendumutipsarefrigeretm-; utrumque praBstabit frequens potio ex aquarosarum, violarum, nenupharis, 
&c. ^ Ad faciei ruborem aqua spermatis ranarum. ° Recte utantur in testate floribus Cichorii saccharo 
conditis vel saccharo rosaceo, &c. P Solo usu decocti Cichorii. 1 Utile imprimis noctu faciem illinire 
sanguine leporino, et mane aqua fragorum, vel aqua floribus verbasci cum succo limonum distillate, abluei-e. 
r Utile rubenti faciei caseum recentem imponere. f Consil. 21. lib. unico vini haustu sit contentus. 



Mem. 2.] Cure of Melancholy over all the body. 459 

*Crato prescribes tlie condite fruit of wild rose, to a nobleman bis patient, 
to be taken before dinner or supper, to the quantity of a chestnut. It is made 
of sugar, as that of quinces. The decoction of the roots of sowthistle before 
meat, by the same author is much approved. To eat of a baked apple some 
advise, or of a preserved quince, cumminseed prepared with meat instead of 
salt, to keep down fumes : not to study or to be intentive after meals. 

" ^. Nucleorum persic. seminis melonum, ana uiic.3j[5 
aquai fragoram 1. ij. misce, utatur mane." 

"To apply cupping glasses to the shoulders is very good. For the other 
kind of ruddiness which is settled in the face with pimples, &c., because it 
pertains not to my subject, I will not meddle with it. I refer you to Crato's 
counsels, Arnold us, lib. 1. breviar. cap. 39. 1. Eulande, Peter Forestus de 
Fuco, lib. 31. obser. 2. To Platerus, Mercurialis, Ulmus, Rondoletius, Heur- 
nius, Menadous, and others that have written largely of it. 

Those other grievances and symptoms of headache, palpitation of heart, 
Vertigo^ deliqumm, &c., which trouble many melancholy men, because they 
are copiously handled apart in every physician, I do voluntarily omit. 



MEMB. II. 

Cure of Melancholy over all the Body. 

Where the melancholy blood possesseth the whole body with the brain, ^it 
isbest to begin with blood-letting. The Greeks prescribe the ^ median or middle 
vein to be opened, and so much blood to be taken away as the patient may well 
spare, and the cut that is made must be wide enough. The Arabians hold it 
fittest to be taken from that arm on which side there is more pain and heavi- 
ness in the head : if black blood issue forth, bleed on ; if it be clear and good, 
let it be instantly suppressed, " "^because the malice of melancholy is much 
corrected by the goodness of the blood." If the party's strength will not admit 
much evacuation in this kind at once, it must be assayed again and again : if it 
may not be conveniently taken from the arm, it must be taken from the knees 
and ankles, especially to such men or women whose hsemorrhoids or months have 
been stopped. ''^If the malady continue, it is not amiss to evacuate in a part 
in the forehead, and to virgins in the ankles, who are melancholy for love 
matters; so to widows that are much grieved and troubled with sorrow and 
cares ; for bad blood flows in the heart, and so crucifies the mind. The hsemor- 
rhoids are to be opened with an instrument or horse-leeches, &c. See more in. 
Montaltus, cap. 29. ^Sckenkius hath an example of one that was cured by an 
accidental wound in his thigh, much bleeding freed him from melancholy. Diet, 
diminutives, alteratives, cordials, correctors as before, intermixed as occasion 
serves, " ''all their study must be to make a melancholy man fat, and then the 
cure is ended." Diuretica, or medicines to procure urine, are prescribed by 
some in this kind, hot and cold ; hot, where the heat of the liver doth not forbid j 
cold, where the heat of the liver is very great : *^amongst hot are parsley roots, 
lovage, fennel, <fec. : cold, melon seeds, &c., with whey of goats' milk, which 
is the common conveyer. 

To purge and ® purify the blood, use sowthistle, succory, senna, endive, car- 
duus benedictus, dandelion, hop, maidenhair, fumitory, bugloss, borage, &c., 
with their juice, decoctions, distilled waters, syrups, &c. 

t Idem consil. 283. Scoltzii. laudatur conditns ros£e caninas fructus ante prandium et coenam ad magnitudinem 
castaneoe. Decoctum radicum Sonchi, si ante cibum sumatur, valet plurimiim. ^ Cucurbit, ad scapulas 
appositse. ^Piso. yMediana pree ceteris. ^Succi melancholici malitia ii sanguinis bonitate corri- 
gitur. ^Perseverante malo ex quacunque parte sanguis detralii debet. b Observat. foL 154. curatus 

ex vulnere in crure ob cruovem amissum. '^ Studium sit onine ut melaneholicus impinguetur : ex quo 

enim pingues et carnosi, illico sani sunt. d Hildesheim, spicel. 2. Inter calida radix petroselini, a)jii, 

feniculi ; inter fiigida emulsio seminis melonum cum sero caprino quod est commune vehiculum. ^ j^qq 

uaum prsemoneo, domine, ut sis diligeiis circa vktuiu, sine quo csetera remedia frustca adliibentur. 



460 Cure of Melancholy. [Part. 2. Sec. 5. 

Oswaldus CroUius, Basil. Chym. mucli admires salt of corals in this case, and 
Stills, tetrahib. ser. 2. cap. 114. Hieram Archigenis, which is an excellent 
medicine to purify the blood, "for all melancholy affections, falling sickness, 
none to be compared to it." 



MEMB. III. 
SuBSECT. I. — Cure of Hypochondriacal Melancholy. ' 

In this cure, as in the rest, is especially required the rectification of those 
six non-natural things above all, as good diet, which Montanus, consil. 27. en- 
joins a French nobleman, "to have an especial care of it, without which all 
other remedies are in vain." Blood-letting is not to be used, except the patient's 
body be very full of blood, and that it be derived from the liver and spleen to 
the stomach and his vessels, then ^to draw it back, to cut the inner vein of 
either arm, some say the salvatella, and if the malady be continuate, ^to open 
a vein in the forehead. 

Preparatives and alteratives may be used as before, saving that there must 
be respect had as well to the liver, spleen, stomach, hypochondries, as to the 
heart and brain. To comfort the ^stomach and inner parts against wind and 
obstructions, by Areteus, Galen, -^tius, Aurelianus, &c. and many latter 
writers, are still prescribed the decoctions of wormwood, centaury, penny- 
royal, betony sodden in whey, and daily drunk ; many have been cured by 
this medicine alone. 

Prosper Altinus and some others as much magnify the water of Mle against 
this malady, an especial good remedy for windy-melancholy. For which reason 
belike Ptolemeus Philadelphus, when he married his daughter Berenice to the 
king of Assyria (as Celsus, lib. 2, records), magnis impensis Nili aquam afferri 
jussit, to his great charge caused the water of Nile to be carried with her, and 
gave command that during her life she should use no other drink. I find those 
that commend use of apples, in splenetic and this kind of melancholy (lamb's 
wool, some call it), which howsoever approved must certainly be corrected of 
cold rawness and wind. 

Codronchusinhisbook de saleahysnth. magnifies the oil and salt of wormwood 
above all other remedies, " Hvhich works better and speedier than any simple 
whatsoever, and much to be preferred before all those fulsome decoctions and 
infusions, which must offend by reason of their quantity ; this alone in a small 
measure taken, expels wind, and that most forcibly, moves urine, cleanseth 
the stomach of all gross humours, crudities, helps appetite," &c. Arnoldus 
hath a wormwood wine which he would have used, which every pharmaco- 
poeia speaks of. 

Diminutives and purges may ^be taken as before, of hiera, manna, cassia, 
which Montanus, consil. 230. for an Italian abbot, in this kind prefers before 
all other simples, " ^and these must be often used, still abstaining from those 
which are more violent, lest they do exasperate the stomach, &c., and the 
mischief by that means be increased." Though in some physicians I find 
very strong purgers, hellebore itself prescribed in this affection. If it long 
continue, vomits may be taken after meat, or otherwise gently procured with 
warm w^ater, oxymel, &c., now and then. Puchsius, cap. 33. prescribes helle- 
bore ; but still take heed in this malady, which I have often warned, of hot 

fLaurentius, cap. 15. erulsionis gratia venam internam alterius brachii secamus. 8 Si pertinax morbus, 
venam fronte secabis. Bruell. t Ego maximam curam stomacho delegabo. Octa. Horatianus, lib. 2. c. 7, 
i Citius et efficacius suas -sdres exercet quam solent decocta ac diluta in quantitate multa, et magna cum assu- 
mentium molestia desimipta. Flatus hie sal efficaciter dissipat, urinam movet, humores crassos abstergit, 
stomachum egregie contortat, cioiditatem, nauseam, appetentiam mirum in modum renovat, <fec. k Piso> 

Altomarus, Laurentius, c 15. lUis utendum ssepius iteratia: a vehementioribus semper abstinendum 
ne ventrem exaspereut 



Mem. 3. Subs. 1.] Cure of Hypochondriacal Melancholy. 461 

medicines, ""because (as Sal vi anus adds) drouglit follows heat, wliicb increas- 
eth the disease :" and yet Baptisa Sylvaticus, controv. 32. forbids cold medi- 
cines, ""because they increase obstructions, and other bad symptoms." But 
this varies as the parties do, and 'tis not easy to determine which to use. 
"°The stomach most part in this infirmity is cold, the liver hot ; scarce there- 
fore (which Montanus insinuates, consil. 229. for the Earl of Manfort) can you 
help the one and not hurt the other :" much discretion must be used ; take 
no physic at all he concludes without great need. Lselius JEugubinus, consil. 
for an hypochondriacal German prince, used many medicines; but it was after 
signified to him in ^ letters, that the decoction of China and sassafras, and salt 
of sassafras, wrought him an incredible good." In his 108 consult, he used as 
happily the same remedies ; this to a third might have been poison, by over- 
heating his liver and blood. 

For the other parts look for remedies in Savanarola, Gordonius, Massaria, 
Mercatus, Johnson, &c. One for the spleen, amongst many other, T will not 
omit, cited by Hildesheim, spicel. 2. prescribed by Mat. Flaccus, and out of 
the authority of Benevenius. Anthony Benevenius in a hypochondriacal 
passion, " ^ cured an exceeding great swelling of the spleen with capers alone, 
a meat befitting that infirmity, and frequent use of the water of a smith's forge; 
by this physic he helped a sick man, whom all other physicians had forsaken, 
that for seven years had been splenetic." And of such force is this water, 
"'^'that those creatures as drink of it, have commonly little or no spleen." See 
more excellent medicines for the spleen in him, and ^Lod. Mercatus, who is a 
great magnifier of this medicine. This Chalyhs 2^Tceparatus, or steel-drink, is 
much likewise commended to this disease by Daniel Sennertus, I. 1. part 2. 
ca}-). 12. and admired by J. Coesar Claudinus, Respons. 29. he calls steel the 
proper * alexipharmacum of this malady, and much magnifies it; look for 
receipts in them. Averters must be used to the liver and spleen, and to scour 
the meseraic veins ; and they are either too open or provoke urine. You can 
open no place better than the hsemorrhoids, "which if by horse-leeches they 
be made to flow, "there may not be again such an excellent remedy," as Plater 
holds. Sallust. Salvian. will admit no other phlebotomy but this; and by his 
experience in an hospital which he kept, he found all mad and melancholy men 
worse for other bloodletting. Laurentius, cap. 15. calls this of horse-leeches 
a sure remedy to empty the spleen and meseraic membrane. Only Montanus, 
consil. 241. is against it; "^to other men (saith he) this opening of the 
haemorrhoids seems to be a profitable remedy ; for my part I do not approve 
of it, because it draws away the thinnest blood, and leaves the thickest behind." 

^tius, Yidus Yidius, Mercurialis, Fuchsius, recommend diuretics, or such 
things as provoke urine, as aniseeds, dill, fennel, germander, ground pine, 
sodden in water, or drunk in powder; and yet "^P. Bayerus is against them ; and 
so is Hollerius : " All melancholy men (saith he) must avoid such things as 
provoke urine, because by them the subtle or thinnest is evacuated, the thicker 
matter remains." 

Clysters are in good request. Trincavellius, lib. 3. cap. 38. for a young 
nobleman, esteems of them in the first place, and Hercules de Saxonia, Panth. 

™Lib. 2. cap. 1. Quoniam caliditate conjuncta est siccitas qufe malum auget. ^Quisquis fi-igidis 

auxiiiis hoc morbo usus fuerit, is obstructionem aliaque symptomata augebit. o Ventriculiis ple- 

rumque frigidus, epar calidiim ; quomodo ergo veiitriculiim calefaciet, vel refrigerabit hepar siue alterius 
maximo detrimento ? P Significatum per literas, incredibilem utilitatem ex decocto Cliinte, et Sassafras 

percepisse. <lTumorem splenis incurabilem sola cappari curavit, cibo tali Eegritudini aptissimo : Soloque 
usu aquffi, in qua faber ferrarius ssepe candcns femim extinxerat, &c. ^ Animalia quaj apud hos fabros 

cducantLir, exigaos habent lienes. ^1j.\. cap. 17. tContinuus ejus usus semper felicemin zegris ficem 
est assequutus. ^ Si Hemorroides fluxerint, nullum prasstantius esset remedium, quaj sanguisugis admotis 
provocari poterunt. obsen-at. lib. 1. pro hypoc. leguleio. ^ Aliis apertio hsec in hoc morbo videtur utiUs- 
sima; mihi non admodum probatur, quia sanguinem tenuem attrahit et crassum relinquit. yLib. 2. cap. 
13. omnes melancholici debent omittere urinam provocautia, quoniam per ea educitur subtile, et remauet 
crassum. 



462 Oiore of Melancholy, , [Part. 2. Sec. -5. 

l%b. 1. caj). 16. is a great approver of them. "''I have found (saith he) by- 
experience, that many hypochondriacal melancholy men have been cured by 
the sole use of clysters," receipts are to be had in him. 

Besides those fomentations, irrigations, inunctions, odoraments, prescribed 
for the head, there must be the like used for the liver, spleen, stomach, hypo- 
chondries, &c. "^In crudity (saith Piso) 'tis good to bind the stomach hard" 
to hinder wind, and to help concoction. 

Of inward medicines I need not speak; use the same cordials as before. In 
this kmdof melancholy, some prescribe ^ treacle in winter, especially before or 
after purges, or in the spring, as Avicenna, '^ Trincavellius mithridate, ^Montal- 
tus paeony seeds, unicorn's horn j os de corde cervi, &c. 

Amongst topics or outward medicines, none are more precious than baths, 
"but of them I have spoken. Fomentations to the hypochondries are very good, 
of wine and water in which are sodden southernwood, melilot, epithyme, mug- 
wort, senna, polypody, as also ® cerotes, ^plaisters, liniments, ointments for the 
spleen, liver, and hypochondries, of which look for examples in Laurentius, 
Jobertus, lib. 3. c. 1. pra. med., Montanus, consil. 231. Montaltus, cap. 33. 
Hercules de Saxonia, Faventinus. And so of epithemes, digestive powders, 
bags, oils, Octavius Horatianus, lib. 2. c. 5. prescribes calastic cataplasms, or 
dry purging medicines^ Piso ^dropaces of pitch, and oil of rue, applied at 
certain times to the stomach, to the metaphrene, or part of the back whichisover 
against the heart, ^tius sinapisms; Montaltus, ca/>. 35. would have the thighs 
to be ^cauterised, Mercurialis prescribes beneath the knees; Lselius ^ugubinus 
consil. 77. for a hypochondriacal Dutchman, will have the cautery made in the 
right thigh, and so Montanus, consil. 55. The same Montanus, consil. 34. 
approves of issues in the arms or hinder part of the head. Bernardus Paternus 
in Hildesheim, spicel. 2. would have ^issues made in both the thighs; ^Lod. 
Mercatus prescribes them near the spleen, aut prope ventriculi regionem, 
or in either of the thighs. Ligatures, frictions, and cupping-glasses above or 
about the belly, without scarification, which ^Felix Platerus so much approves, 
may be used as before. 

SuBSECT. II. — Correctors to expel Wind. Against Costiveness, c&c. 

In this kind of melancholy one of the most offensive symptoms is wind, 
which, as in the other species, so in this, hath great need to be corrected 
and expelled. 

The medicines to expel it are either inwardly taken, or outwardly. Inwardly 
to expel wind, are simples or compounds : simples are herbs, roots, &c,, as 
galanga, gentian, angelica, enula, calamus aromaticus, valerian, zeodoti, iris, 
condite ginger, aristolochy, cicliminus, China, dittandcr, pennyroyal, rue, 
calamint, bay-berries, and bay-leaves, betony, rosemary, hyssop, sabine, cen- 
taury, mint, camomile, stoechas, agnus castus, broom-flowers, origan, orange 
pills, &c. ; spices, as saffron, cinnamon, bezoar stone, myrrh, mace, nutmegs, 
pepper, cloves, ginger, seeds of anise, fennel, amni, cari, nettle, rue, <fec., 
juniper berries, granaparadisi; compounds, dianisum, diagalanga, diaciminum, 
diacalaminth, electuarium de baccis lauri, benedicta laxativa, pulvis ad status, 
antid. florent. pulvis carininativus, aromaticum rosatum, treacle, mithridate, &c. 
This one caution of "^Gualter Bruell is to be observed in the administering of 

^Ego experientia probavi, multos Hypocondriacos solo usu Clysterum faisss sanatos. ^lu cruditate 

optimum, ventriculum arctius alligari. b g j. Theriacas, vere prassertim et gestate. '^ Cons. 12. 

1. 1. dCap. 33. 6 TrincaveUius, consil. 15. cerotum pro sene melancliolico ad jecur. optimum. f Em- 
plastra pro splene, Femel. consil. 45. SDropax fe pice navali, et oleo rutaceo affigatur ventriculo, et toti 

metaphreni. hCauteria cruribus inusta. i Fontanellee sint in utroque crure. , k Lib. 1. c. 17. iDe 
mentis alienat. c. 3. flatus egi'ejrie discutiunt materiamque evocant. ^ Cavendum hie diligenter a multum 
calefacientibus, atque exsiccantibus, sire alimenta fuerint hsec, sive medicamenta : nonnuUi enira ut vento- 



Mem. 3. Subs. 2,] Cure of Hypoclwndriacal Melancholy. 463 

tliese hot medicines and dry, " that whilst they covet to expel wind, they do 
not inflame the blood, and increase the disease; sometimes (as he saith) 
medicines must more decline to heat, sometimes more to cold, as the cir- 
cumstances require, and as the parties are inclined to heat or cold." 

Outwardly taken to expel wind, are oils, as of camomile, rue, bay, &g. ; 
fomentations of the hypochondries, with the decoctions of dill, pennyi'oyal, 
rue, bay leaves, cummin, &c., bags of camomile flowers, aniseed, cummin, 
bays, rue, wormwood, ointments of the oil of spikenard, wormwood, rue, &c. 
^ Areteus prescribes cataplasms of camomile flowers, fennel, aniseed, cummin, 
rosemary, wormwood-leaves, &c. 

° Cupping-glasses applied to the hypochondries, without scarification, do 
wonderfully resolve wind. Fernelius, consil. 43. much approves of them at 
the lower end of the belly ; ^ Lod. Mercatus calls them a powerful remedy, 
and testifies moreover out of his own knowledge, how many he hath seen 
suddenly eased by them. Julius Csesar Claudinus, Respoiis. med. resp. 33. 
admii-es these cupping-glasses, which he calls out of Galen, " ^ a kind of en- 
chantment, they cause such present help." 

Empyrics have a myriad of medicines, as to swallow a bullet of lead, &c., 
which I voluntarily omit. Amatus Lusitanus, cent 4. curat. 54, for a hypo- 
chondriacal person, that was extremely tormented with wind, prescribes a 
strange remedy. Put a pair of bellows' end into a clyster pipe, and applying 
it into the fundament, open the bowels, so draw forth the wind, natura non 
admittit vacuum. He vaunts he was the first invented this remedy, and by 
means of it speedily eased a melancholy i^an. Of the cure of this flatuous 
melancholy, read more in Fienus,deflatibus, cap. 26. et passim alias. 

Against headache, vertigo, vapours which ascend forth of the stomach to 
molest the head, read Hercules de Saxonia, and others. 

If costiveness ofiend in this, or any other of the three species, it is to be 
corrected with suppositories, clysters or lenitives, powder of senna, condite 
prunes, &c. ]^ Elect, lenit. e succo rosar. ana § j. misce. Take as much as a 
nutmeg at a time, half an hour before dinner or supper, or pit. mastichin. 
§ j in six pills, a pill or two at a time. See more in Montan., consil. 229. 
Hiidesheim, spice/. 2. P. Cnemander, and Montanus, commend " ^ Cyprian 
turpentine, which they would have familiarly taken, to the quantity of a 
small nut, two or three hours before dinner and supper, twice or thrice a 
week if need be; for besides that it keeps the belly soluble, it clears the 
stomach, opens obstructions, cleanseth the liver, provokes urine." 

These in brief are the ordinary medicines which belong to the cure of 
melancholy, which if they be used aright, no doubt may do much good ; Si 
non levando, saltern leniendo valent peculiaria bene selecta^ saith Bessardus, 
a good choice of particular receipts must needs ease, if not quite cure, not 
one, but all or most, as occasion serves. Et qucB non prosunt singula^ mulla 
juvant. 

sitates et rugitas compescant, htijusmodi utentes medicamentis, plurimum peccant, morbum sic augentes: 
debent enim medicamenta declinare ad calidum vel frigidum secundum exigentiam circumstantiarum, vel 
Tit patiens inclinat ad cal. et frigid. ^^Cap. 5. lib. 7. ° Piso Bruel. mire flatus resolvit. PLib. 1. 

c. 17. nonnullos pree tensione ventris deploratos illico restitutes his ridimus. i Velut incantamentum 

quoddam, ex flatuoso spiritu dolorem ortum levant. ^ Terebinthinam Cj-priam habeant familiarem, 

ad quantitatem deglutiant nucis parvje, tribus horis ante prandium vel coenam, tev singulis septimanis 
prout expedire videbitur ; nam praeterquam quod alvum mollem efficit, obstructiones aperit, ventriculum 
purgat, urinam provocat, liepar mundificat. 



THE 



SYNOPSIS OF THE THIRD PARTITION. 



i^ 



Preface or Introduction. Subsect. 1. 

Love's definition, pedigree, object, fair, amiable, gracious, and pleasant, from which 
comes beauty, grace, which all desire and love, parts affected. 

Natural, in things without life, as love and hatred of elements ; and with 

life, as vegetable, vine and elm, sympathy, antipathy, &c. 
Sensible, as of beasts, for pleasure, preserv^ation of kind, mutual agree- 
ment, custom, bringing up together, &c. 

Profit- C Health, wealth, honour, we love our benefac- 
able, -< tors: nothing so amiable as profit, or that 

Sabs. 1. ( which hath a show of commodity. 

' Tilings without life, made by art, pictures, 
sports, games, sensible objects, as hawks, 
hounds, horses; or men themselves, for 
similitude of manners, natural affection, as 
to friends, children, kinsmen, &c., for glory 
such as commend us. 

("Before marriage, as Heroical Mel, 
Of wo- ~ ~ " 



Division 
or kinds, 
Subs. 2. 



' Simple, 
which 
hath 
three 
objects, 
as M. 1. 






Pleasant, 
Sabs. 2. ^ 



Honest, 
Sabs. 3. 



Ileroical 
or Love- 
Melan- 
choly, in 
which 
consider, 



Causes, 
Memb. 2. 



Sect. 2, vide <Y^ 
Or after marriage, as Jealousy, Sect. 
3, vide ^ 
(Fucate in show, by some error or hypocrisy; 
-< some seem and are not ; or truly for virtue, 
( honesty, good parts, learning, eloquence, &c. 
Mixed of f Common good, our neighbour, country, friends, which is 
all three, charity; the defect of which is cause of much discon^ 
which J tent and melancholy, 
extends ] or ( Li excess, vide n. 

to M. 3. [God, Sect. 4. (In dQiect, vide gs. 
'Memb. 1. 

His pedigree, power, extent to vegetables and sensible creatures, as well as 

men, to spirits, devils, &c. 
His name, definition, object, part affected, tyranny. 

Stars, temperature, full diet, place, country, clime, condition, idle- 
ness, S. 1. 
Natural allurements, and causes of love, as beauty, its praise, how 

it allureth. 
Comeliness, grace, resulting from the whole or some parts, as face, 

eyes, hair, hands, &c. Subs. 2. 
Artificial allurements, and provocations of lust and love, gestures, 

apparel, doAvry, money, &c. 
Quest. Whether beauty owe more to Art or Nature? Subs. 3. 
Opportunity of time and place, conference, discourse, music, sing- 
ing, dancing, amorous tales, lascivious objects, familiarity, gifts, 
promises, &c. Subs. 4. 
Bawds and Philters. Subs. 5. 

Dryness, paleness, leanness, waking, sighing, &c. 
Quest. An detur pulsus amatorius ? 

( Fear, sorrow, suspicion, anxiety, &c. 
Bad, as ■< A hell, torment, fire, blindness, &c. 
(jj, ( Dotage, slavery, neglect of business. 

\ Spruceness, neatness, courage, aptness to 
Good, as I learn music, singing, dancing, poetry, &c. 
Prognostics; despair, madness, phrensy, death, Memb. 4. 
By labour, diet, physic, abstinence, Sabs. 1. 

To withstand the beginnings, avoid occasions, fair and foul means, 
change of place, contrary passion, witty inventions, discommend 
the former, bring in another, Subs. 2. 
{ By good counsel, persuasion, from future miseries, inconveniences^ 
&c.. Subs. 3. 
By philters, magical, and poetical cures. Subs. 4. 
To let them have their desire disputed pro and con. Impediments 
removed, reasons for it, Subs. 5. 



Symp- 
toms or 
signs, 
Memb. 3. 



Of body 



Of mind. 



Cures, 
Memb. 5. 



Synopsis of ilve Third Partition. 



4:(j5 



'His name, definition, extent, power, tyranny, Memh. 1. 



2q 

CO ^ 

pi 

1i 
o 

X) 



Division, 
Equivo- 
cations, 
kinds, 
Subs. 1. 



Causes, 
Sect. 2. 



Improper 



'roper 



In the parties 
themselves, 



Cm-es, 
Memh. 4. 



Causes, 
Sahs. '1 



(From 
others. 



fin excess 
of such 
as do 
that 
which 
is not 
required. 
Memb. 1. 



or 

from them- 
selves. 






To many beasts, as swans, cocks, bulls. 
3 To kings and jmnces, of their subjects, successors. 
1 To frieads, parents, tutors over their children, or other- 
{_ wise. 

j Before marriage, corrivals, &c. 
(After, as in this place our present subject. 
Idleness, impotency in one party, melancholy, long ab- 
sence. 
They have been naught themselves. Hard usage, un- 
kindness, wantonness, inequality of years, persons, 
fortunes, &c. 

1^ from others. ~ Outward enticements and provocations of others. 
Symptoms, j Fear, sorrow, suspicion, anguish of mind, strange actions, gestures, looks, 
Memb. 2. \ speeches, locking up, outrages, severe laws, prodigious trials, &c. 
Prognostics, JDespair, madness, to make away themselves, 
Memb. 3. \ and others. 

By avoiding occasions, always busy, never to be idle. 
By good counsel, advice of friends, to contemn or dissemble it. Subs. 1. 
By prevention before marriage. Plato's communion. 
] To marry such as are equal in years, birth, fortunes, beauty, of like con- 
ditions, &c. 
Of a good family, good education. To use them well. 
'a proof that there is such a species of melancholy, name, object God, 
what his beauty is, how it alluretli, part and j)arties affected, super- 
stitious, idolaters, prophets, heretics, &c.. Sabs. 1. 

C The devil's allurements, false miracles, priests for 
} their gain. Politicians, to keep men in obe- 
( dience, bad instructors, blind guides. 
I Simplicity, fear, ignorance, solitariness, melan- 
-< choly, curiosity, pride, vain-glory, decayed 
( image of God. 

knowledge, obstinacy, superstition, 
stupidity, confidence, stiff de- 
tenets, mutual love k hate of other 
edibilities, impossibilities. 
Of heretics, pride, contumacy, contempt of others, 
wilfulness, vain -glory, singularity, prodigious 
paradoxes. 
In superstitious blind zeal, obedience, strange 
works, fasting, sacrifices, oblations, prayers, 
vows, pseudo-martyrdom, mad and ridiculous 
customs, ceremonies, observations. 
In pseudo-prophets, visions, revelations, dreams, 
prophecies, new doctrines, &c., of Jews, Gen- 
tiles, Mahometans, &c. 
-P, X' o 7. /I (New doctrines, paradoxes, blasphemies, madness, 

Prognostics, Subs. 4. | stupidity, despair, damnation. 

( By physic, if need be, conference, good counsel, 
Cures, Subs. 5. ■< persuasion, compulsion, correction, punishment. 

( Quceritur an cogi dehent ? Affir. 
Epicures, atheists, magicians, hypocrites, such as have cau- 
terised consciences, or else are in a reprobate sense, worldly- 
secure, some philosophers, impenitent sinners, Subs. 1. 

The devil and his allurements, rigid preachers, 
that wound their consciences, melancholy, con- 

, templation, solitariness. 

Subs. 2. \ How melancholy and despair differ. Distrust, 
weakness of faith. Guilty conscience for of- 
fence committed, misunderstanding Scr. 
f Fear, sorrow, anguish of mind, extreme toi*- 
} tures and horror of conscience, fearful 
( dreams, conceits, visions, &c. 
Blasphemy, violent death. Subs. 4. 
Physic, as occasion serves, conference, not to 
be idle or alone. Good counsel, good com- 
pany, all comforts and contents, &c. 
2 a 



In defect, 

as 
Memb. 2. 



Symptoms, 
Sabs. 3. 



^Gene- 
ral 



Parti- 
cular. 




Secure, void 
of grace and 
fears. 

or 

Distrustful, 
or too ti- 
morous, as 
desperate. 
In despair 
consider. 



Causes, 



Symptoms, 
Subs. 3. 

Prognostics. 
Cures, S. 5. 



THE THIED PARTITION. 

LOYE-MELANCHOLY. 



THE FIRST SECTIOISr, MEMBEE, SUBSECTION. 



The Preface. 

There will not be wanting, I presume, one or other that will much discom- 
mend some part of this treatise ot love-melancholy, and object (which ^ Eras- 
mus in his preface to Sir Thomas More suspects of his) " that it is too light 
for a divine, too comical a subject to speak of love symptoms, too fantastical, 
and fit alone for a wanton poet, a feeling young love-sick gallant, an efterai- 
nate courtier, or some such idle person." And 'tis true they say : for by the 
naughtiness of men it is so come to pass, as ^Caussinus observes, ut castis 
auribus vox amoris suspecta sit, et invisa, the very name of love is odious to 
chaster ears ; and therefore some again, out of an afiected gravity, will dislike 
all for the name's sake before they read a word ; dissembling with him in 
''Petronius, and seem to be angry that their ears are violated with such obscene 
speeches, that so they may be admired for grave philosophers and staid car- 
riage. They cannot abide to hear talk of love toys, or amorous discourses, 
vultu, gestu, oculis in their outward actions averse, and yet in their cogita- 
tions they are all out as bad, if not worse than others. 

" d Erubuit, posuitque meum Lucretia librum, 
Sed coram Bruto, Brute recede, legit." 

But let these cavillers and counterfeit Catos know, that as the Lord John 
answered the queen in that Italian ^ Guazzo, an old, a grave discreet man is 
fittest to discourse of love matters, because he hath likely more experience, 
observed more, hath a more staid judgment, can better discern, res(?lve, 
discuss, advise, give better cautions, and more solid precepts, better inform his 
auditors in such a subject, and by reason of his riper years sooner divert. 
Besides, nihil in hdc amoris voce subtimendum, there is nothing here to be 
excepted at ; love is a species of melancholy, and a necessary part of this my 
treatise, which I may not omit; operi suscepto insei^viendum fuit : so Jacobus 
Mysillius pleadeth for himself in his translation of Lucian's dialogues, and 
so do I ; I must and will perform my task. And that short excuse of Mercerus 
for his edition of Aristsenetus shall be mine, " ^ If I have spent my time ill to 
write, let not them be so idle as to read." But I am persuaded it is not so 
ill spent, I ought not to excuse or repent myself of this subject, on which 
many grave and worthy men have written whole volumes, Plato, Plutarch, 

^Encom. Morise. leviores esse nugas quam utTlieologum deceant. i>Lib. 8. Eloquent, cap. 14. de affec- 
tibus mortalium vitio fit qui prjeclara quseque in pravos usus vertunt. ^ Quoties de amatoriis mentio 

facta est, tam vehementer excandui; tam severa tristitia violari aures meas obsceno sermone nolui, ut me 
tanquam unum ex Philosophis intuerentur. d Martial. " In Brutus' presence Lucretia blushed and laid 
my book aside; M'hen he retired, she took it up again and read." ^Lib. 4. of civil conversation. f Si 
male locata est opera scribendo, m ipsi locent iii legendo. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Preface. 4G7 

Plotlnus, Maximus Tyrius, Alcinous, Avicenna, Leon Hebreus in three large 
dialogues, Xenophon, synipos. Theophrastus, if we may believe Athenseus, lib. 
13. cap. 9. Picus Rlirandula, Marius j3^]quicola, both in Italian, Kornmannus, 
de linea Amoris, lib. 3. Petrus Godefridus hath handled in three books, P. 
Hsediis, and which almost every physician, as Arnoldus, Villanovanus, Valle- 
riola, Observat. med. lib. 2. observ. 7. ^lian Montaltus and Laurentius in their 
treatises of melancholy, Jason Pratensis, de morb. cap. Yalescus de Taranta, 
Gordonius, Hercules de Saxonia, Savanarola, Langius, &c., have treated of 
apart, and in their works. I excuse myself therefore with Peter Godefridus, 
Yalleriola, Ficinus, and in ^Langius' words: " Cadmus Milesius writ fourteen 
books of love, and why should I be ashamed to write an epistle in favour of 
young men, of this subject ?" A company of stern readers dislike the second 
of the ^aeids, and Virgil's gravity, for inserting such amorous passions in an 
heroical subject ; but ^Servius, his commentator, justly vindicates the poet's 
worth, wisdom, and discretion in doing as he did, Castalio would not have 
young men read the ^ Canticles, because to his thinking it was too light and 
amorous a tract, a ballad of ballads, as our old English translation hath it. He 
might as well forbid the reading of Genesis, because of the loves of Jacob and 
Rachael, the stories of Sichem and Dinah, Judah and Thamar ; reject the 
Book of Numbers, for the fornications of the people of Israel with the Moabites ; 
that of Judges, for Sampson and Dalilah's embracings ; that of the Kings, for 
David and Bersheba's adulteries, the incest of Ammon and Thamar, Solomon's 
concubines, &c., the stories of Esther, Judith, Susanna, and many such. 
Dicearchus, and some other, carp at Plato's majesty, that he would vouchsafe 
to indite such love toys : amongst the rest, for that dalliance with Agatho, 

" Suavia dans Agathoni, animam ipse in labra tenebam ; 
^gra etenim properans tanquam abitura fait." 

For my part, saith ^ Maximus Tyrius, a great platonist himself, me non tan- 
turn adnmxitio habet, sed etiam stupor, I do not only admire but stand amazed 
to read, that Plato and Socrates both should expel Homer from their city, 
because he writ of such light and wanton subjects. Quod Junonem cum Jove in 
Ida concuTiibentes inducit, ab immortali nube contectos, Vulcan's net, Mars 
and Yenus' fopperies before all the gods, because Apollo fled when he was 
persecuted by Achilles, the ^gods were wounded and ran whining away, as 
Mars that roared louder than Stentor, and covered nine acres of ground with 
his fall, Yulcan was a summer's day falling down from heaven, and in Lemnos 
Isle brake his leg, &c., with such ridiculous passages ; when as both Socrates 
and Plato by his testimony writ lighter themselves : quid enim tain distat 
(as he follows it quam amans a temperante, formarum admirator a dementCy 
what can be more absurd than for grave philosophers to treat of such fooleries, 
to admire Autiloquus, Alcibiades, for their beauties as they did, to run after, 
to gaze, to dote on fair Phsedrus, delicate Agatho, young Lysis, fine Char- 
mides, hceccine Philosophum decent 1 Doth this become grave philosophers % 
Thus peradventure Callias, Thrasimachus, Polus, Aristophanes , or some of his 
adversaries and emulators might object ; but neither they nor ™Anytus and 
Melitus his bitter enemies, that condemned him for teaching Critias to tyran- 
nise, his impiety for swearing by dogs and plain trees, for his juggling sophistry, 
&c., never so much as upbraided him with impure love, writing or speaking of 
that subject; and therefore without question, as he concludes, both Socrates 
and Plato in this are justly to be excused. But suppose they had been a little 

SMeci. epist. 1. 1. ep. 14. Cadmus Milesius, teste Suida, de hoc Erotico Amore 14 libros scripsit, nee mo 
pigebit in gratiam a'iolescentum banc scribere epi^.tola!n. h Comment, in 2. iEneid. i:\Ieros 

amores meram impndicitiam sonave videtur nisi, &c. kSer. 8. IQuod risum et eonim ainores 

commemoret. ^Quum multa ei objecissent quod Critiam tyrannidem docuisset, quod Platonera juraiot 
loquacem sopbistam, &c. accusationom amoris nullam fecerunt. Ideoque honestus amor, «&c. 



468 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 1. 

overseen, slionld divine Plato be defamed ? no, rather as he said of Cato's 
drunkenness, if Catowere drunk, it should be no vice at all to be drunk. They 
reprove Plato then, but without cause (as ^Ficinus pleads) " for all love is 
honest and good, and they are worthy to be loved that speak well of love." 
*' Being to speak of this admirable affection of love" (saith "Yalleriola) " there 
lies open a vast and philosophical field to my discourse, by which many lovers 
become mad, let me leave my more serious meditations, wander in these phi- 
losophical fields, and look into those pleasant groves of the Muses, where with 
unspeakable variety of flowers, we may make garlands to ourselves, not to 
adorn us only, but with their pleasant smell and juice to nourish our souls, and 
fill our minds desirous of knowledge," &c. After a harsh and unj^leasing dis- 
course of melancholy, which hath hitherto molested your patience and tired the 
author, give him leave with ^Godefridus the lawyer, and Laurentius {cap. 5.) 
to recreate himself in this kind after his laborious studies, " since so many 
grave divines and worthy men have without offence to manners, to help them- 
selves and others, voluntarily written of it." Heliodorus, a bishop, penned a 
love story of Theagines and Chariclea, and when some Gatos of his time repre- 
hended him for it, chose rather, saith ^ Nicephorus, to leave his bishopric than 
his book, ^neas Sylvius, an ancient divine, and past forty years of age (as 
*'he confesseth himself, after Pope Pius Secundus), indited that wanton history 
of Euryalus and Lucretia. And how many superintendents of learning could 
I reckon up that have written of light fantastical subjects ? Beroaldus, Eras- 
mus, Alpheratius, twenty-four times printed in Spanish, &c. Give me leave 
then to refresh my muse a little, and my weary readers, to expatiate in this 
delightsome field, hoc deliciarum campo, as Fonseca terms it, to ^season a 
surly discourse with a more pleasing aspersion of love matters : Edulcare 
mtam convenit,2& the poet invites us, curas nugis, &c., 'tis good to sweeten our 
life with some pleasing to3'^s to relish it, and as Pliny tells us, magna, pars 
studiosorum amcenitates quoirimus, most of our students love such pleasant 
* subjects. Though Macrobius teach us otherwise, " ^that those old sages 
banished all such light tracts from their studies to nurse's cradles, to please 
only the ear ;" yet out of Apuleius I will oppose as honourable patrons, Solon, 
Plato, ^Xenophon, Adrian, &c. that as highly approve of these treatises. On 
the other side methinks they are not to be disliked, they are not so xmfit. I 
will not peremptorily say as one did, '^tam suavia dicam facinora, ut mode sit 
ei qui talibus non delectetur, I will tell you such pretty stories, that foul befall him 
that is not pleased with them j Neque dicam ea quce vohis usui sit audivisse, et 
voluptati meminisse, with that confidence as Beroaldus doth his enarrations on 
Propertius. I will not expect or hope for that approbation which Lipsius gives 
to his Epictetus; plurisfacio quum relego; semper ut novum, et quum repetivi, 
repetendum, the more I read, the more shall I covet to read. I will not press 
you with my pamphlets, or beg attention, but if you like them you may. 
Pliny holds it expedient, and most fit, severitatem jucunditate etiam in scriptis 
condire, to season our works with some pleasant discourse ; Synesius approves 
it, licet in ludicris ludere, the ^poet admires it, Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit 

^Carpunt alii Platonicam majestatem quod aiaori nimium indulserit, Dicearclius et alii; sed male. 
Omnis amor honestus et bonus, et amore dicfni qui bene dicunt de Amore. ''Med. obser. lib. 2. 

cap. 7. de admirando amoris affectu dicturus, Ingens patet campus et philosophicus, quo ssepe homin s 
ducuntur ad insaniam, libeat mode vagari, &c. quse non ornent modo, sed fragrantia et sacculentia 
jucunda plenius alant, &c. P Lib. 1. prsefat. de amoribus agens relaxandi animi causa laboriosissimis 

studiis fatigati; quando et Theologi se his juvari et juvare illassis movibus voluat. ^Hist. lib. 12. 

cap. 34. '^Prgefat. quid quadrageuario convenit cum amore? Ego vero agnosco amatorium scrip- 

tum mihi non convenire, qui jam meridiem prastergressus in vesperem feror. ^Eneas Sylvius, prsefat. s ut 
severiora studia lis amcenitatibus lector condire possit. Accius. tDiscum quam philosophum audire 

malunt. ^In Som. Scip. e sacrario suo tum ad cunas nutricum sapientes eliminarunt, solas aurium 
delitias profltentes. ^Babylonius et Ephesius, qui de Amore scripserunt, uterque amores JVIyrrhse, 

Cyrenei, et Adonidis. Suidas. y Pet. Aretiue, dial. Ital. ^Hor. " He has accoinplished every point 

who has joined the useful to the agreeable." 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Preface. 4G9 

utile dulci; and there be those, without question, that are more willing to read 
such toys, than ^I am to write : " Let«.me not live/' saith Aretine's Antonia, 
"if I had not rather hear thy discourse, ''than see a play !" No doubt but 
there be more of her mind, ever have been, ever will be, as ^Hierome bears 
me witness, A far greater part had rather read Apuleius than Plato : Tully 
himself confesseth he could not understand Plato's Timseus, and therefore 
cared less for it; but every schoolboy hath that famous testament of Grunuius 
Corocotta Porcellus at his fingers' ends. The comical poet, 

"M siMnegoti credidit solum dari, 

Populo ut placerent, quas fecisset fal)ulas,"(i 

made this his only care and sole study to please the people, tickle the ear, and 
to delight; but mine earnest intent is as much to profit as to please; non tarn 
ut populo placerem, quam ut populum juvarem, and these my writings, I hope, 
shall take like gilded pills, which are so composed as well to tempt the appe- 
tite, and deceive the palate, as to help and medicinally work upon the whole 
body; my lines shall not only recreate, but rectify the mind. I think I have 
said enough; if not, let him that is otherwise minded, remember that of 
*Maudarensis, "• he was in his life a philosopher (as Ausonius apologizeth for 
him), in his epigrams a lover, in his precepts most severe; in his epistle to 
Casrellia, a wanton." Annianus, SuljDicius, Evemus, Menander, and many old 
poets besides, did in scriptis jji^urire, write Fescennines, Attellanes, and lasci- 
vious songs; Icetam materiam ; yet they had in moribus censwram, et severi- 
tatem, they v/ere chaste, severe, and upright livers. 

" Castum esse decet pium poetam 
Ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est, 
Qui turn denique habent salem et leporem."^ 

I am of Catullus' opinion, and make the same apology in mine own behalf; 
Hoc etiam quod scribo, pQndet plerumque ex cdiorum sententia et auctoritate ; 
nee ipse for san insariio, sed insanientes sequor. Aiqui detur hoc insanire me; 
semel insanivimus omnes, et tute i2Jse opinor insanis aliquando, et is, et ille, et 
ego, scilicet.^ Homo smn, hmivtni a me nihil alienum puto : ^ And which he 
urgeth for himself, accused of the like fault, I as justly plead, Hasciva est nobis 
paylna,vitaproba est. Howsoevermy lines err. my life is honest, ^vitaverecundn 
est, 'iiiusa jocosa Tiiihi. But I presume I need no such apologies, I need not, 
as Socrates in Plato, cover his face when he spake of love, or blush and hide 
mine eyes, as Pallas did in her hood, when she was consulted by Jupiter about 
Mercury's marriage, quod super nuptiis r'irp'o co?i5M^?iMr, it isnosuchlascivious, 
obscene or wanton discourse; I have not ofi^'ended your chaster ears with any- 
thing that is here written, as many French and Italian authors in their modern 
language of late have done, nay some of our Latin pontifical writers, Zanches, 
Asorius, Abulensis, Burchardus, &c., whom ^Bivet accuseth to be more lasci- 
vious than Virgil in Priapeiis, Petronius in Catalectis, Aristophanes in Lycis- 
tratae, Martialis, or any other pagan profane writer, qui tarn atrociter ('one 
notes) hoc ge7iere peccdrunt ut multa ingeniosissime scripta obscoenitatum gratia 
castce mentes abhorreant. 'Tis not scurrile this, but chaste, honest, most part 
serious, and even of religion itself. "^Incensed (as he said) with the love of 
finding love, we have sought it, and found it." More yet, I have augmented 

^ Legendi cnpidiores, quam ego scribendi, saith Lucian. b Plus capio voluptatis inde, quam spectand-'s 

in theatro ludis. ''Prooemio in Isaiam. Multo major pars Jlilesias fabulas revolventium quam Platonis 
libros. d " This lie took to be his only business, that the plays which he wi-ote should please the people." 

* In vita philosophus, in Epigram, amatoi', in Epistolis petulans, in prseceptis severus. ^ "1 he poet 

himself should be chaste and pious, but h'S verses need not imitate him in these respects ; they may therefore 
contain wit and humour." f "This that I \n-ite depends sometimes upon the opinion and authority of 

others: nor perhaps am I frantic, I only follow madmen : But thus far I may be deranged : we have all been 
so at some one time, and yourself, I think, art sometimes insane, and th.s man, and that man, and I also." 
S " I am mortal, and think no humane actiou unsuited to me." b Mart. i Ovid. k Isago. ad sac. scrip. 
cap. 13. iBarthius, notis in Coelestinam, ludum Hisp. '^Ficinus, Comment, c. 17. Amore inccnsi 

inveniendi amoiis, amorem quasiivimus et invenimus. 



470 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 1 

and added sometliingto this light treatise (if light) which was not in the former 
editions, I am not ashamed to confess it, with a good "^author, quod extendi et 
locupletari hoc suhjectum plerique postulabant, et eorum importunitate victus, 
animurti utcunque remtentem eb adegi, ut jam sexta vice calamwm in Tnanuni 
sumerem, scriptionique longe et a studiis et professione ined alienee me accinge- 
rem, horas aliquas a seriis meis occupationihus interim suffuratuSy easque 
veluti ludo cuidam ac recreationi 



" ^ Cogor retxorsum 

Vela dai-e, atque iterare cursms 
Glim relLctos " 

€tsi nan ignorarem novos fortasse detractores novis hisce interpolationihus meis 
mi7iime defuturos? 

And thus much have I thought good to say by way of preface, lest any man 
(which ^ Godefridus feared in his book) should blame in me lightness, wanton- 
ness, rashness, in speaking of love's causes, enticements, symptoms, remedies, 
lawful and unlawful loves, and lust itself, ^'I speak it only to tax and deter 
others from it, not to teach, but to show the vanities and fopperies of this 
heroical or herculean love, ^and to apply remedies unto it. I will treat of this 
with like liberty as of the rest. 

"tSed dicam voMs, vos porro dicite multis 
Millibus, et facite haee charta loq^uatar anus." 

Condemn me not, good reader, then, or censure me hardly, if some part of this 
treatise to thy thinking as yet be too light ; but consider better of it ; Omnia 
munda mundis, ^ a naked man to a modest woman is no otherwise than a pic- 
ture, as Augusta Livia truly said, and ^mala mens, malus animus, 'tis as 'tis 
taicen. If in thy censure it be too light, I advise thee as Li^^sius did his 
reader for some places of Plautus, istos quasi Sir enum scopulos pr(Etervehare, if 
they like thee not, let them pass ; or oppose that which is good to that which 
is bad, and reject not therefore all. For to invert tliat verse of Martial, and 
withHierom Wolfiustoapplyit to my present purpose, sunt mala, sunt qucedam 
mediocria, sunt bonaplura; some is good, some bad, some is indifferent. I 
say further with him yet, I have inserted (^levicula qucedam et ridicula ascri- 
here non sum gravatus, circumforanea qucedam e theatris, e plateis, etiam e 
popims) some things more homely, light, or comical, litans gratiis, &c. which I 
would request every man to interpret to the best, and as Julius Csesar Scaliger 
besought Cardan {si quid urbajiiuscule lusumdnohis, per deos immortales te ore, 
Rieronyme Cardane, ne me male capias). I beseech thee, good reader, not to 
mistake me, or misconstrue what is here written ; Per Musas et Charites, et 
omnia Poetarum numina, henigne lector, oro te ne me male capias. 'Tis a 
comical subject; in sober sadness I crave pardon of what is amiss, and desire 
thee to suspend thy judgment, wink at small faults, or to be silent at least ; 
but if thou likest, speak well of it, and wish me good success. Extremum 
hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede lahorem.'^ 

I am resolved howsoever, velis, nolis, audacter stadium intrare, in the Olym- 
pics, with those ^liensian wrestlers in Philostratus, boldly to show myself in 

"^ Author CoelestinsB, Barth. Interprete. " That, overcome hy the solicitations of friends, who requested me 
to enlarge and improve my volumes, 1 have devoted my otherwise reluctant mind to the labour ; and now for the 
sixth time have I taken up my pen, and applied myself to literature very foreign indeed to my studies and prtv 
fessional occupations, stealing a few hours from serious pursuits, and devoting them, as it were, to recreation." 
<> Hor. lih. 1. Ode 34^ " I am compelled to reverse my sails, and retrace my former course." P " Although 
I was by no means ignorant that new calumniators would not be wanting to censure my new introductions." 
1 H ffic prsedixi ne quis temere nos putaret sciipsisse de amorum lenociniis, de praxi, fornicationibus, adul- 
teriis, &c. ^ Tasando et ab his deterrendo humanam lasciviam et Insaniam, sed et remedia docendo : non 
igitur candidus lector nobis succenseat, &c. Commonitio erit juvenibus haec, hisce ut abstineant magis, et, 
omissa lascivia quae homines reddit insanos, virtutis incumbant studiis, (J-lneas Sylv.) et curam amoris si quis 
nescit, hinc poterit scire. sjyjartianus Capella, lib. 1. de nupt. philol. virginali suffusa rubore oculos pep'o 
obnubens, &c. t Catullus. " What I tell you, do you tell to the multitude, and make this treatise gossip 

like an old woman." ^ Viros nudos cast* feminjB nihil k statuis distare. ^Hony soit qui mal y pense. 

y P: aef Suid. » " Arethusa, smile on this my last laboui\" 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Ohje^Hs of Love. 471 

this common stage, and in this tragi-comedy of love^ to act several parts, some 
satirically, some comically, some in a mixed tone, as the subject I have in 
hand'^ives occasion, and present scene shall require, or offer itself. 

SuBSECT. II. — Loves Beginning, Object, Definition, Division. 

" Love's limits are ample and great, and a spacious walk it hath, beset with 
thorns," and for that cause, which ^Scaliger reprehends in Cardan, "not 
lightly to be passed over." Lest I incur the same censure, I will examine all 
the kinds of love, his nature, beginning, difference, objects, how it is honest or 
dishonest, a virtue or vice, a natural passion, or a disease, his power and effects, 
how far it extends : of which, although something has been said in the first 
partition, in those sections of perturbations ("^ for love and hatred are the 
first and most common passions, from which all the rest arise, and are attend- 
ant," as Picolomineus holds, or as Nich. Caussinus, the 'prhnum mobile of all 
other affections, which carry them all about them), I will now more copiously 
dilate, through all his parts and several branches, that so it may better appear 
what love is, and how it varies with the objects, how in defect, or (which is 
most ordinary and common) immoderate, and in excess, causeth melancholy. 

Love universally taken is defined to be a desire, as a word of more ample 
signification : and though Leon Hebreus, the most copious writer of this sub- 
ject, in his third dialogue make no difference, yet in his first he distinguisheth 
them again, and defines love by desire. "^ Love is a voluntary affection, and 
desire to enjoy that which is good. ^Desire wisheth, love enjoys; the end of 
the one is the beginning of the other ; that which we love is present ; that 
which we desire is absent." "^It is worth the labour," saith Plotinus, "to 
consider well of love, whether it be a god or a devil, or passion of the mind, or 
partly god, partly devil, partly passion." He concludes love to participate of 
all three, to arise from desire of that which is beautiful and fair, and defines it 
to be " an action of the mind desiring that which is good." ^ Plato calls it 
the great devil, for its vehemency, and sovereignty over all other passions, and 
defines it an appetite, "^by which we desire some good to be present." Ficinus 
in his comment adds the word fair to this definition. Love is a desii^e of 
enjoying that which is good and fair. Austin dilates this common definition, 
and will have love to be a delectation of the heart, "^for something which we 
seek to win, or joy to have, coveting by desire, resting in joy." ^Scaliger, 
Exerc. 301. taxeth these former definitions, and will not have love to be defined 
by desire or appetite ; " for w^hen we enjoy the things we desire, there remains 
no more appetite :" as he defines it, " Love is an affection by which we are 
either united to the thing we love, or perpetuate our union ; " wliich agrees in 
part with Leon Hebreus. 

Now this love varies as its object varies, which is always good, amiable, fair, 
gracious, and pleasant. "^AU thiugs deske that which is good," as we are 
taught in the Ethics, or at least that which to them seems to be good ; quid 
enim vis ■mali (as Austin well infers) die mihi ? puto nihil in omnibus actioni- 
hus; thou wilt wish no harm, I suppose, no ill in all thine actions, thoughts or 
desires, nihil mali vis ; ^thou wilt not have bad corn, bad soil, a naughty tree, 

''Exerc. 301. Campus amoris maximus et spinis obsitns, nee levissimo pede transvolandus. ^Grad. 1. 

cap. 29. Ex Pla'tone. priraee et cominunissimas perturbationes ex quibus ceterte oriuntur et earnm sunt pedis- 
sequse. bAmor est voluntarius atfectus et desiderium re bona fruendi. ''Desiderium optantis, 

amor eorum quibus fruimur ; amoris principium, desiderii finis, amatuui adest. dPrincipio 1. de amore. 

OperaB pretium est de amore considerare, utnim Deus, an Dtemon, an passio qujedam animae, an partim Deus, 
partim Daemon, passio partim, &c. Amor est actus animi bonmn desiderans. ^ Magnus Daemon convivio. 

f Boni pulchrique fruendi desiderium. SQodefridus, 1. 1. cap. 2. Amor est delectatio cordis, alicujus ad 

aliquid, propter aliquod desiderium in appetendo, et gaudium pertruendo per desiderium curreus, requies- 
cens per gaudium. h Non est amor desiderium aut appetitus ut ab omnibus hactenus traditum ; nam cum 
potimur amata re, non manec appetitus; est igitur affectus quo cum re amata aut unimur, aut unioneiu 
perpetuamus. i Omnia appetunt bonum. k Terrum non vis malam, malum segctem, sad bouaiu 

ai'borem, equum bouum, «iijc. 



472 Love-Melanclwly. [Part. 3. Sec. 1. 

but all good ; a good servant, a good horse, a good son, a good friend, a good 
neighbour, a good' wife. From this goodness comes beauty ; from beauty, 
grace, and comeliness, which result as so many rays from their good parts, 
make us to love, and so to covet it : for were it not pleasing and gracious in 
our eyes, we should not seek, " ^ No man loves (saith Aristotle 9. mor. cap. 5.) 
but he that was first delighted with comeliness and beauty." As this fair 
object varies, so doth our love ; for as Proclus holds, Omne pulchrum amabile, 
every fair thing is amiable, and what we love is fair and gracious in our eyes, 
or at least we do so apprehend and still esteem of it. " "^ Amiableness is the 
object of love, the scope and end is to obtain it, for whose sake we love, and 
which our mind covets to enjoy." And it seems to us especially fair and good ; 
for good, fair, and unity, cannot be separated. Beauty shines, Plato saith, 
and by reason of its splendour and shining causeth admiration; and the fairer 
the object is, the more eagerly it is sought. For as the same Plato defines it, 
" ^ Beauty is a lively, shining or glittering brightness, resulting from efiiised 
good, by ideas, seeds, reasons, shadows, stirring up our minds, that by this 
good they may be united and made one." Others will have beauty to be the 
perfection of the whole composition, " ° caused out of the congruous symmetry, 
measure, order and manner of parts, and that comeliness which proceeds from 
this beauty is called grace, and from thence all fair things are gracious." For 
grace and beauty are so wonderfully annexed, " ^ so sweetly and gently win 
our souls, and strongly allure, that they confound our judgment and cannot be 
distinguished. Beauty and grace are like those beams and shinings that come 
from the glorious and divine sun," which are diverse, as they proceed from 
the diverse objects, to please and afiect our several senses. " *^ As the species 
of beauty, are taken afc our eyes, ears, or conceived in our inner soul,*, as Plato 
disputes at large in his Dialogue de j)ulchro, Phcedro, Hyppias, and after many 
sophistical errors confuted, concludes that beauty is a grace in all things, 
delighting the eyes, ears, and soul itself; so that, as Yalesius infers hence, 
whatsoever pleaseth our ears, eyes, and soul, must needs be beautiful, fair, and 
delightsome to us. "^'And nothing can more please our ears than music, or 
pacify our minds." Fair houses, pictures, orchards, gardens, fields a fair 
hawk, a fair horse is most acceptable unto us ; whatsoever pleaseth our eyes 
and ears, we call beautiful and fair ; " ^ Pleasure belongeth to the rest of the 
senses, but grace and beauty to these two alone." As the objects vary and 
are diverse, so they diversely affect our eyes, ears, and soul itself Which 
gives occasion to some to make so many several kinds of love as there be 
objects. One beauty ariseth from God, of which and divine love S. Dionysius,* 
with many fathers and Neoterics, have written just volumes, De amore Dei, as 
they term it, many pargeuetical discourses ; another from his creatures ; there 
is a beauty of the body, a beauty of the soul, a beauty from virtue, /orma??! 
7)iartyruhi, Austin calls it, quam videmus ocidis animi, which we see with the 
eyes of our mind ; which beauty, as TuUy saith, if we could discern with these 
corporeal eyes, admirahiles sui amores excitaret, would cause admirable affec- 
tions, and ravish our souls. This other beauty which ariseth from those 
extreme parts, and graces which proceed from gestures, speeches, several 
motions, and proportions of creatures, men and women (especially from women, 

1 Nemo amore capitur nisi qui faerit ante foi'raa specieque delectatus. ™ Amabile objectum araoris et 

Scopus, cujus adeptio est finis, cujus gratia amamus. Animus enim aspirat ut eo fruatur, et fonnam boni 
habet et prsecipue videtur et placet. Picolomineus, gi-ad. 7. cap. 2. et grad. 8. cap. 35. ^ Forma est 

vitalis fulgor ex ipso bonomanans, per ideas, semina, rationes, umbras effusus, animos excitansut perbonum 
in unura redigantm*. ° Pulchritudo est perfectio compositi ex congruente ordine, mensura et ratione 

partium consurgens, et venustas inde prodiens gratia dicitur et res omnes pulclu'^ gratiosa. P Gratia et 

pulchritudo ita sua\iter animos demulcent, ita vehementer alliciunt, et admirabiliter connectuntur, ut in 
unum confundant et distingui non possunt, et sunt tauquam radii et splendores divini solis in rebus variis 
vario modo fulgentes. 1 Species pulchritudin^s hauriuntur oculis, auribus, aut concipiimtur inteiTia mcnte. 
r Nihil hinc magis animos concihat qu^m musica, pulcliric pictuise, jedes, &c. ^ In reliquis seuisbiis 

voluptas, in his pulchritudo et gratia. t Lib. 4. de diviuis. Convivio Pluionis. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] 



Objects of Love. 



473 



which made those okl poets put the three graces still in Venus' company, as 
attending on her, and holding up her train) are infinite almost, and vary their 
names with their objects, as love of money, covetousness, love of beauty, lust, 
immoderate desire of any pleasure, concupiscence, friendship, love, good-will, &c. 
and is either virtue or vice, honest, dishonest, in excess, defect, as shall be 
showed in his place. Heroical love, religious love, &c. which may be reduced 
to a twofold division, according to the principal parts which are affected, the 
brain and liver. Amor et aniicitia, which Scaliger, Exerciiat. 301, Yalesius 
and Melancthon warrant out of Plato cpiXuv and s^av from that speech of 
Pausanias belike, that makes two Veneres and two loves, " ^^ One Venus is 
ancient without a mother, and descended from heaven, whom we call celestial ; 
the younger, begotten of Jupiter and Dione, whom commonly we call Venus." 
Picinus, in his comment upon this place, cap. 8, following Plato, calls these 
two loves, two devils, or good and bad angels according to us, which are still 
hovering about our souls. " ^The one rears to heaven, the other depresseth 
us to hell ; the one good, which stirs us up to the contemplation of that divine 
beauty for whose sake we perform justice and all godly offices, study philo- 
sophy, &c. j the other base, and though bad yet to be respected ] for indeed 
both are good in their own natures : procreation of children is as necessary as 
that finding out of truth, but therefore called bad, because it is abused, and 
withdraws our soul from the speculation of that other to viler objects," so far 
Picinus. S. Austin, lib. 15. de civ. Dei et sup. Psal. Ixiv., hath delivered as 
much in effect. " ^ Every creature is good, and may be loved well or ill : " 
and " ^ Two cities make two loves, Jerusalem and Babylon, the love of God 
the one, the love of the world the other ; of these two cities we all are citizens, 
as, by examination of ourselves, we may soon find, and of which." The one 
love is the root of all mischief, the other of all good. So, in his 15. cap. lib. 
de amor. Ecclesice, he will have those four cardinal virtues to be nought else but 
love rightly composed; in his 15. book de civ. Dei, cap. 22. he calls virtue the 
order of love, whom Thomas following 1. part. ^. qucest. 55. art. 1. and qucest. 
56. 3. quoist. 62. art. 2. confirms as much, and amplifies in many words. 
^ Lucian, to the same purpose, hath a division of his own, " One love was 
born in the sea, which is as various and raging in young men's breasts as the 
sea itself, and causeth burning lust : the other is that golden chain which 
was let down from heaven, and with a divine fury ravisheth our souls, made 
to the image of God, and stirs us up to comprehend the innate and incor- 
ruptible beauty to which we were once created." Beroaldus hath expressed 
all this in an epigram of his : — 



" Dogmata divini memovant si vera Platonis, 
Sunt geminje Veneres, et geminatus amor. 

Coelestis Venus est nullo senerata parents, 
Qu£B casto sanctos nectit amore viros. 

Altera sed Venus est totum vuljiata per orbem, 
Quae diviim mentes alligat, atque liominum ; 

Improba, seductrix, petulans," &c. 



" If divine Plato's tenets they be true, 

Two Veneres, two loves there be ; 
The one from heaven, unbegotten still, 

Which knits our souls in unitie. 
The other famous over all the world, 

Binding the hearts of gods and men ; 
Dishonest, wanton, and seducing she, 

Rules whom she will, both where and when. 



This twofold division of love, Origen likewise follows, in his Comment on 
the Canticles, one from God, the other from the devil, as he holds (understand- 
ing it in the worse sense), which many others repeat and imitate. Both which 
(to omit all subdivisions) in excess or defect, as they are abused, or degenerate, 
cause melancholy in a particular kind, as shall be shown in his place. Austin, 



^ Ditge Veneres duo amores ; quarum nna antiquior et sine matre, coelo nata, quam ccelestem Venerem 
nuncupamns ; altera vero junior a Jove et Dione prognata, quam vulgarem Venerem vocamus. ^ Alter ad 
superna erigit, alter dejn-i'.nit ad interna; alter excitat hominem ad divinam pulchritudinein lustrandam, 
cujus causa philosophiaj studia et justitiae, &c. ^Onmis creatura cum bona sit, et bene amari potest et 

male. ^Duas civitates duo taciunt amores; Jerusalem facit amor Dei, Babylonem amor sseculi ; unus- 

quisque se quid amet interroget, et inveniet unde sit civis. b Alter mari onus, ferox, varius, tluctuans, 

ill animis, juvenum, mare referens, &c. alter aurea catena, coelo demissa, bonum furoremmentibus mittens, &c. 



474 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3, Sec. 1. 

in another Tract, makes a threefold division of this love, which we may use 
well or ill : " ^ God, onr neighbour, and the world : God above us, our neigh- 
bour next us, the world beneath us. In the course of our desires, God hath 
three things, the world one, our neighbour two. Our desire to God, is either 
from God, with God, or to God, and ordinarily so runs. From God, when it 
receives from him, whence, and for v/hich it should love him : with God, when 
it contradicts his will in nothing : to God, when it seeks to him, and rests itself 
in him. Our love to our neighbour may proceed from him, and run witli him, 
not to him : from him, as when we rejoice of his good safety, and well doing: 
with him, when we desire to have him a fellow and companion of our journey 
in the way of the Lord : not in him, because there is no aid, hope, or confidence 
in man. From the world our love comes, when we begin to admire the Creator 
in his works, and glorify God in his creatures : with the world it should run, 
if, according to the mutability of all temporalities, it should be dejected in 
adversity, or over elevated in prosperity : to the world, if it would settle itself 
in its vain delights and studies." Many such partitions of love I could repeat, 
and subdivisions, but lest (which Scaliger objects to Cardan, Exercitat. 501.) 
" ^ I confound filthy burning lust with pure and divine love," I will folio v/ that 
accurate division of Leon Hebreus, dial. 2. betwixt Sophia and Philo, where 
he speaks of natural, sensible, and rational love, and handleth each apart. 
Natural love or hatred, is that sympathy or antipathy which is to be seen in 
animate and inanimate creatures, in the four elements, metals, stones, gravia 
tendunt deorsum^ as a stone to his centre, fire upward, and rivers to the sea. 
The sun, moon, and stars go still round, ^Amantes naturm debita exercere, for 
love of perfection. This love is manifest, I say, in inanimate creatures. How 
comes a loadstone to draw iron to it? jet chafi"? the ground to covet showers, 
but for love? No creature, S. Hierom concludes, is to be found, quod non 
aliquid amat, no stock, no stone, that hath not some feeling of love. 'Tis 
mofe eminent in plants, berbs, and is especially observed in vegetables ; as 
between the vine and elm a great sympathy, between the vine and the cabbage, 
between the vine and the olive, ^ Virgo fugit Bromium, between the vine and 
bays a gi-eat antipathy, the vine loves not the bay, "^nor his smell, and 
•will kill him, if he grow near him ; " the bur and the lentil cannot endure 
one another, the olive ^ and the myi-tle em-brace each other, in roots and 
branches if they grow near. Read more of this in Picolomineus, grad. 7. 
cap. 1. Crescentius, lib. 5. de a^?-ic., Baptista ToTta. de mag. lib. 1. cap. de 
plaiit. odio et element, sym., Fracastorius de sym. et antip. of the love and hatred 
of planets, consult with every astrologer. Leon Hebreus gives many fabulous 
reasons, and mora^liseth them withal. 

Sensible love is that of brute beasts, of which the same Leon Hebreus, dial. 2. 
assigns these causes. First, for the pleasure they take in the act of generation, 
male and female love one another. Secondly, for the preservation of the 
species, and desire of young brood. Thirdly, for the mutual agreement, as 
being of the same kind : Sus sui, canis cani, bos bovi, et asinus asino pul~ 
cherrimus videtur, as Epicharmus held, and according to that adage of Dioge- 
nianus, Adsidet usque graculus apud gtaculum, they much delight in one 
another's company, ^Foi'micce grata est formica, cicada cicadce, and birds of a 
feather will gather together. Fourthly, for custom, use, and familiarity, as if 
a dog be trained up with a lion and a bear, contrary to their natures, they will 

"Tria sunt, quT amari "k nobis bsnfe vel malfe possunt ; Deus, proxiraus, mnndus ; Deus supra nos ; juxfa 
DOS proximus ; infia nos niundus. Tria Deus, duo proximus, unum mundus liabet, &c. d Ne confua- 

dtim vesaiios et foedo.s amores beatis, sceleratum cum pure, divino, et vero, &c. ^Fonseca, cap. 1. Amor 

ex AuKustini forsan lib. 11. de Civit. Dei. Amorc in concussus stat mundus, &c. fAlciat. spovta: 

Vitis laurum non amat, nee ejus odorem ; si prope crescat, enecat. Lappus lenti adversatur. h Sympailiia 
olei et myi-ti ramorum et radicum se compleetentium. Mizaldus, secret, cent. 1. 47. ITlicocritus, 

eidyU. 9. 



Mera. 1. Sabs. 2.] Objects of Love. 475 

lore eacli other. Hawks, dogs, liorses, love their masters and keepers: many- 
stories I could relate in this kind, but see Gillius de hist. anim. lib. 3. cap 14, 
those two Epistles of Lipsius, of dogs and horses, Agellius, &g. Fifthly for 
bringing up, as if a bitch bring up a kid, a hen ducklings, a hedge-sparrow 
a cuckoo, &c. 

The third kind is Amor cognitionis, as Leon calls it, rational love, Intellecti- 
vus amor, and is proper to men, on which I must insist. This appears in God, 
angels, men. God is love itself, the fountain of love, the disciple of love, as 
Plato styles him; the servant of peace, the God of love and peace; have 
peace with all men and God is with you. 



"kQuisquis veneratur Olympum, 

Ipse sibi muudain subjicit atque Deuin." 

"^By this love (saith Gerson) we purchase heaven, and buy the kingdom 
of God." This ™love is either in the Trinity itself (for the Holy Ghost is the 
love of the Father and the Son, &c., John iii. 35, and v. 20, and xiv. 31), or 
towards us His creatures, as in making the world. Amor mundum fecit, love 
built cities, mundi anima, invented arts, sciences, and all "good things, in- 
cites us to virtue and humanity, combines and quickens; keeps peace on 
earth, quietness by sea, mirth in the winds and elements, expels all fear, 
anger, and rusticity; Circidus a bono in bonum, a round circle still from 
good to good; for love is the beginner and end of all our actions, the efficient 
and instrumental cause, as our poets in their symbols, impresses, ^emblems 
of rings, squares, &c. shadow unto us, 

" Si rerum qiiaeris fuerit qiiis finis et ortus, I " If first and last of any thinj? you wit, 

Desine; nam causa est uuica solus amor." | Cease; love's the sole and only cause of it." 

Love, saith ^ Leo, made the world, and afterwards in redeeming of it, " God 
so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son for it," John iii. 1 6. 
" Behold what love the Father hath showed on us, that we should be called the 
sons of God," 1 John iii. 1. Or by His sv/eet providence, in protecting of it; 
either all in general, or His saints eleat and church in particular, whom He 
keeps as the apple of His eye, whom he loves freely, as Hosea xiv. 5. speaks, 
and dearly respects, ^ Charior est ipsis homo quam sibi. Not that we are fair, 
nor for any merit or grace of ours, for we are most vile and base ; but out of 
His incomparable love and goodness, out of His Divine Nature. And this is 
that Homer's golden chain, which reacheth down from heaven to earth, by 
which every creature is annexed, and depends on his Creator. He made all, 
saith ^Moses, "and it was good;" He loves it as good. 

The love of angels and living souls is mutual amongst themselves, towards 
us militant in the church, and all such as love God; as the sunbeams irradiate 
the earth from those celestial thrones, they by their well wishes reflect on us, 
^in salute hominum promovendd alacres, et constantes administri, there is joy 
in heaven for every sinner that repenteth; they pray for us, are solicitous for 
our good, * Casti genii. 

" Ubl regnat charitas, suave desiderium, 
La^titiaque et amor Deo conjunctus."* 

Love proper to mortal men is the third member of this subdivision, and the 
subject of my following discourse. 

k Mantuan. 1 Charitas munifica, qua mercamur de Deo regnum DeL ™ Polanus, partit. Zanchius 

de natura Dei, c. 3. copiose de hoc amore Dei agit. '^Nich. Bellas, discurs. 28. de amatoribus, virtn.tem 

provocat, conseiTat pacem in terra, tranquillitatem in aere, ventis laetitiam, &c. o Camei'arius, lunb. 

100. cen. 2. P Dial. 3. ^Juven. rQen. i. ^ Caussinus. t Theodoret fe Plotiao . 

*•' Where charity prevails, sweet desire, joy, and love towards God are also present." 



476 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 1. 

MEMB. 11. 

SuBSECT. I. — Love of Men, which varies as his Objects, Frofitahle, Fleasant, 

Honest. 

Yalesius, lib. 3. contr. 13. defines this love which is in men, "to be "an 
afiection of both powers, appetite, and reason." The rational resides in the 
brain, the other in the liver (as before hath been said out of Plato and others) ; 
the heart is diversely affected of both, and carried a thousand ways by consent. 
The sensitive faculty most part overrules reason, the soul is carried hood- 
winked, and the understanding captive like a beast. "^ The heart is variously 
inclined, sometimes they are merry, sometimes sad, and from love arise hope, 
and fear, jealousy, fury, desperation." Now this love of men is diverse, and 
varies as the object varies, by which they are enticed, as virtue, wisdom, 
eloquence, profit, wealth, money, fame, honour, or comeliness of person, &c. 
Leon Hebreus, in his first dialogue, reduceth them all to these three, utile, 
jucundurn,, honestum, profitable, pleasant, honest (out of Aristotle belike 8. 
inoral.) ; of which he discourseth at large, and whatsoever is beautiful and fair 
is referred to them, or any way to be desired. "-^To profitable is ascribed 
health, wealth, honour, &c., which is rather ambition, desire, covetousness, 
than love :" friends, children, love of women, ^all delightful and pleasant 
objects, are referred to the second. The love of honest things consists in 
virtue and wisdom, and is preferred before that which is profitable and pleasant : 
intellectual about that which is honest. '^St. Austin calls " profitable, worldly ; 
pleasant, carnal ; honest, spiritual. ^ Of and from all three, result charity, 
friendship, and trije love, which respects God and our neighbour." Of each 
of these I will briefly dilate, and show in what sort they cause melancholy. 

Amongst all these fair enticing objects, which procure love, and bewitch the 
soul of man, there is none so moving, so forcible as profit ; and that which 
carrieth with it a show of commodity. Health indeed is a precious thing, to 
recover and preserve which we will undergo any misery, drink bitter potions, 
freely give our goods : restore a man to his health, his purse lies open to thee, 
bountiful he is, thankful and beholding to thee ; but give him wealth and 
honour, give him gold, or what shall be for his advantage and preferment, and 
thou shalt command his affections, oblige him eternally to thee ; heart, hand, 
life, and all is at thy service, thou art his dear and loving friend, good and 
gracious lord and master, his Mecsenas ; he is thy slave, thy vassal, most 
devote, affectioned, and bound in all duty : tell him good tidings in this kind, 
there spoke an angel, a blessed hour that brings in gain, he is thy creature, 
and thou his creator, he hugs and admires thee j he is thine for ever. No 
loadstone so attractive as that of profit, none so fair an object as this of gold ; 
° nothing wins a man sooner than a good turn, bounty and liberality com- 
mand body and soul : 

" Mnnera (cretle mihi) placant hominesque deosque ; I " Good turns doth pacify both God and men, 
Placatur donis Jupiter ipse datis." | And Jupiter himself is won by them." 

Gold of all other is a most delicious object ; a sweet light, a goodly lustre 
it hath : gratius aurum quam solem intuemur, saith Austin, and we had rather 
see it than the sun. Sweet and pleasant in getting, in keeping ; it seasons all 
our labours, intolerable pains we take for it, base employments, endure bitter 
flouts and taunts, long journeys, heavy burdens, all are made light and easy by 

11 Aflfectns nunc appetitivas potentiee, nunc ratinnalis, alter cerebro residet, alter hepate, corde, &c. 
xcor varie inclinatur, nunc gaudens, nunc moerens ; statim ex amore nascitur Zelotypia, timor, ftiror, spt-s, 
desperatio. ^ Ad utile sanitas refertur ; utilium est ambitio, cupido, desiderium, potius quam amor ; exccssu.s, 
avar.tia. ^picolom. gvad. 7. cap. 1. *Lib. de amicit. utile mundanum, carnale jucundurn, spiritnale 
h luestum. b Ex singulis tribus fit charitas et amicitia, quas respicit deum et proximuui. '^ lienei'ac- 

ttirts priBvipub amamus. Yives 3. de anima. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 1.] Objects of Love. 477 

tills hope of gain ; At mihi plaudo ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemiJlor in 
area. The sight of gold refresheth our spirits, and ravisheth our hearts, as 
that Babylonian garment and ^golden wedge did Achan in the camp, the very 
sight and hearing sets on fire his soul with desire of it. It will make a man 
run to the antipodes, or tarry at home and turn parasite, lie, flatter, prostitute 
himself, swear and bear false witness ; he will venture his body, kill a king, 
murder his father, and damn his soul to come at it. Formosior auri massa, 
as ®he well observed, the mass of gold is fairer than all your Grecian pictures, 
that Apelles, Phidias, or any doting painter could ever make : we are enamour- 
ed with it, 

«' f Prima fere vota, et cunctis notissima templis, 
Diviti« ut crescant." 

All our labours, studies, endeavours, vows, prayers and wishes, are to get, how 
to compass it. 

" g Hsec est ilia ciii famulatur maximus orbis, 
Diva potens rerum, domitrixque pecuiiia fati." 

^' This is the great goddess we adore and worship ; this is the sole object of our 
desire." If we have it, as we think, we are made for ever, thrice happy, 
princes, lords, &c. If we lose it, we are dull, heavy, dejected, discontent, 
miserable, desperate, and mad. Our estate and bene esse ebbs and flows with 
our commodity; and as we are endowed or enriched, so are we beloved and 
esteemed : it lasts no longer than our wealth ; when that is gone, and the 
object removed, farewell friendship : as long as bounty, good cheer, and rewards 
were to be hoped, friends enough ; they were tied to thee by the teeth, and 
would follow thee as crows do a carcass : but when thy goods are gone and 
spent, the lamp of their love is out, and thou shalt be contemned, scorned, 
hated, injured. ^Lucian's Timon, when he lived in prosperity, was the sole 
spectacle of Greece, only admired ; who but Timon % Every body loved, 
honoured, applauded him, each man offered him his service, and sought to be 
Idn to him; but when his gold was spent, his fair possessions gone, farewell 
Timon : none so ugly, none so deformed, so odious an object as Timon, no man 
so ridiculous on a sudden, they gave him a penny to buy a rope, no man would 
know him. 

'Tis the general humour of the world, commodity steers our affections 
throughout, we love those that are fortunate and rich, that thrive, or by whom 
we may receive mutual kindness, hope for like courtesies, get any good, gain, 
or profit; hate those, and abhor on the other side, which are poor and mise- 
rable, or by whom we may sustain loss or inconvenience. And even those that 
were now familiar and dear unto us, our loving and long friends, neighbours, 
kinsmen, allies, with whom we have conversed, and lived as so many Geryons 
for some years past, striving still to give one another all good content and 
entertainment, with mutual invitations, feastings, disports, offices, for whom 
we would ride, run, spend ourselves, and of whom we have so freely and honour- 
ably spoken, to whom we have given all those turgent titles, and magnificent 
eulogiums, most excellent and most noble, worthy, wise, grave, learned, 
valiant, &c., and magnified beyond measure : if any controversy arise between 
us, some trespass, injury, abuse, some part of our goods be detained, a joiece of 
land come to be litigious, if they cross us in our suit, or touch the string of our 
commodity, we detest and depress them upon a sudden : neither affinity, con- 
sanguinity, or old acquaintance can contain us, but ^ruptojecore exierit Capri- 
ficus. A golden apple sets altogether by the ears, as if a marrowbone or honey- 
comb were flung amongst bears : father and son, brother and sister, kinsmen 
are at odds: and look what malice, deadly hatred can invent, that shall be 

dJos. 7. ^ Petronius Arbiter. fJuyenalis. 8 Joh. Secund. lib. sylvaium. hLucianus, 

Timon. i Pers. 



478 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 1. 

done, Terribile, diruon, pestilens, atrox, /erum, mutual injuries, desire of 
revenge, and how to hurt them, him and his, are all our studies. If our plea- 
sures be interrupt, we can tolerate it : our bodies hurt, we can put it up and be 
reconciled : but touch our commodities, we are most impatient : fair becomes 
foul, the graces are turned to harpies, friendly salutations to bitter impreca- 
tions, mutual feastings to plotting villanies, minings and counterminings ; good 
words to satires and invectives, we revile e contra, nought but his imperfections 
are in our eyes, he is a base knave, a devil, a monster, a caterpillar, a viper, 
a hogrubber, &c. Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne; ^the scene is 
altered on a sudden, love is turned to hate, mirth to melancholy : so furiously 
are we most part bent, our affections fixed upon this object of commodity, and 
upon money, the desire of which in excess is covetousness : ambition tyran- 
niseth over our souls, as ^I have shown, and in defect crucifies as much, as if 
a man by negligence, ill husbandry, improvidence, prodigality, waste and 
consume his goods and fortunes, beggary follows, and melancholy, he becomes 
an abject, "^odious and "worse than an infidel, in not providing for his 
family." 

SuBSECT. II. — Pleasant Objects of Love. 

Pleasant objects are infinite, whether they be such as have life, or be with- 
out life; inanimate are countries, provinces, towers, towns, cities, as he said, 
^ Pulcherrimam insulam videmus, etiam cum no?i videmus, we see a fair 
island by description, when we see it not. The °sun never saw a fairer city, 
Thessala Tempe, orchards, gardens, pleasant walks, groves, fountains, &c. The 
heaven itself is said to be ^fair or foul: fair buildings, fair pictures, all arti- 
ficial, elaborate and curious works, clothes, give an admirable lustre : we 
admire, and gaze upon them, ut pueri Junonis avem, as children do on a pea- 
cock: a fair dog, a fair horse and hawk, &c. ^^ Thessalus amat equum pul- 
linum, huculum J^gyptius, Lacedoimonius Catulum, &c., such things we love, 
are most gracious in our sight, acceptable unto us, and whatsoever else ma}'' 
cause this passion, if it be superfluous or immoderately loved, as Guianerius 
observes. These things in themselves are pleasing and good, singular orna- 
ments, necessary, comely, and fit to be had; but when we fix an immoderate 
eye, and dote on them over much, this pleasure may turn to pain, bring much 
sorrow, and discontent unto us, work our final overthrow, and cause melancholy 
in the end. Many are carried away with those bewitching sports of gaming, 
hawking, hunting, and such vain pleasures, as ^I have said : some with immo- 
derate desire of fame, to be crowned in the Olympics, knighted in the field, 
&c., and by these means ruinate themselves. The lascivious dotes on his fair 
mistress, the glutton on his dishes, which are infinitely varied to please the 
palate, the epicure on his several pleasures, the superstitious on his idol, and 
fats himself with future joys, as Turks feed themselves with an imaginary 
persuasion of a sensual paradise: so several pleasant objects diversely afiect 
diverse men. But the fairest objects and enticings proceed from men them- 
selves, which most frequently captivate, allure, and make them dote beyond all 
measure upon one another, and that for many respects : first, as some suppose, 
by that secret force of stars, [quod me tibi temperat astrum ?) They do sin- 
gularly dote on such a man, hate such again, and can give no reason for it. 
^J}^on amo te Sabidi, ^c. Alexander admired Ephestion, Adrian Antinous, 
Nero Sporus, &c. The physicians refer this to their temperament, astrologers 
to trine and sextile aspects, or opposite of their several ascendants, lords of 

k"Tlie bust of a beautiful woman with the tail of a fish." iPart. 1. sec. 2. memb. snb. 12. 

«n 1 Tim. i. 8. » Lips, epist. Camdeno. ° Leland of St. Edmond^bury. P Ccelum serenum, ccelum 

visum faedum. Polid. lib. 1, de Anglia. <1 Credo equidem vivos ducent e mannore vultus. ^Max. 

Tyrius, ser. 9. ^ Part 1. ssc. 2. memb. 3.. t .Mart. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] Objects of Love. 479 

their genitures, love and hatred of planets ; ^Cicogna, to concord and discord 
of spirits ; but most to outward graces. A merry companion is welcome and 
acceptable to all men, and therefore saith ^ Gomesius, princes and great men 
entertain jesters and players commonly in their courts. But ^ Fares cum 
pctribas fanllime congregantur, 'tis that ''similitude of manners which ties most 
men in an inseparable link, as if they be addicted to the same studies or dis- 
ports, they delight in one another's companies, " bii'ds of a feather will gather 
together : " if they be of divers inclinations, or opposite in manners, they can 
seldom agree. Secondly, "" affability, custom, and familiarity, may convert 
nature many times, though they be different in manners, as if they be country- 
men, fellow-students, colleagues, or have been fellow-soldiers, ^brethren in 
affliction {^acerha calamitatum socieias,divers{ etiamingenii homines conjungii), 
affinity, or some such accidental occasion, though they cannot agree amongst 
themselves, they will stick together like burrs, and hold against a third ; so 
after some discontinuance, or death, enmity ceaseth ; or in a foreign place; 

" Pascitur in viris livor, post fata quiescit : 
Et cecidere odia, et tristes mors obrait iras." 

A third cause of love and hate, may be mutual offices, acceptum henejicium, 
^commend him, use him kindly, take his part in a quarrel, relieve him in his 
misery, thou winnest him for ever ; do the opposite, and be sure of a perpetual 
enemy. Praise and dispraise of each other, do as much, though unknown, as 
®Schoppius by Scaliger and Casaubonus : mulus niulum scabit ; who but Sca- 
liger with him % what encomiums, epithets, eulogiums % Aniistes sapientice, 
perpetuus dictator, literaruin ornameiitum, Europce miracidum, noble Scaliger,^ 
incredibilis ingenii prcestantia, &c., diis 2^otius quara hominibus per omnia com- 
parandus, scripta ejus aurea ancylia de coelo delapsa poplitibus veneramur 
flexis, ^&c., but when they began to vary, none so absurd as Scaliger, so vile 
and base, as his books de Burdonum familid, and other satmcal invectives 
may witness. Ovid, in Ibin, Archilocus himself was not so bitter. Another 
great tie or cause of love, is consanguinity : parents are dear to their children, 
children to their parents, brothers and sisters, cousins of all sorts, as a hen 
and chickens, all of a knot : every crow thinks her own bird fairest. Many 
memorable examples are in this kind, and 'tis portenti simile, if they do not : "^ a 
mother cannot forget her child :" Solomon so found out the true owner : love of 
parents may not be concealed, 'tis natural, descends, and they that are inhuman 
in this kind, are unworthy of that* air they breathe, and of the four elements; 
yet many unnatural examples we have in this rank, of hard-hearted parents, 
disobedient children, of klisagreeing brothers, nothing so common. The love 
of kinsmen is grown cold, "^many kinsmen (as the saying is) few friends ;" 
if thine estate be good, and thou able, ^3ar pari referre, to requite their kind- 
ness, there will be mutual correspondence, otherwise thou art a burden, most 
odious to them above all others. The last object that ties man and man, is 
comeliness of person, and beauty alone, as men love women with a wanton eye : 
which Ttctr k^oyJ,v is termed heroical, or love-melancholy. Other loves (saith 
Picolomineus) are so called with some contraction, as the love of wine, gold, 
&c., but this of women is predominant in a higher strain, whose part affected 
is the liver, and this love deserves a longer explication, and shall be dilated 
apart in the next section. 

u Omnif. mag. lib. 12. cap. 3. ^ De sale geniali, 1. 3. c. 15. y Theod. Prodromus, amor. lib. 3. 

^ Similitmio morum parit amicitiam. a VLves, 3. de anima. b Qui simul fccere naufragimn, aut una 

pertulere vincula velconsilii conjurationisve socieiate jnnguntur, invicem amant : Drutum et Cassiiim imicem 
infensos Ciesariainis dominatus coiiciliavit. ^milius Lepidus et Julius FJaccus, quum essent inimicissimi 
censores renunciati simultates illico deposuerc Scultet. cap. 4. de causa amor. « I'apinius. disocrates 

demonico jnsecipit ut quum alicujus amicitiam vellet, ilium laudet, quod laus iuitium amoiis sit, -sdtuperatio 
simultatum. ^ Suspect. lect. lib. 1. cap. 2. f" The priest of wisdom, perpetual dictator, ornament 

of literature, -wonder of Europe." 8 " incredible excellence ot genius, &c., more comparable to gods' 
than man's in every respect we venerate your \viitin^'S on bended knees, as we do the shield that fell tiom 
heaven." h isa. xlix. iEara est concordia fiatrum. kGrad. 1. cap. 22. 



480 Love-Melancholy. [Part, 3. Sec. 1. 

SuBSECT. III. — Honest objects of Love. 

Beauty is the common object of all love, " %s jet draws a straw, so doth 
beauty love :" virtue and honesty are great motives and give as fair a lustre 
as the rest, especially if they be sincere and right, not fiicate, but proceeding 
from true form, and an incorrupt judgment ; those two Venus' twins, Eros and 
Anteros, are then most firm and fast. For many times otherwise men are 
deceived by their flattering gnathos, dissembling camelions, outsides, hypo- 
crites, that make a show of great love, learning, pretend honesty, virtue, zeal, 
m.ode3ty, with affected looks and counterfeit gestures : feigned protestations 
often steal away the hearts and favours of men, and deceive them, specie vir- 
tutis et umbra, when as reverd and indeed, there is no worth or honesty at all 
in them, no truth, but mere hypocrisy, subtilty, knavery, and the like. As true 
friends they are, as he that Caelius Secundus met by the highway side ; and 
hard it is in this temporising age to distinguish such companions, or to find 
them out. Such gnathos as these for the most part belong to great men, and 
by this glozing flattery, affability, and such like philters, so dive and insinuate 
into their favours, that they are taken for men of excellent worth, wisdom, 
learning, demi-gods, and so screw themselves into dignities, honours, offices ; 
but these men cause harsh confusion often, and as many times stirs as Relio- 
boam's counsellors in a commonwealth overthrew themselves and others. 
Tandlerus and some authors make a doubt, whether love and hatred may l)e 
compelled by philters or characters ; Cardan and Marbodius, by precious stones 
and amulets ; astrologers by election of times, &c. as ^I shall elsewhere dis- 
cuss. The true object of this honest love is virtue, wisdom, honesty, ^ real 
worth, Interna forma, and this love cannot deceive or be compelled, ut ameris 
amabilis esto, love itself is the most potent philtrum, virtue and wisdom, gratia 
gratum faciens, the sole and only grace, not counterfeit but open, honest, 
simple, naked, " ° descending from heaven," as our apostle hath it, an infused 
habit from God, which hath given several gifts, as wit, learning, tongues, for 
which they shall be amiable and gracious, Eph. iv. 11. as to Saul stature and 
a goodly presence, 1 Sam. ix. 1. Joseph found favour in Pharaoh's court, 
Gen. xxxix, for ^his person ; and Daniel with the princes of the eunuchs, 
Dan. xix. 19. Christ was gracious with God and men, Luke ii. 52. There is 
still some peculiar grace, as of good discourse, eloquence, wit, honesty, which 
is the primum mobile, first mover, and a most forcible loadstone to draw the 
favours and good wills of men's eyes, ears, and affections unto them. When 
" Jesus spake, they were all astonished at his answers (Luke ii. 47.), and 
wondered at his gracious words which proceeded from his mouth." An orator 
steals away the hearts of men, and as another Orpheus, quo vult, uncle vult, he 
pulls them to him by speech alone : a sweet voice causeth admiration ; and he 
that can utter himself in good words, in our ordinary phrase, is called a proper 
man, a divine spirit. For which cause belike, our old poets, Senatus popu- 
lusque poetarum, made Mercury the gentleman-usher to the Graces, captain 
of eloquence, and those charities to be Jupiter's and Eurymone's daughters 
descended from above. Though they be otherwise deformed, crooked, ugly to 
behold, those good parts of the mind denominate them fair. Plato commends 
the beauty of Socrates : yet who was more grim of countenance, stern, and 
ghastly to look upon 1 So are and have been many great philosophers, as ^ Gre- 
gory ISTazianzen observes, " deformed most part in that which is to be seen 
with the eyes, but most elegant in that which is not to be seen. " Scepe sub attritd 
latitat sapientia veste. -^sop, Democritus, Aristotle, Politianus, Melancthon, 

1 Vives, 3. de anima, ut paleam succinum sic fonnam amor trahit. ™ Sect. seq. 'i Nihil diviiiius homine 
probo. o Jaines iii. 10. P Gratior est pulchro veniens e corpore virtus. ^ Orat 18. delormes plenimque 
philosophi ad id quod in aspectum cadit, ea parte elegantes quae oculos fagit. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Honest Objects of Love. 481 

Gesner, &c. withered old men, Sileni Alcihiades, very liarsli and impolite to 
the eye ; but who were so terse, polite, eloquent, generally learned, temperate 
and modest 1 No man then living was so fair as Alcibiades, so lovely quo ad 
snperficieni,toi\iQ eye, as ^'Boethius observes, but he had Corpus turjJissimuni 
interne, a most deformed soul; honesty, virtue, fail' conditions, are great 
enticers to such as are well given, and much avail to get the favour and good- 
will of men. Abdolominus in Curtius, a poor man (but which mine authoe 
notes " ^ the cause of his poverty was his honesty"), for his modesty and con- 
tinency from a private person (for they found him digging in his garden) was 
saluted king, and preferred before all the magnificoes of his time, injecta oi 
vestis inirpura auroque distincta, "a purple embroidered garment was puo 
upon him, ^ and they bade him wash himself, and, as he was worthy, take upon 
him the style and spidt of a king," continue his continency and the rest of his 
good parts. Titus Pomponius Atticus, that noble citizen of Rome, was so fair 
conditioned, of so sweet a carriage, that he was generally beloved of all good 
men, of Caesar, Pompey, Antony, Tully, of divers sects, ^c. multas hceredi- 
tates (^ Cornelius Xepos Avaites) sold honitate consequutus. OpercB 2^'i'etium 
audire, &c. It is worthy of your attention, Livy cries, " ^ you that scorn all 
but riches, and give no esteem to virtue, except they be wealthy withal, Q. 
Cincinnatus had but four acj-es, and by the consent of the senate was chosen 
dictator of Home. Of such account were Cato, Fabricius, Aristides, Antonius, 
-Probus, for their eminent worth : so Caesar, Trajan, Alexander, admired for 
valoiu', ^H83phe3tion loved Alexander, but Parmenio the king : Titus delicice 
humani generis, and which Aurelius Yictor hath of Vespatian, the darling of his 
time, as ^ Edgar Etheling was in England, for his '"^ excellent virtues : their 
memoiy is yet fresh, sweet, and we love them many ages after, though they 
be dead : Suavem memoriam sui reliquif, saith Lipsius of his friend, living and 
dead they are all one. " ^ j j^ave ever loved as thou knowest (so Tully wrote 
to Dolabella) Marcus Brutus for his great wit, singular honesty, constancy, 
sweet conditions ; and believe it ^ there is nothing so amiable and fair as 
virtue." '• I*^^ do mightily love Calvisinus, (so Pliny writes to Sossius,) a most 
industrious, eloquent, upright man, which is all in all with me :" the affection 
came from his good parts. And as St. Austin comments on the 84th Psalm, 
" ® there is a peculiar beauty of justice, and inward beauty, which we see with 
the eyes of our hearts, love, and are enamoured with, as in martyrs, though 
their bodies be torn in pieces with wild beasts, yet this beauty shines, and we 
.love their virtues." The ^stoics are of opinion that a wise man is only fair ; 
and Cato in Tully 3 de Finibus contends the same, that the lineaments of 
the mind are far fairer than those of the body, incomparably beyond them : 
wisdom and valour according to ^ Xenophon, especially deserves the name of 
beauty, and denominate one fair, et incomparcd)iliter pulchrior est (as Austin 
holds) Veritas Christianorum quam Helena Grcecormn. "Wine is strong, the 
king is strong, women are strong, but truth overcometh all things," Esd. i. 3, 
10, 11, 12. "Blessed is the man that findeth wisdom, and getteth under- 
standing ; for the merchandise thereof is better than silver, and the gain 
thereof better than gold ; it is more precious than pearls, and all the things 



'^ 43 de consol. s Cau?a ei paupertatis, philosophia, sicnt plerisqtie probitas fuit. t Ablue corpus et 

cape regis animum, et in earn fortunam, qua dignus es continentiam istam profev. ''^Vita ejus. ^ Qui 
prae divitiis liumana spemunt, nee virtuti locum putant nisi opes affluant. Q. Cincinnatus consensu patrum 
in dictatorem Romauum electus. y Curtius. ^ Edgar Etheling, England's darling. ^ Morum suavitas, 
obvia comitas, prompta officia mortalium animos demerentiir. b Epist; lib. 8. Semper amavi ut tu scis, 

M. Brutum propter ejus summum ingenium, suavissimos mores, singularem probitatem et constantiani ; 
nihil est, mihi crede, virtute formosius, nihil amabilius. ^ Ardentes amores excitaret, si simulacrum ejus 

ad oculos penetraret. Pluto PhEedoue. d Epist. lib. 4. Valid'ssime diligo vinmi rectum, diseitum, quod 

apud me potentissimum est. ® Est quxdara pulchritndo justiJce quam ^^demus oculis cordis, amaraus, et 

exardescimus, ut in martyribus, qnum eorum membra bestir lacerarent, etsi alias defoiTiies, &c f Lipsius 
mannduc. ad Phys Stoic." lib. 3. ditf. 17. solus sapiens pulcher. S Fortitude et prudentia pulchritudmis 

laadem prfficipue merentur. 

2 I 



482 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 1. 

tliou canst desire are not to be compared to her," Pro v. ii. 13, 14, 15, a wise, 
true, just, upright, and good man, I say it again, is only fair : ^it is reported 
of Magdalene Queen of France, and wife to Lewis XI., a Scottish woman by 
birth, that walking forth in an evening with her ladies, she sjDied M. Alanus, 
one of the king's chaplains, a silly, old, ^ hard-favoured man fast asleep in a 
bower, and kissed him sweetly ; when the young ladies laughed at her for it, 
she replied, that it was not his person that she did embrace and reverence, 
but, with a platonic love, the divine beauty of ^ his soul. Thus in all ages 
virtue hath been adored, admired, a singular lustre hath proceeded from it : 
and the more virtuous he is, the more gracious, the more admired. ISTo man 
so much followed upon earth as Christ himself; and as the Psalmist saith, 
xlv. 2, " He was fairer than the sons of men." Chrysostom, Horn. 8 in Mat. 
Bernard, Ser. 1, de omnibus Sanctis ; Austin Cassiodore, Hier. in 9 Mat. inter? 
pret it of the ^ beauty of his person; there was a divine majesty in his looks, it 
shined like lightning and drew all men to it : but Basil, CyriL lib. 6. suiter. 55. 
Usay. Theodoret, Arnobius, &c. of the beauty of his divinity, justice, grace, 
eloquence, &c. Thomas in Psal. xliv. of both ; and so doth Baradius and Peter 
Morales, lib. de pulchriiud. Jesu et Marice, adding as much of Joseph and the 
"Virgin Mary, hcec alios forma prcEcesserit omnes, ^according to that pre- 
diction of SibyUa Cumea. Be they present or absent, near us, or afar off, this 
beauty shines, and will attract men many miles to come and visit it. Plato 
and Pythagoras left their coiintrj^, to see those wise Egyptian priests : Apol- 
lonius travelled into Ethiopia, Persia, to consult with the Magi, Brachmanni, 
gymnosophists. The Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon ; and " many," 
saith ^ Hierom, " went out of Spain and remote places a thousand miles, to 
behold that eloquent Livy" : ° Multi Romamnon ut urbem pulcherrvmam, aut 
tcrhis et orbis dominum Octavianum, sed ut hunc unum inviserent audirentque, 
a Gadibus profecti sunt. No beauty leaves such an impression, strikes so deep, 
^ or links the souls of men closer than virtue. 

" *l Non per decs aut pictor posset, 
Aut statuarius ulliis fingere 
Talem pulchrituaiiiem qaalem virtus hatet ;" 

"no painter, no graver, no carver can express virtue's lustre, or those admirable 
rays that come from it, those enchanting rays that enamour posterity, those 
everlasting rays that continue to the world's end." Many, saith Phavorinus, 
that loved and admired Alcibiades in his youth, knew not, cared not for 
Alcibiades a man, nunc intuenies qucerebant Alcibiadem ; but the beauty oi 
Socrates is still the same ; ^ virtue's lustre never fades, is ever fresh and green, 
se per viva to all succeeding ages, and a most attractive loadstone, to draw 
and combine such as are present. For that reason belike, Homer feigns the 
three Graces to be linked and tied hand in hand, because the hearts of men 
are so firmly united with such graces. " ^ O sweet bands (Seneca exclaims), 
■which so happily combine, that those which are bound by them love their 
binders, desiring withal much more harder to be bound," and as so many 
Geryons to be united into one. For the nature of true friendship is to combine, 
to be like affected of one mind, 

•' tVelle et nolle ambobus idem, satiataque toto 
Mens £Eyo" 

as the poet saith, still to continue one and the same. And where this love 
takes place there is peace and quietness, a true correspondence, perfect 

t Franc. Belforist. in hist. an. 1430. Eratautem foede deformis, et ea forma, qua'^citius pueri terreri 

possent, quam invitari ad osculum piiellse. k Deformis iste etsi videalur senex, diviiium animum habet. 

1 Fulgebat vultu suo : fulgor et di-vina majestas homines ad se trahentes. ™ " She excelled all others in 

beauty." t^ PrMat. bib. vulgar. <>Pars inscrip. Tit. Livii status; Patavii. P A true love's knot. 

^ Stobseus fe Gra3co. ^ Solinus, pulchri nulla est facies. ^0 dulcisiimi iaquei, qui tam feliciter devin- 

ciunt, ut etiam ^ vinctis diligantur, qui i gratiis vincti fcunt, cupiunt aretius deiigari et in unum redigi. 
i Statius. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Honest Objects of Love. 483 

amity, a diapason of vows and wishes, the same opinions, as between '^ David 
and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, Pylades and Orestes, ^Nysus and 
Euryahis, Theseus and Pirithous, -^they will live and die together, and pro- 
secute one another with good turns. ^Nam vinci in amove turinssimum 
putant, not only living, but when their friends are dead, with tombs and 
monuments, ISTenias, epitaphs, elegies, inscriptions, pyramids, obelisks, statues, 
images, pictures, histories, poems, annals, feasts, anniversaries, many ages after 
(as Plato's scholars did) they will parentare still, omit no good office that 
may tend to the preservation of their names, honours, and eternal memory. 
^ Ilium coloribus, ilium cerd, ilium mre, &c. " He did express his friends in 
colours, in wax, in brass, in ivory, marble, gold, and silver (as Pliny reports of 
a citizen in Pome), and in a great auditory not long since recited a just volume 
of his life." In another place, ^speaking of an epigram which Martial had 
composed in praise of him, " ^ He gave me as much as he might, and w ould 
have done more if he could : though what can a man give more than honour, 
glory, and eternity 1 But that which he ^vrote peradventure, will not con- 
tinue, yet he wrote it to continue." 'Tis all the recompense a poor scholar can 
make his well-deserving patron, Mecsenas, friend, to mention him in his works, 
to dedicate a book to his name, to write his life, &c., as all our poets, orators, 
historiographers have ever done, and the greatest revenge such men take of 
their adversaries, to persecute them with satires, invectives, &c., * and 'tis both 
ways of great moment, as ^ Plato gives us to understand. Paulus Jovius, in 
the fourth book of the life and deeds of Pope Leo Decimus, his noble patron, 
concludes in these words, "® Because I cannot honour him as other rich men 
do, with like endeavour, affection, and piety, I have undertaken to write his 
life ; since my fortunes will not give me leave to make a more sumptuous 
monument, I will perform those rites to his sacred ashes, which a small, perhaps, 
but a liberal wit can aliord." But I rove. Where this true love is wanting, 
there can be no firm peace, friendship from teeth outward, counterfeit, or for 
some by-respects, so long dissembled, till they have satisfied their own ends, 
which, upon every small occasion, breaks out into enmity, open war, defiance, 
heart-burnings, whispering, calumnies, contentions, and all manner of bitter 
melancholy discontents. And those men which have no other object of their 
love, than greatness, wealth, authority, &c.. are rather feared than beloved j 
nee amant quemquam, nee amantur ah ullo : and howsoever borne with for a 
time, yet for their tyranny and oppression, griping, covetousness, currish 
hardness, folly, intemperance, imprudence, and such like vices, they are 
generally odious, abhorred of all, both God and men. 

" Non uxor salviim te vult, non filius, omnea 
Vicini oderunt," 

"wife and children, friends, neighbours, all the world forsakes tnem, would 
feign be rid of them, ' and are compelled many times to lay violent hands on 
them, or else God's judgments overtake them : instead of graces, come furies. 
So when fair ^Abigail, a woman of singular wisdom, was acceptable to David, 
Kabal was churlish and evil-conditioned ; and therefore ^Mordecai was 
received, when Haman was executed, Haman the favourite, " that had his 
seat above the other princes, to whom all the king's servants that stood in the 

^ " He loved him as he loved his own soul," 1 Sam. xv. 1. " Beyond the love of women." ^ Virg. 9 

Mn. Qui super exar.imem esse conjecit amiciira confessus. y Amicus animse dimidium, Austin, 

confess. 4. cap. 6. Quod de Virgilio Horatius: Et serves animse dimidium mese. ^Plinius. ^Illum 

argento et auro, ilium ebore, marmore aflSnirit, et nuper ingenti adhibito auditorio ingentem de vita 
ejus librum recitavit. epist. lib. 4. epist. 68. bLib. iv. ep. 61. Piisco suo. ® Dedit mihi quantum potuit 
maximum, datunis amplius si potuisset. Tametsi quid homini dari potest majus quam gloria, laus, et aeter- 
nitas? At non erunt fortasse quse scripsit. Ille tamen scripsit tanquam essent futura, * For, genua 

irritabile vatum. dLib. 13. de Legibus. Magnam enim vim habent,&c. ^pari tamen studio et 

pietate conscribendje vitie ejus munus suscepi, et postquam sumptuosa condere pro foituna non licuit, 
exiguo sed eo forte liberalis in genii monumento justa sanctissimo cineii solventur. f 1 Sam. xxv. 3. 

6 Esther, iii. 2. 



484 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 1. 

gates, bowed tlieir knees and reverenced." Tliough they flourish many times, 
such hypocrites, such temporising foxes, and blear the workl's eyes by flattery, 
bribery, dissembling their natures, or other men's weakness, that cannot so 
apprehend their tricks, yet in the end they will be discerned, and precipitated, 
in a moment : ^' surely," saith David, "thou hast set them in slippery places," 
Ps. xxxvii. 5. as so many Sejani, they will come down to the Gemonian 
scales; and as Eusebius in ^^Ammianus, that was in such authority, ad 
juhendum Imperatorem, be cast down headlong on a sudden. Or put case 
they escape, and rest unmasked to their lives' end, yet after their death their 
memory stinks as a snufi of a candle put ^ut, and those that durst not so 
much as mutter against them in their lives, will prosecute their name with 
satires, libels, and bitter imprecations, they shall male audire in all succeed- 
ing ages, and be odious to the world's end. 



MEMB. III. 

Charity composed of all three Kinds, Pleasant, Profitable, Honest. 

Besides this love that comes from profit, pleasant, honest (for one good turn 
asks another in equity), that which proceeds from the law of nature, or from 
discipline and philosophy, there is yet another love compounded of all these three, 
which is charity, and includes piety, dilection, benevolence, friendship, even 
all those virtuous habits ; for love is the circle equant of all other affections, 
of which Aristotle dilates at large in his Ethics, and is commanded by God, 
which no man can w^ell perform, but he that is a Christian, and a true rege- 
nerate man; this is, "^To love God above all, and our neighbour as ourself;" for 
this love is lychnus accendens et accensiis, a communicating light, apt to illumi- 
nate itself as well as others. All other objects are fair, and very beautiful, I 
confess ; kindred, alliance, friendship, the love that we owe to our country, 
nature, wealth, pleasure, honour, and such moral respects, &c., of which read 
^copious Aristotle in his morals; a man is beloved of a man, in that he is a 
man ; but all these are far more eminent and great, when they shall proceed 
from a sanctified spirit, that hath a true touch of religion, and a reference to 
God. Nature binds all creatures to love their young ones ; a hen to preserve 
her brood will run upon a lion, a hind will fight with a bull, a sow with a bear, 
a silly sheep with a fox. So the same nature urgeth a man to love his parents, (^ dii 
7ne pater omnes oderint,ni temagisquam oculos amemmeos ! ) and this love cannot 
be dissolved, as Tully holds, "^^ without detestable ofience:" but much more 
God's commandment, which enjoins a filial love, and an obedience in this kind. 
*' ^ The love of brethren is great, and like an arch of stones, where if one be 
displaced, all comes down," no love so forcible and strong, honest, to the com- 
bination of which, nature, fortune, virtue, happily concur ; yet this love comes 
short of it. ^ Dulce et decorum pro patrid mori, ^it cannot be exj^ressed, what 
a deal of charity that one name of country contains. Amor laudis et 2)CLtrice 
pro stipendio est; the Decii did se devovere, Horatii, Curii, Scsevola, Begulus, 
Codrus, sacrifice themselves for their country's peace and good. 

" 4 Una dies Fabios ad bellum miserat omnes, I " One day the Fabii stoutly Avarred, 

Ad ■belliim missos perdidit una dies." | One day the Fabii were destroyed." 

Eifty thousand Englishmen lost their lives willingly near Battle Abbey, in 
defence of their country. ^"P. JEmilius, I. 6. speaks of six senators of Calais, 
that came with halters in their hands to the king of England, to die for^the 

h Amm. Marcellinus, 1.14. i Ut mundus duobus polis sustentatur : ita lex Dei, amore Dei et proximi ; 
duobus his fundamentis vincitur ; inachina mundi corruit, si una de polis turbatur ; lex perit divina si una 
ex his. k8et91ibro. 1 Ter. Adelph. 4, 5. '^Deamicit. i^Charitas parentuiu diiui nisi 

detestabili scelere non potest, lapidum fornicibus simillima, casura, nisi se inviceni sustentaret. Seneca. 
o " It is sweec to die for one's country." P Dii immortales, dici non potest quantum charitatis nomen 

aiudhabet. Q Ovid. Fast. rAnnol347. Jacob Mayer. Aunal. Fland. lib. 12. 



Mem, 3.] 



Division of Love. 



485 



rest. This love makes so many writers take such pains, so many historiogra- 
phers, physicians, &c., or at least, as they pretend, for common safety, and 
their country's benefit, ^ Sanctum nomeii amicitice, sociorum communio sacra; 
fi'iendship is a holy name, and a sacred communion of friends. "* As the 
sun is in the firmament, so is friendship in the world," a most divine and 
heavenly band. As nuptial love makes, this perfects mankind, and is to be 
preferred (if you will stand to the judgment of ^ CorneKus ISTepos) before afiB.nity 
or consanguinity; plus in amicitid valet similitudo morum quam affinitas, <i:c. 
the cords of love bind faster than any other wreath whatsoever. Take this 
away, and take all pleasure, joy, comfort, happiness, and true content out of 
the world; 'tis the greatest tie, the surest indenture, strongest band, and, as 
our modern Maro decides it, is much to be preferred before the rest. 



"^ Hard is the donbt, and difficult to deem. 
When all three kinds of love together meet ; 
And do dispart the heart with power extreme, 
Whether shall weigh the halance do-s\-n ; to wit, 
The dear affection unto kindred sweet, 
Or raging fire of love to women kind. 
Or zeil of friends, comhin'd hv virtues meet ; 
But of them all the hand of virtuous mmd, 

Methinks the gentle heart should most assured hind. 



" For natural affection soon doth cease. 
And quenched is %\-ith Cupid's greater flame; 
But faithful friendship doth them both suppress, 
And them with mastering disciphne doth tame, 
Throurfi thoughts aspiring to eternal fame. 
For «||ie soul doth rule the earthly mass, 
And allthe service of the body frame, 
So love of soul doth love of hody pass, [brass.' 
No less than perfect gold surmounts the meanest 



^ A faithful friend is better than ^gold, a medicine of misery, ^ an only pos- 
session ; yet this love of friends, nuptial, heroical, profitable, pleasant, honest, 
all three loves put together, are little worth, if they proceed not from a true 
Christian illuminated soul, if it be not done ^?^ ordine ad Deum, for God's 
sake, " Though I had the gift of prophecy, spake with tongues of men and 
angels, though I feed the poor with all my goods, give my body to be burned, 
and have not this lov3, it profiteth me nothing," 1 Cor. xiii, 1, 3. 'tis splendi- 
dum peccatum, without charity. This is an all-apprehending love, a deifying 
love, a refined, pure, divine love, the quintessence of all love, the true philoso- 
pher's stone, J^on potest enim, as ^ Austin infers, veraciter amicus esse hominis, 
nisifuerit ipsius primitus veritatis, He is no true friend that loves not God's 
truth. And therefore this is true love indeed, the cause of all good to mortal 
m.en, that reconciles all creatures, and glues them together in perpetual amity 
and firm league; and can no more abide bitterness, hate, malice, than fair and 
foul weather, light a,nd darkness, sterility and plenty may be together ; as the 
sun in the firmament (I say), so is love in the world; and for this cause, 'tis 
love without an addition, love, love of God, and love of men. "" The love of 
God begets the love of man ; and by this love of our neighbour, the love of 
God is nourished and increased." By this happy union of love, "^all well 
governed families and cities are combined, the heavens annexed, and divine 
souls complicated, the world itself composed, and all that is in it conjoined in 
God, and reduced to one. ®This love causeth true and absolute vii-tues, the 
life, spirit, and root of every virtuous action, it finisheth prosperity, easeth 
adversity, corrects all natural incumbrances, inconveniences, sustained by faith 
and hope, which with this our love make an indissoluble twist, a Gordian knot, 
an equilateral triangle, and yet the greatest of them is love," 1 Cor. xiii. 1 3, 
" ^ which inflames our souls with a divine heat, and being so inflamed, purged, 
and so purgeth, elevates to God, makes an atonement, and reconciles us unto 
him." ^ That other love infects the soul of man, this cleanseth ; that depresses, 
this rears; that causeth cares and troubles, this quietness of mind; this 



'Tally. t Lucianus Tosari. Amicitia ut sol in mundo, &c. '^ Vit. Pompon. Attici, ^ Spenser, 

Faerie Queene, lib. 5. cant. 9 staff. 1, 2. ySyracides. z Plutarch, preeiosum numisma, ^Xenophon, 
verus amicus prsestantissima possessio. b Epist. .52. <* Greg. Per amorem Dei, proximi gignitur; et 

per hunc amorem proximi, Dei nutiitur. d Piccoiomineus, grad. 7. cap. 27. hoc felici amoris nodo ligantur 
famiiiiB, civitates, etc ® Veras absolutas hsec parit virtutes, radix omnium virtuttira, mens et spiritus. 

f J)iv;uo calore animos incendit, incensos purgat. purgatos elevat ad Deum, Deum placat, hominem Deo con- 
ciliat. Bernard. 8 ine inficit, hie perficit, ilie Ceprimit, hie elevat; hie tranquillitatem, illc curas parit; 

Lie viiam recte iaformat, ille deiormat, <&c. 



486 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 1. 

informs, that deforms our life; that leads to repentance, this to heaven." Eor 
if once we be truly linked and touched with this charity, we shall love Grod 
above all, our neighbour as ourself, as we are enjoined, Mark xii. 31. Matt. 
xix. 19. perform those duties and exercises, even all the operations of a good 
Christian. 

" This love suffereth long, it is bountiful, envieth not, boasteth not itself, is 
not puffed up, it deceiveth not, it seeketh not his own things, is not provoked 
to anger, it thinketh not evil, it rejoiceth not in iniquity, but in truth. It 
suffereth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things," 1 Cor. xiii. 4, 5, 
6, 7 ; "it covereth all trespasses," Pro v. x.l2 ; "a multitude of sins," 1 Pet. iv. 8, 
as our Saviour told the woman in the Gospel, that washed his feet, " many 
sins were forgiven her, for she loved much," Luke vii. 47 ; " it will defend the 
fatherless and the widow," Isa. i. 17 ; " will seek no revenge, or be mindful of 
wrong," Levit. xix. 18;" will bring home his brother's ox if he go astray, as 
it is commanded," Deut. xxii. 1 ; " will resist evil, give to him that asketh, and 
not turn from him that borroweth, bless them that curse him, love his enemy," 
Matt, v; "bear his brother's burthen," Gal. vi. 7. He that so loves will be 
hospitable, and distribute to the necessities of the saints ; he will, if it be pos- 
sible, have peace with all men, " feed his enemy if he be hungry, if he be 
athirst give him drink ;" he will perform those seven works of mercy, '• he 
will make himself equal to them of the lower sort, rejoice with them that 
rejoice, weep with them that weep," Rom. xii; he will speak truth to his neigh- 
bour, be courteous and tender-hearted, " forgiving others for Christ's sake, as 
God forgave him," Eph, iv. 32; "he will be like minded," Phil. ii. 2. "Of 
one judgment; be humble, meek, long-suffering," Colos. iii. "Forbear, forget 
and forgive," xii. 13. 23. and what he doth shall be heartily done to God, and 
not to men. " Be pitiful and courteous," 1 Pet. iii. " Seek peace and follow 
it." He will love his brother, not in word and tongue, but in deed and truth, 
John iii. 18. "and he that loves God, Christ will love him that is begotten ot 
him," John v. 1, &c. Thus should we willingly do, if we had a true touch of 
this charity, of this divine love, if we could perform this which we are enjoined, 
forget and forgive, and compose ourselves to those Christian laws of love. 

"i felix hominum genus, 
Si vestros animos amor 
Quo coelum regitur regat !" 

" Angelical souls, how blessed, how happy should we be, so loving, how might 
we triumph over the devil, and have another heaven upon earth ! " 

But this we cannot do ; and which is the cause of all our woes, miseries, 
discontent, melancholy, ^want of this charity. We do invicem angariare, 
contemn, consult, vex, torture, molest, and hold one another's noses to the 
grindstone hard, provoke, rail, scoff, calumniate, challenge, hate, abuse (hard- 
hearted, implacable, malicious, peevish, inexorable as we are), to satisfy our 
lust or private spleen, for Hoys, trifles, and impertinent occasions, spend our- 
selves, goods, friends, fortunes, to be revenged on our adversary, to ruin him 
and his. 'Tis all our study, practice, and business hov^ to plot mischief, mine, 
countermine, defend and offend, ward ourselves, injure others, hurt all; as if 
we were born to do mischief, and that with such eagerness and bitterness, 
with such rancour, malice, rage, and fury, we prosecute our intended designs, 
that neither affinity or consanguinity, love or fear of God or men can contain 
us : no satisfaction, no composition will be accepted, no offices will serve, no 
submission ; though he shall upon his knees, as Sarpedon did to Glaucus in 
Homer, acknowledging his error, yield himself with tears in his eyes, beg his 
pardon, we will not relent, forgive, or forget, till we have confounded him and 

i Boethius, lib. 2. met. 8. k Deliquium patitur charitas, odium ejus loco succedit. Basil. 1. ser. de 

instit. mon. 1 Nodum in scii-po quasrentes. 



Mem. 3.] Charity. 487 

his, "made dice of his bones," as they say, see him rot in prison, banish his 
friends, followers, et omne invisum genus, rooted him out and all his posterity. 
Monsters of men as we are, dogs, wolves, "^tigers, fiends, incarnate devils, we 
do not only contend, oppress, and tyrannise ourselves, but as so many fire- 
brands, we set on, and animate others : our whole life is a perpetual combat, 
a conflict, a set battle, a snarling fit. Uris dea is settled in our tents, '^ Omnia 
cle lite, opposing wit to wit, wealth to v/ealth, strength to strength, fortunes to 
fortunes, friends to friends, as at a sea-fight, we turn our broadsides, or two. 
millstones with continual attrition, we fire ourselves, or break another's backs, 
and both are ruined and consumed in the end. Miserable wretches, to fat and 
enrich ourselves, we care not how we get it, Quocunque modo rem; how many 
thousands we undo, whom we oppress, by whose ruin and downfall we arise, 
whom we injure, fatherless children, widows, common societies, to satisfy our 
own private lust. Though we have myriads, abundance of wealth and trea- 
sure (pitiless, merciless, remorseless, and uncharitable in the highest degree), 
and our poor brother in need, sickness, in great extremity, and now ready to be 
starved for want of food, we had rather, as the fox told the ape, his tail should 
sweep the ground still, than cover his buttocks; rather spend it idly, consume 
it with dogs, hawks, hounds, unnecessary buildings, in riotous apparel, ingur- 
gitate, or let it be lost, than he should have part of it; °rather take from him 
that little which he hath, than relieve him. 

Like the dog in the manger, we neither use it ourselves, let others make 
use of or enjoy it; part with nothing while we live: for want of disposing our 
household, and setting things in order, set all the world together by the ears 
after our death. Poor Lazarus lies howling at his gates for a few crumbs, he 
only seeks chippings, offals ; let him roar and howl, famish, and eat his own 
flesh, he respects him not, A poor decayed kinsman of his sets upon him by 
the way in all his jollity, and runs begging bareheaded by him, conjuring by 
those former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity, kc, uncle, cousin, 
brother, father, 

"Per ego has lachrymas, dextramqiie tuam te, 

Si quidquam de te merui, fuit aut tibi quidquam 
Duice meum, misere mei." 

" Shov/ some pity for Christ's sake, pity a sick man, an old man," &c., he 
cares not, ride on: pretend sickness, inevitable loss of limbs, goods, plead 
suretyship), or shipwreck, fires, common calamities, show thy wants and im- 
perfections, 

"Et si per sanctum juratus dicat Osyrim, 
Credite, non ludo, cradeles toliite claiuUim." 

" Swear, protest, take G-od and all his angels to witness, qucere peregrinum, 
thou art a counterfeit crank, a cheater, he is not touched with it, pauper uh'i- 
quejacet, ride on, he takes "ilo notice of it." Put up a supplication to him in 
the name of a thousand orphans, a hospital, a spittel, a prison, as he goes by, 
they cry out to him for aid, ride on, surdo narras, he cares not, let them eat 
stones, devour themselves with vermin, rot in their own dung, he cares not. 
Show him a decayed haven, a bridge, a school, a fortification, &c., or some 
public work, ride on; good your worship, your honour, for God's sake, your 
country's sake, ride on. But show him a roll wherein his name shall be regis- 
tered in golden letters, and commended to all posterity, his arms set up, with 
his devices to be seen, then peradventure he will stay and contribute ; or if 
thou canst thunder upon him, as Papists do, with satisfactory and meritorious 
v/orks, or persuade him by this means he shall save his soul out of hell, and 
fi-ee it from purgatory (if he be of any religion), then in all likelihood he will 

«^ Hircauseque admomnt tibera tigi'es. ^^Heraclitus. ^Si in gehennara abit, pauperem qui 

non alat: quid de eo fiet qui pauperem denudat? Austin. 



488 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 1. 

listen and stay ; or that lie have no children, no near kinsman, heir, he cares 
for, at least, or cannot well tell otherwise how or where to bestow his posses- 
sions (for carry them with him he cannot), it may be then he will build some 
school or hospital in his life, or be induced to give liberally to pious uses after 
his death. Tor I dare boldly say, vain-glory, that opinion of merit, and this 
enforced necessity, when they know not otherwise how to leave, or what better 
to do with them, is the main cause of most of our good works. I will not urge 
this to derogate from any man's charitable devotion, or bounty in this kind to 
censure any good work ; no doubt there be many sanctified, heroical and 
worthy-minded men, that in true zeal, and for virtue's sake (divine spirits), that 
out of commiseration and pity extend their liberality, and as much as in them 
lies do good to all men, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, comfort the sick 
and needy, relieve all, forget and forgive injuries, as true charity requires; yet 
most part there is simulatum quid, a deal of hypocrisy in this kind, much 
default and defect. ^ Cosmo de Medici, that rich citizen of Florence, ingenu- 
ously confessed to a near friend of his, that would know of him why he built 
so many public and magnificent palaces, and bestowed so liberally on scholars, 
not that he loved learning more than others, ^'' but to ^ eternise his own name, 
to be immortal by the benefit of scholars ; for when his friends were dead, 
walls decayed, and all inscriptions gone, books would remain to the world's 
end." The lanthorn in ^Athens was built by Zenocles, the theatre by Pericles, 
the famous port Pyrssum by Musicles, Pallas Palladium by Phidias, the Pan- 
theon by Callicratidas ; but these brave monuments are decayed all, and ruined 
long since, their builders' names alone flourish by meditation of writers. And 
as ^he said of that Marian oak, now cut down and dead, nullius Agricolce 
manu culta stirps tarn diuturna quam quce poetm versu seminari. potest, no 
plant can grow so long as that which is ingenio sata, set and manured by those 
ever-living wits. *Allon Backuth, that weeping oak, under which Deborah, 
Rebecca's nurse, died, and was buried, may not survive the memory of such 
everlasting monuments. Vainglory and emulation (as to most men) 'was the 
cause efficient, and to be a trumpeter of his own fame, Cosmo's sole intent so to 
do good, that all the world might take notice of it. Such for the most part 
is the charity of our times, such our benefactors, Mecsenates and patrons. 
Show me amongst so many myriads, a truly devout, a right, honest, upright, 
meek, humble, a patient, innocuous, innocent, a merciful, a loving, a charita- 
ble man ! ^ Probus quis nohiscum vivit ? Show me a Caleb or a Joshua ! Die 
rnihi Musa virum show a virtuous woman, a constant wife, a good neigh- 
bour, a trusty servant, an obedient child, a true friend, &c. Crows in Africa 
are not so scant. He that shall examine this ^iron age wherein we live, where 
love is cold, etjam terras Astrea reliquit, justice fled with her assistants, virtue 
expelled, 



'yjustlti^ soror, 



Incomipta fides, nudaque ventas, 

all goodness gone, where vice abounds, the devil is loose, and see one man 
vilify and insult over his brother, as if he were an innocent, or a block, op- 
jDress, tyrannise, prey upon, torture him, vex, gall, torment and crucify him, 
starve him, where is charity ? He that shall see men ^ swear and forswear, 
lie and bear false witness, to advantage themselves, prejudice others, hazard 
goods, lives, fortunes, credit, all, to be revenged on their enemies, men so 
unspeakable in their lusts, unnatural in malice, such bloody designments, 

PJovius, vita ejus. ^ Tmmortalitatem beneficio literarum, immortali gloriosa quadam cupiditate con- 
cnpivit. Quod cives quibns benefecisset peiituri, moenia ruitura, etsi regio sumptu £Bdificata, non libri. 
r Plutarch, Pericle. sjujiiug^ Ijlj 1, de legibus. tGen. xxxv. 8. ^ilov. ^Durum genus 

6iimu3. "Thesister of justice, honour inviolate, and naked truth." ^ TuU. pro Rose. Meutiri 

vis causa mea? ea:o vero cupide et libenter mentiar tu4 cuusa; etsi quaudo me vis perj urare, at paululum 
tu coropwxdii facias, paratmc fore scito. 



Mem. 3.] Charily. 489 

Italian blasplieming, Spanish renotmcing, &c., may well ask where is charity ? 
He that shall observe so many lawsuits, such endless contentions, such plotting, 
undermining, so much money spent with such eagerness and fury, every man 
for himself, his own ends, the devil for all : so many distressed souls, such 
lamentable complaints, so many factions, conspiracies, seditions, oppressions, 
abuses, injuries, such grudging, repining, discontent, so much emulation, envy, 
so many brawls, quarrels, monomachies, &c., may" well require what is become 
of charity? when we see and read of such cruel wars, tumults, uproars, bloody 
battles, so many ^ men slain, so many cities ruinated, &c. (for what else is the 
subject of all our stories almost, but bills, bows, and guns !) so many murders 
and massacres, &c., where is charity ? Or see men wholly devote to God, 
churchmen, professed divines, holy men, " '^to make the trumpet of the gosj^el 
the trumpet of war," a company of hell-born Jesuits, and fiery-spirited friars, 
facem prcefer7'e to all seditions : as so many firebrands set all the world by the 
ears (I say nothing of their contentions and railing books, whole ages spent in 
writing one against another, and that with such virulency and bitterness. Bio- 
nceis sermonibus et scde nigro), and by their bloody inquisitions, that in thirty 
years, Bale saith, consumed 39 jDrinces, 148 earls,235 barons, 14,755 commons; 
worse than those ten persecutions, may justly doubt where is charity? Obsecro 
vos quales hi demum Christiani! Are these Christians? I beseech you tell me : 
he that shall observe and see these things, may say to them as Cato to Csesar, 
credo qucB de inferis dicuntur falsa existinias, "sure I think thou art of opinion 
there is neither heaven nor hell." Let them pretend religion, zeal, make 
what shows they will, give alms, peace-makers, frequent sermons, if we may 
guess at the tree by the fruit they are no better than hypocrites, epicures, 
atheists, with the "' *^fool in their hearts they say there is no God." 'Tis no 
marvel then if being so uncharitable, hard-hearted as we are, we have so 
frequent and so many discontents, such melancholy fits, so many bitter pangs, 
mutual discords, all in a combustion, often complaints, so common grievances, 
general mischiefs, si tantos in terris tragoedice, quibus labefactatur et miser e 
laceratur humanum genus, so manj^ pestilences, wars, uproars, losses, deluges, 
fires, inundations, God's vengeance and all the plagues of Egypt, come upon 
us, since we are so currish one towards another, so respectless of God, and our 
neighbours, and by our crying sins pull these miseries upon our own heads. 
ISTay more, 'tis justly to be feared, which ^ Josephus once said of his country- 
men Jews, " if the Koraans had not come when they did to sack their city, 
surely it had been swallowed up with some earthquake, deluge, or fired from 
heaven as Sodom and Gomorrah : their desperate malice, wickedness and 
peevishness was such." 'Tis to be suspected, if we continue these wretched 
ways, we may look for the like heavy visitations to come upon us. If we had 
any sense or feeling of these things, surely we should not go on as we do, in 
such irregular courses, practise all manner of impieties ; our whole carriage 
would not be so averse from God. If a man would but consider, when he is 
in the midst and full career of such prodigious and uncharitable actions, how 
displeasing they are in God's sight, how noxious to himself, as Solomon told 
Joab, 1 Kings, ii. "The Lord shall bring this blood upon their heads." 
Prov. i. 27, "sudden desolation and destruction shall come like a whirlwind 
upon them : afiliction, anguish, the reward of his hand shall be given him," 
Isa. iii. 11, (fee, "they shall fall into the pit they have digged for others," 
and when they are scraping, tyrannising, getting, wallowing in their wealth, 

* Gallienns in Treb. Pollio lacera, occide, mea mente irascere. Rabie jecur incendente feruntur prascipites. 
Vopiscus of Aurelian. Tantura fudit sanguinis quantum quis vini potavit. b Evangelii tubani belli tubam 
faciuat; in pulpitis pacem, in colloquiis belluui suadent. *'Psal. xiii. 1. d i3e bclLo Judaico, lib. 6, 

c. 16. Putosi lioniani contra nos venire tardassent, aut liiatuterrEe devorandara fuisse civitatem, aut dduvio 
pentuiam, aut fulinina ac Sodoina cum iuceudio passuram, ob desperatum populi, <fcc. 



490 Love-Melanclwly. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

" this night, O fool, I will take away thy soul/' what a severe account they 
must make; and how ^gracious on the other side a charitable man is in God's 
eyes, haunt sibi gratiami. Matt. v. 7, "Blessed are the merciful, for they 
shall obtain mercy: he that lendeth to the poor, gives to God," and how it 
shall be restored to them again; "how by their patience and long-suffer in o- 
they shall heap coals on their enemies' heads," Eom. xii. "'and h? that fo£ 
lo weth after righteousness and mercy, shall find righteousness and glory ; " surely 
they would check their desires, curb in their unnatural, inordinate affections, 
agree amongst themselves, abstain from doing evil, amend their lives, and 
learn to do well. " Behold how comely and good a thing it is for brethren to 
live together in bunion : it is like the precious ointment, &c. How odious to 
contend one with the other ! " ^Miseri quid luctatiunculis hisce volumus ? ecce 
mors supra caput est, et suprejnum illud tribunal, ubi et dicta et facta nostra 
exaniina7ida sunt: Sa^namus! "AVhy do we contend and vex one another] 
behold death is over our heads, and we must shortly give an account of all 
our uncharitable words and actions : think upon it : and be wise." 



SECT. II. MEMB. I. 



SuBSECT. I. — Ileroical love causeth Melancholy. His Pedigree, Power, and 

Extent. 

In the preceding section mention was made, amongst other pleasant objects, 
of this comeliness and beauty which proceeds from women, that causeth hero- 
ical, or love-melancholy, is more eminent above the rest, and properly called 
love. The part affected in men is the liver, and therefore called heroical, 
because commonly gallants. Noblemen, and the most generous spirits are 
possessed with it. His power and extent is very large, ^Hind in that twofold 
division of love (pi7,i7\i and s^ccv Hhose two veneries which Plato and some 
other make mention of, it is most eminent, and y^ar s^oyjv called Venus, as I 
have said, or love itself Which although it be denominated from men, and 
most evident in them, yet it extends and shows itself in vegetal and sensible 
creatures, those incorporeal substances (as shall be specified), and hath a large 
dominion of sovereignty over them. His pedigree is very ancient, derived 
from the beginning of the world, as ^Phaedrus contends, and his 'j^arentage of 
such antiquity, that no poet could ever find it out. Hesiod makes "^ Terra and 
Chaos to be Love's parents, before the gods were born: Ante deos omnes pri- 
mum generavit amorem. Some think it is the self-same fire Prometheus 
fetched from heaven. Plutarch amator. libello, will have Love to be the son 
of Iris and Eavonius ; but Socrates in that pleasant dialogue of Plato, when it 
came to his turn to speak of love (of which subject Agatho the rhetorician, 
Tiiagniloquus Agatho, that chaunter Agatho, had newly given occasion), in a 
poetical strain, telleth this tale : when Venus was born, all the gods were 
invited to a banquet, and amongst the rest, ^^Porus the god of bounty and 
wealth ; Penia or Poverty came a begging to the door ; Porus well whittled 
with nectar (for there was no wine in those days) walking in Jupiter's garden, 
in a bower met with Penia, and in his drink got her with child, of whom was 
born Love; and because he was begotten on Venus's birthday, Venus still 
attends upon him. The moral of this is in °Eicinus. Another tale is there 
borrowed out of Aristophanes : ^in the beginning of the world, men had four 

® Benefacit animas suas vir misericors. f Concordia parvse res cfescunt, discordia maximsB dilabuntur. 

SLipsius. hMemb. 1. Subs. 2. iAmor et amicitia. k Phsedrus crat. inlaudem amoris rUitonis 

convivio. iVide Boccas. de Genial, deorum. ^See the moral in Plut. of tbat fiction. i* Aftlueiuiie 
l)eus. Cap. 7. Comment, in Plat, convivium. P See more in Valesius, lib. 3. cent. med. et 

cout. 13. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Love's Power and Extent. 491 

arms and four feet, but for their pride, because tliey compared themselves with 
the gods, were parted into halves, and now peradveutiire by love they hope to 
be united again and made one. Otherwise thus, ^ Vulcan met two lovers, and 
bid them ask what they would and they should have it ; but they made answer, 
Vulcane faher Deorum, &c. " Vulcan the gods' great smith, we beseech 
thee to work us anew in thy furnace, and of two make us one ; which he pre- 
sently did, and ever since true lovers are either all one, or else desire to be 
united." Many such tales you shall find in Leon Hebrseus, dial. 3. and their moral 
to them. The reason why Love was still painted young (as Phornutiis ^and 
others will), " ^is because young men are most apt to love j soft, fair, and fat, 
because such folks are soonest taken : naked, because all true affection is sim- 
ple and open : he smiles, because merry and given to delights : hath a quiver, 
to show his power, none can escape : is blind, because he sees not wliere he 
strikes, whom he hits," &c. His power and sovereignty is expressed by the 
* poets, in that he is held to be a god, and a great commanding god, above Jupi- 
ter himself; Magnus Dsemou, as Plato calls him, the strongest and merriest of 
all the gods according to Alcinous and ^ Athenseus. Amor virorum rex, amor 
rex et deum, as Euripides, the god of gods and governor of men ; for we must 
all do homage to him, keep a holiday for his deity, adore in his temples, 
worship his image [numeii enim hoc non est nudum nomen), and sacrifice 
to his altar, that conquers all, and rules all : 

" ^ Mallem cum icone, cervo et apro ^olico, 
Cum Anteo et Stymphalicis avibus luctari 
Quam cam amore" 

" I had rather contend with bulls, lions, bears, and giants, than with Love ;" 
he is so powerful, enforceth ^ all to pay tribute to him, domineers over all, and 
can make mad and sober whom he list ; insomuch that Csecilius in Tully's 
Tusculans, holds him to be no better than a fool or an idiot, that doth not 
acknowledge Love to be a great god. 

" 2 Cui in mami sit quem esse dementem velit. 
Quern sapere, quem in morbum injici," &c. 

That can make sick, and cure whom he list. Homer and Stesichorus were 
both made blind, if you will believe ^ Leon Hebrseus, for speaking against his 
godhead ; and though Aristophanes degrade him, and say that he was ^scorn- 
fully rejected from the council of the gods, had his wings clipped besides, that 
he might come no more amongst them, and to his farther disgrace banished 
heaven for ever, and confined to dwell on earth, yet he is of that ^ power, 
majesty, omnipotency, and dominion, that no creature can withstand him. 

" d Imperat Cupido etiam diis pro arbitrio, 

Et ipsam arcere ne armipotens potest Jupiter." 

He is more than quarter-master with the gods. 

"Tenet 



Thetide ssquor, umbras ^aco, coelum Jove :" ® 

and hath not so much possession as dominion. Jupiter himself was turned 
into a satyr, shepherd, a bull, a swan, a golden shower, and what not, for 
love; that as ^Lucian's Juno right well objected to him, ludus amoris tu es, 
thou art Cupid's whirligig : how did he insult over all the other gods, Mars, 
Neptune, Pan, Mercury, Bacchus, and the rest? ^Lucian brings in Jupiter 
complaining of Cupid that he could not be quiet for him; and the moon 

^ Vires 3. de anima; oramus te ut tuis artibus et caminis nos refingas, et ex duobusunum facias; quod et 
fecit, et exinde amatores unum sunt et unum esse petmit. ^See more in Natalis Comes Imag. Deorum. 
Philostratus de Imaginibus. Lilins Giraldus Syntag. de diis. Phomutus, &c. ^ jy^ygnij pjugitar quod 
amore plerumque juvenes capiuntur ; sic et mollis, formosus, nudus, quod simplex et apertus hie affectus ; 
ridet quod oblectamentum prse se ferar, cum pharetra, &c. t A petty Pope claves habet superorum et 

iiif.-rorum, as Orpheus, &c. ^ Lib. 13- cap. 5. Dyphnoso. ^ Eegnat et in supcros jus habet ille deos. 

Ovid. ypiautus. ^ Seldenpro. leg- 3. cap. dediis Syris. *r>ial.3. b A coueilio Deorum rejectus 

et ad majorem ejus ignominiam, <fcc. ° Fulmine concitatior. d Sophocles. e « He divides the empire 
of the sea with Thetis,— of the Shades, with iEacus,— of the Heaven, with Jove." f Tom. 4. s Dial, 

deorum, torn. 3. 



492 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

lamenting that slie was so impotently besotted on Endjmion, even Venus her- 
self confessing as much, how rudely and in what sort her own son Cupid had 
used her being his ^ mother, " now drawing her to Mount Ida, for the love of 
that Trojan Anchises, now to Libanus for that Assyrian youth's sake. And 
although she threatened to break his bow and arrows, to clip his wings, ^ and 
whipped him besides on the bare buttocks with her phantophle, yet all would 
not serve, he was too headstrong and unruly." That monster-conquering 
Hercules was tamed by him : 

"Quem non inille ferae, quem non Sthenelejus hostis, I Whom neither beasts nor enemies could tame, 
Nee potuit Juno vincere, vicit amor." j Xor Juno's might subdue, Love quell'd the s ime. 

Your bravest soldiers and most generous spirits are enervated with it, ^ ubi 
mulieribus hlanditiis pefvniUunt se, et inquinantur amplexibus. Apollo, that 
took upon him to cure all diseases, ^ could not help himself of this; and there- 
fore ^ Socrates calls Love a tyrant, and brings him triumphing in a chariot, 
whom Petrarch imitates in his triumph of Love, and Eracastorius, in an 
elegant poem expressetli at large, Cupid riding. Mars and Apollo following 
his chariot. Psyche weeping, &c. 

In vegetal creatures what sovereignty love hath, by many pregnant proofs 
and familiar examples may be proved, especially of palm-trees, which are 
both he and she, and exj^ress not a sympathy but a love-passion, and by many 
observations have been confirmed. 

" °i Vivunt in venerera frondes, omnisque vicissim 
Felix arbor amat, nutant et rautua palmie 
Foedera, populeo suspirat populus ictu, 
Et platano platunus, alnoquo assibilat alnus." 

Constantine de Agric. lib. 10. cap. 4. gives an instance out of Florentius 
his Georgics, of a palm-tree that loved most fervently, " ^and would not be 
comforted until such time her love applied herself unto her ; you might see 
the two trees bend, and of their own accords stretch out their boughs to 
embrace and kiss each other: they will give manifest signs of mutual love." 
Ammianus Marcellinus, lib, 24, reports that they marry one another, and fall 
in love if they grow in sight ; and when the wind brings the smell to them 
they are marvellously affected. Philostratus in Imaginibus^ observes as much, 
and Galen, lib. 6. de locis affectis, cap. 5. they will be sick for love ; ready to 
die and pine away, which the husbandmen perceiving, saith ° Constantine, 
" stroke many palms that grow together, and so stroking again the palm that 
is enamoured, they carry kisses from one to the other :" or tying the 
leaves and branches of the one to the stem of the other, will make them both 
flourish and prosper a great deal better : "^ which. are enamoured, they can 
perceive by the bending of boughs, and inclination of their bodies." If any 
man think this which I say to be a tale, let him read that story of two palm- 
trees in Italy, the male grooving at Brundusium, the female at Otranto (related 
by Jovianus Pontanus in an excellent poem, sometimes tutor to Alphonsus 
jimior, King of Naples, his secretary of state, and a great philosopher) 
" which were barren, and so continued a long time," till they came to see 
one another growing up higher, though many stadiums asunder. Pierius in 
his Hieroglyphics, and Melchior Guilandinus, 3Iem. 3. tract, de paj^yi^o, cites 
this story of Pontanus for a truth, S c more in Salmuth Comment, in Fanci- 

5 Quippe matrem ipsius quibus modis me afficit, nunc in Idam adigens Anchispe causa, &c h Jam. 

pridera et plagas ipsi in nates incussi sandalio. i Altopilus, fol. 79. k Xullis amor est me<.licabilis 

herbis. 1 Plutarch in Amatorio. Dictator quo creato cessunt reliqui magistratus. "^Claudian. 

dtscript. vener. aulje. "Trees are influenced by love, and every flourishing tree in turn feels the passion: 
palms nod mutual vows, poplar sighs to poplar, plane to plane, and alder breathes to alder." ^ Neque prius 
in iis desidcrium cessat dimidejectus consoletur; \idere enim est ipsam arboremincurvataro, ultro ramisab 
utiisque vicissim ad osculum exponectis. Manifesta dant mutui de.>ideru sigiia. ^ Jlultas palmas con- 

tinirens qwse, simul crcscimt, rursus-que ad amantem rcgredieus, eamque manu attingens, quasi osculum 
iijutuo ministrare videtur, expediri concubitus gratiam fecit. PQuam vero ipsa desideret aflectu 

ramorum significat, et adullam respicit ; aniantur, &c 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Loves Power and Extent. 493 

rol. de Nova repert. Tit. 1. de novo orhe, Mizaldns Arcanoruiri; Uh. 2. Sand's 
Voyages, ^^-6. 2.fol. 103. d'c. 

If sacli fury be in vegetals, what shall we think of sensible creatures, how 
much more violent and apparent shall it be in them ! 



• <1 Omiie adeb genus in terris hominumque ferarum, 
Et genus OBquoreum, pecudes, pictagque volucres 
In furias ignemque ruunt; amor omnibus idem.' 



" All kind of creatures in the earth, 
And fislies of the sea, 
And painted birds do rage alike ; 
This love bears equal sway." 
" ^Hic deus et terras et maria alta domat." 



Common experience and our sense will inform us how violently brute beasts 
are carried away with this passion, horses above the rest — -furor est insignis 
equarum. " ^ Cupid in Lucian bids Venus his mother be of good cheer, 
for he was now familiar with lions, and oftentimes did get on their backs, hold 
them by the mane, and ride them about like horses, and they would fawn upon 
him with their tails." Bulls, bears, and boars are so furious in this kind they 
kill one another : but especially cocks, * lions, and harts, which are so fierce 
that you may hear them fight half a mile off, saith ^Tarbervile, and many 
times kill each other, or compel them to abandon the rut, that they may remain 
masters in their places ; " and when one hath driven his co-rival away, he 
raiseth his nose up into the air, and looks aloft, as though he gave thanks to 
nature," which affords him such great delight. How birds are affected in this 
kind, appears out of Aristotle, he will have them to sing oh futuram venerem, 
for joy or in hope of their venery which is to come. 

" ^ Meyiss, priraum volucres te Diva, tuumque 
fcigniiicant initum, perculsse corda lua vi." 

" Fishes pine away for love and wax lean," if -^ Gomesius's authority may be 
taken, and are rampant too, some of them : Peter Gellius, lib. 10. de hist, 
animal, tells wonders of a triton in Epirus : there was a well not far from the 
shore, where the country wenches fetched water, they, ^tritons, stujyri causa 
would set upon them and carry them to the sea, and there drown them, if 
they would not yield ; so love tyrtinniseth in dumb creatures. Yet this is 
natural for one beast to dote upon another of the same kind ; but what strange 
fury is that, when a beast shall dote upon a man '? Saxo Grailimaticus, lib. 10. 
Dav. hist, hath a story of a bear that loved a woman, kept her in his den a 
long time and begot a son of her, out of whose loins proceeded many northern 
kings : tbis is the original belike of that common tale of Valentine and Orson : 
^lian, Pliny, Peter Gellius, are full of such relations. A peacock in Lucadia 
loved a maid, and when she died, the peacock pined. " ^^A dolphin loved a 
boy called Hernias, and whpn he died the fish came on land, and so perished." 
The like adds Gellius, lib. 10. cap. 22. out of Appion, jEgypt. lib. 15. a 
dolphin at Puteoli loved a child, would come often to him, let him get on his 
back, and carry him about, " ^and when by sickness the cliild was taken 
away, the dolphin died." — " '^ Every book is full (saith Busbequius, the 
emperor's orator with the grand signior, not long since, ep. 3. leg at. Turc.) 
and yield such instances, to beheve which I was always afraid lest T should 
be thought to give credit to fables, until I saw a lynx which I had from Assyria, 
so affected towards one of my men, that it cannot be denied but that he was in 
love with him. When my man was present, the beast would use many notable 
enticements and pleasant motions, and when he was going, hold him back, and 

<1 Virg. 3. Georg. ^Propertius. ^Dial. deorum. Confide, mater, leonibus ipsis familiaris jam factus 
sum, etsoepe conscendi eonim terga et apprehend! jubas; equorum more insidens eos agito, et illi mihi caudis 
adblandiuntui". tLeones praj amore furunt. Plin. 1. 8. c. 16. Arist. 1. 6. hist, animal. "Cap. 17. of 

his book of hunting. ^ Lucretius. ^ De sale lib. 1. c. 21. Pisces ob amoreni marcescunt, pallescunt, 
<&c. ^ Hauriendse aquae causa venientes ex insidiis a Tritone comprehensffi, &c. ^Piin. 1. 10. c. .5. 

quumque aborta tempestate periisset Hernias in sicco pixels expiravit. b Postquam puer morbo abiit, et 

ipse delphinus periit. <= Pleni sunt libri quibus ferae in homines intlammatae fuerunt, in quibus ego quidem 
semper assensum sustinui, vei itus ne fabulosa crederem ; donee vidi lyncem quern habui ab Assyria, sic 
affectum erga uuum de mcis howiiiubus, &c. 



494 Love-MelancJiGly, [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

look after Iiim wlien lie was gone, very sad in his absence, but most jocund 
when he returned : and when my man went from me, the beast expressed his 
love with continual sickness, and after he had pined away some few days, 
died." Such another story he hath of a crane of Majorca, that loved a 
Spaniard, that would walk any way with him, and in his absence seek about 
for him, make a noise that he might hear her, and knock at his door, " <^and 
when he took his last farewell, famished herself." Such pretty pranks can 
love play with birds, fishes, beasts : 

" (^ Ccelestis astheris, ponti, terrse claves habet Venus, 
Solaque istorum omnium imperium oMinet.) " 

and if all be certain that is credibly reported, with the spirits of the air, and 
devils of hell themselves who are as much enamoured and dote (if I may use 
that word) as any other creatures whatsoever. For if those stories be true 
that are written of incubus and succubus, of nymphs, lascivious fauns, satyrs, 
and those heathen gods which were devils, those lascivious Telchines, of whom 
the Platonists tell so many fables j or those familiar meetings in our days, and 
company of witches and devils, there is some probability for it. I know that 
Biarmannus, Wierus, lib. 1. cap. 19. et 24. and some others stoutly deny it, 
that the devil hath any carnal copulation with women, that the devil takes no 
pleasure in such facts, they be mere fantasies, all such relations of incubi, 
succubi, lies and tales ; but Austin, lib. }5.cle civit. Dei, doth acknowledge it: 
Erastus, de Lamiis, Jacobus Sprenger and his colleagues, &c. ^Zanchius, 
cap. 16. lib. 4. de oper. Dei. I)a,ndinus, in Arist. de Anima, lib. 2. tesct. 29. 
com. 30. Bodin, lib. 2. cap. 7. and Paracelsus, a great champion of this tenet 
amongst the rest, wliich giA^e sundry peculiar instances, by many testimonies, 
proofs, and confessions evince it. Hector Boethiiis, in his Scottish history, 
hath three or four such examples, which Cardan confirms out of him, lib. 16. 
cap. 43. of such as have had familiar company many years with them, and 
that in the habit of men and women. Philostratus in his fourth book de vita 
ApoUonii, hath a memorable instance in this kind, which I may not omit, of 
one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that going between 
Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in the habit of a fair gentle- 
woman, which taking him by the hand carried him home to her house in the 
suburbs of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he 
would tarry with her, " ^he would hear her sing and play, and drink such 
wine as never any drank, and no man should molest him j but she being fair and 
lovely would live and die with him that was fair and lovely to behold." The 
young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to moderate his 
passions, though not this of love, tarried with her awhile to his great content, 
and at last mar_'ied her, to whose wedding amongst other giiests, came Apol- 
lonius, who, by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, a 
lamia, and that all her furnitui-e was like Tantalus's gold described by Homer, 
no substance, but mere illusions. When she saw herself descried, she wept, 
and desired ApoUonius to be silent, but he would not be moved, and thereupon 
she, plate, house, and all that was in it, vanished in an instant : "^many 
thousands took notice of this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece." 
Sabine in his Comment on the tenth of Ovid's Metamorphoses, at the tale of 
Orpheus, telleth us of a gentleman of Bavaria, that for many months together 
bewailed the loss of his dear wife ; at length the devil in her habit came and 
comforted him, and told him, because he was so importunate for her, that she 

d Desiderimn suum testatus post inediam aliquot dierum interiit. « Orplieus hymno Ven. " Venus keeps 
the keys of the air, earth, sea, and she alone retains the command of all." f Qui hsec in atr^e hills aut 
Imaginationis vim referre conati sunt, nihil faciunt. B Cantantem audies et Adnum hihes, quale antea 
nunquam hihisti ; te rivalis turhahit nullus ; pulctira autem pulcluo contei<te vivam, et moriar. h Multi 
factum hoc cognovere. quod in media Graicia gestum sit. 



Mem. 1. Subs, 1.] Love's Power and Extent. 49J 

would come and live witli him again, on that condition he would be new 
married, never swear and blaspheme as he used formerly to do ; for if lie did, she 
should be gone: "%e vowed it, married, and lived with her, she brought him 
children, and governed his house, but was still pale and sad, and so continued, 
till one day falling out with him, he fell a swearing ; she vanished thereupon, 
and was never after seen. ^This I have heard," saith Sabine, " from persons 
of good credit, which told me that the Duke of Bavaria did tell it for a certainty 
to the Duke of Saxony." One more I will relate out of Florilegus, ad annum 
1058, an honest historian of our nation, because he telleth it so confidently, as 
a thiug in those days talked of all over Eui^ope: a young gentleman of Rome, 
the same day that he was married, after dinner \\dth the bride and his friends 
went a walking into the fields, and towards evening to the tennis-court, to 
recreate himself; whilst he played, he put his ring upon the finger of Venus 
statua, which was thereby made in brass; after he had sufiiciently played, 
and now made an end of his sport, he came to fetch his ring, but Venus had 
bowed her finger in, and he could not get it oflT. "Whereupon loth to make 
his company tarry at present, there left it, intending to fetch it the next day, 
or at some more convenient time, went thence to supper, and so to bed. In 
the night, when he should come to perform those nuptial rites, Yenus steps 
between him and his wife (unseen or felt of her), and told her that she was his 
wife, that he had betrothed himself unto her by that ring, which he put upon 
her finger : she troubled him for some following nights. He not knoAving how 
to help himself, made his moan to one Palumbus, a learned magician in those 
days, who gave him a letter, and bid him at such a time of the night, in such 
a cross- way, at the town's end, where old Saturn would pass by with his as- 
sociates in procession, as commonly he did, deliver that script with his own 
hands to Saturn himself; the young man of a bold spirit, accordingly did it ; 
and when the old fiend had read it, he called Yenus to him, who rode before 
him, and commanded her to deliver his ring, which forthwith she did, and so 
the gentleman was freed. Many such stories I find in several ^authors to 
confirm this which I have said ; as that more notable amongst the rest, of 
Philinium and Machates in ™ Phlegon's Tract, de rebus mirahilibus, and though 
many be againsfc it, yet I, for my part, will subscribe to Lactantius, lib. 14. 
cap. 15. " ^ God sent angels to the tuition of men; but whilst they lived 
amongst us, that mischievous all-commander of the earth, and hot in lust, 
enticed them by little and little to this vice, and defiled them with the company 
of women: and Anaxagoras, de resurrect. "Many of those spiritual bodies, 
overcome by the love of maids, and lust, failed, of whom those were born we 
call giants." Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, Sulpitius Severus, 
Eusebius, ttc, to this sense make a twofold fall of angels, one from the begin- 
ning of the world, another a little before the deluge, as IMoses teacheth us, 
^openly professing that these genii can beget, and have carnal copulation 
with women. At Japan in the East Indies, at this present (if we may 
believe the relation of *^ travellers), there is an idol called Teuchedy, to whom 
one of the fairest virgins in the country is monthly brought, and left in a 
private room, in the fotoqui, or church, where she sits alone to be deflowered. 
At certain times ^the Teuchedy (which is thought to be the devil) appears to her, 
and knoweth her carnally. Every month a fair virgin is taken in ; but what 
becomes of the old, no man can tell. In that goodly temple of Jupiter Belus in 

i Eem ctirans domesticam, nt ante, peperlt aliquot liberos, semper tamen tristis et pallida. k Htec 

andivi h miUiis fide digiiis q\ii asseveruljant ducem Bavarian eadem retiilisse Duel Saxonite pro veris. 
lFat)ula Damarati et Aristonisin Herodoto lib. 6. Erato. °^ Intei-pret. ZJers'o. "^ Deus Angelos 

misit ad tatelam cnltnmque generis hrnnani ; sed iUos cum hominiljus commorantes, dominator ille terriB 
salacissiraus paulatim ad vitia pellexit, et mulierum congressibus inqninavit. ° Quidam ex illo capti sunt 
Smore yirginuni, et libidine victi defecerunt, ex quilus gigantes qui vocantur, nati sunt. P Perevius in 

Gen. lib. 8. c. C. ver. 1. Zanc. &c. ^Purclias Hack posth. par. 1. lib. 4. cap. 1. S. 7. ^In Clio. 



^^(^ Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

Babylon, tliere was a fliir chapel, ^ saitli Herodotus, an eye-witness of it, iu 
which was splendide stratus lectus et apposita Jiioisa aurea, a brave bed, a table. 
of gold, tfcc, into which no creature came but one only woman, which their 
god made choice of, as the Chaldean priests told him, and that their god lay 
with her himself, as at Thebes in iEgypt was the like done of old. So that 
you see this is no news, the devils themselves, or their juggling priests, have 
played such pranks in all ages. Many divines stiffly contradict this ; but I will 
conclude with *^Lipdiis, that since "examples, testimonies, and confessions, of 
those unhappy women are so manifest on the other side, and many even in tliis 
our town of Louvain, that it is likely to be so. "One thing I will add, that 
I suppose tliat in no age past, I know not by what destiny of this unhappy 
time, have there ever appeared or showed themselves so many lecherous devils., 
satyrs, and genii, as in this of ours, as appears by the daily narrations, and 
judicial sentences upon record." Read more of this question iu Plutarch, vit. 
Niimce, Austin, de civ. Dei, lib. 15. Wierus, lib. 3. de prcestig. Deem. Giraldus 
Cambrensis, itirierar. Gamb. lib. 1. Malleas, mcdejlo. quoest. 5. part. 1. Jacobus 
Keussus, lib. 5. cap. Q.foL 54. Godelman, lib. 2. cap. 4. Erastus, Valesius 
de, sacra philo. cap. 40. John JSTider, Fornicar. lib. 5. cap. 9. Stroz. Cicogna, 
lib. 3. cap. 3. Delrio, Lipsius Bodine, dcemonol. lib. 2. cap. 7. Pererius in Gen. 
lib. 8. in 0. cajx ver. 2. King James, &c. 

SuBSECT. II. — How Love tyranniseth over men. Love, or TIeroical Melancholy, 
his definition, part affected. 

You have heard how this tyrant Love rageth with brute beasts and spirits; 
now let us consider what passions it causeth amongst men. 

^Improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora coyis ? How it tickles th.^ hearts 

of mortal men, Horresco referens, 1 am almost afraid to relate, amazed, 

y and ashamed, it hath wrought such stupendous and prodigious effects, such foul 
offences. Love indeed (I may not deny) first united provinces, built cities, and 
by a perpetual generation makes and preserves mankind, propagates the 
church ; but if it rage it is no more love, but burning lust, a disease, frenzy, 
madness,' hell. ^Est orcus ille, vis est immedicabilis, est rabies insana; 'tis no 
virtuous habit this, but a vehement perturbation of the mind, a monster of 
nature, wit, and art, as Alexis in '^ Athen£eus sets it out, virilitcr audax, imdi- 
erbiter timidum, furore prceceps, labore infractwin, mclfelleuin, blanda percus- 
sio, &c. It subverts kingdoms, overthrows cities, towns, families, mars, 
corrupts, and makes a massacre of men; thunder and lightning, wars, fires, 
plagues, have not done that mischief to mankind, as this burning lust, this 
brutish passion. Let Sodom and Gomorrah, Troy (which Dares Phrygius, and 
Dictys Cretensis will make good), and I know not how many cities bear record, 

. etfuit ante Helenatn, &c., all succeeding ages will subscribe : Joanna of 

Naples in Italy, Fredegunde and Brunhalt in France, all histories are full of 
these basilisks. Besides those daily monomachies, murders, effusion of blood, 
rapes, riot, and immoderate expense, to satisfy their lusts, beggary, shame, 
loss, torture, punishment, disgrace, loathsome diseases that proceed from 
thence, worse than calentures and pestilent fevers, those often gouts, pox, 
arthritis, palsies, cramps, sciatica, convulsions, aches, combustions, &c., which 
torment the body, that feral melancholy which crucifies the soul in this life, 
and everlasting torments in the world to come. 

Notwithstanding they know these and many such miseries, threats, tortures, 

• 8 Deus ipse hoc cubili requiescens. tPhysiologias Stoicorum I. 1, cap. 20. Si spiritus unde semen iis, tfec. 
at exempla tiivbant nos ; mu'.ierum quotidianis confessiones de mistione oimies asserunt, ct sunt in liac urbc 
Lovanio exempla. ''^Unnm dixero, non opinari me ullo retro sevo tantam copiam Satyrorum, et salaciiun 

istorum Geniorum se ostendisse, quantum nunc quotidianje narrationes, et judiciales Sfntentiai protcruu;. 
^ Virg. y " For it is a shame to speak of ttose things which are clone of them in secret," Epli. v. 12. 

2 Plutarch, amator. lib. ^Lih.lS. 



Mem. 1, Subs. 2.] Lovis Tower and Extent. 497 

will surely come upon them, rewards, exhortations, e contra; yet either out 
of their own weakness, a depraved nature, or love's tyranny, which so furiously 
rageth, they suffer themselves to be led like an ox to the slaughter : {Facilis 
descensus Averni) they go down headlong to their own perdition, they will 
co;nmit folly with beasts, men "leaving the natural use of women," as ^Paul 
saith, " burned in lust one towards another, and man with man wrought 
filthiness." 

Semiramis equo, Pasiphae tauro, Aristo Ephesius asince se commiscuit, Ful- 
vius equce, alii canihus, capris, &c., unde Tnonstra nascuntur aliquando, Cen- 
taur i, Sylvani, et ad terrorem hominutn prodigiosa spectra: Nee cum hrutis, 
sed ijjsis hominibus rem liahent, quod peccatum Sodomise vulgo dicitur; et fre- 
quens olim vitiam apud Orientales illos fuit, Grsecos nimirum, Italos, Afros, 
Asian OS : " Hercules Hylam hahuit, Polycletum, Dionem, Perithoonta, Abde- 
rum et Phryga; a/^ue^Euristium ah Hercule a.matumtradunt. ^ocrsiteB pulchro- 
ru7n Adolescentum causd frequens Gymnasium adibat, Jlagitiosoque spectaculo 
pascebat ocidos, quod et Philebus et Phsedon Eivales, Charmides et^reliqui Pla- 
tonis Dialogi, satis superque testatum faciunt : §'W0</ -yerd Alcibiades de eodem 
Socrate loquatur, lubens conticesco, sed et ahhorreo ; tantum incitamentuin 2)ra2- 
bet libidini. At hunc perstrinxit Theodoretus lib. de curat, grcec. affect, cap. 
ultimo. Quin et ipse Plato suum demiratur Agathonem, Xenophon Cliniam, 
Virgilius Alexin, Anacreon Bathyllum : Quod autem de Nerone, Claudio, ccete- 
rorumque 2?ortentosd libidine memorice proditum, mallem a Petronio, Suetonio, 
cceterisque petatis, quando omnem fidem excedat, quam a 7)ie expectetis; sed 
Vetera querimur. ^ Apud Asianos, Turcas, Italos, nunquam frequentius hoc 
quam hodierno die vitium; Diana Romanorum Sodomia; offcince hoi^um ali- 

cubi apud Turcas, "qui saxis semina mandanf' arenas arantes; et 

frequentes querelce, etiam inter ipsos conjuges hdc de re, quae virorum concubi- 
tum illicitum calceo in oppositam partem verso magistratui indicant ; nullum 
apud Italos familiar e magis peccatuTn, qui et post ^Lucianum et ^Tatium, scrip- 
tis voluminibus defendunt. Johannes de la Casa, Beventius Episcopus, divinum 
opus vocat, suave scelus, adeoquejactat se non alia usum Venere. Nihil usitatius 
apud monachos., Cardinales, sacrijiculos, etiam ^ furor hie ad mortem, ad 
insaniam. ^ Angelus Politianus, ob2^ueri amorem, violentas sibi onanus injecit. 
Et horrendum sane dictu, quantum apud nos patruDi ineinorid, scelus detestan- 
dum hoc scEvierit ! Quum enim Anno 1538. prudentissimus Pex Henricus 
Octavus cucullatorum coBnobia, et sacrificorum collegia, votariorum, per vene- 
rabiles legum Doctores Thomam Leum, Pichardum Laytonum visitari fecerat, 
&c., tanto numero reperti sunt apud eos scortatores, cinsedi, ganeones, peedi- 
cones, puerarii, psederastse, Sodomitse (^Balei verbis iUo7'), Ganimedes, &c. ut 
in unoquoque eorum novam credideris Gomorrham. Sed vide si lubet eorundem 
CatalogwiYi apud eundem Baleum; Puellse (inquit) in lectis dormire nonpote- 
rant ob fratres necromanticos. Hcec si apud votarios, tnonachos, sanctos scilicet 
hom,unciones, quid in foro, quid in aidd factum suspiceris ? quid apud nobiles, 
quid inter fornices, quam non fceditatem, quam non spurcitiem ? Sileo interim 
turpes illas, et ne nominandas quidem monachorum ^mastuprationes, masturba- 
tores. ™ Podericus a Castro vocat, tum et eos qui se iiivicem ad Venerem exci- 
tandam flagris ccedunt, Spintrias, Succubas, Ambubeias, et lasciviente lumbo 
2Vibades illas midierculas, quoe se invicem^ fricant, et prceter Eunuchos etiam 
ad Venerem explendam, artificiosa ilia veretra habent. Immo quod magis 



b Rom. 1.27. ^Liiius Giraldus, vita ejus. d Pueros amare solis Philosophis relinquendum vult 

Lncianiis dial. Amorum. ^ Busbequius. f Achilles Tatius, lib. 2. ^Lucianus Charidemo. hNon 

est iiffic mentula deinens Mart. iJovius Muse. k Praefat. lectori lib. de vitis pontif. 1 Mercu- 

rialiscap. de Priapismo. Coelius 1. 11. antiq. lect. cap. 14. Galenus 6. de locis aff. ^ De morb. mulier, 

lib. 1. cap. 15. 

2 K 



498 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

mirere, foemina fceminam Constantinopoli non ita pr'idem deperiit, ansa rem 
plane incredihilem, mutato cultu nientita virum de nuptiis sermonem init, et 
hrevi nupta est : sed authorem ipsum consule Busbequium. Omitto ^ Salana- 
rios illos Egyptiacos, qui cum formosarum cadaveribus concumbunt; et eoruDi 
vesanam lihidinem, qui etiam idola et imagines depereunt. Nota est fahida 
Pygmalionis a2Jud ^Ovidium; Mundi et Paiilini (xpiti ^gesippiim belli Jud. 
lib. 2. cap. 4. Pontius C. Ceesaris legatus, referente Plinio, lib. 35. cap. 3. 
quern susp)icor eum esse qui Christum crucifixit, picturis Atalantse et Helen se 
aded libidine incensus, ut tollere eas vellet si natura tectorii permisisset; alius 
statuam bonce Fortiinse deperiit; (^lianiiSj lib. 9. cap. 37.) alius Bonce dece, et 
ne qua pars probro vacet, ^Paptiis ad stupra {quod ait ille) et ne * os qui- 
dem a libidine exceptum. Heliogabalus, p>er omnia cava corjooris libidinein 
recepit, Lamprid. vitct ejus. ^Plostius quidam specida fecit, et ita disposuit, 
ut quum virum ipse pateretur, aversus omnes admissarii motus in specido vide- 
ret, ac deinde fcdsd magnitudine ipsius 7nembri tanquam vera gauderet, simul 
virum et fveminam passus, quod dictu foedum et abominandum. Ut verum 
plane sit, quodapud '^Plutarcliuni Gryllus XJlyssi objecit. Ad liunc usque diem 
apud nos neque mas marem, neque foemina fosminam amavit, qualia multa 
apud vos memorabiles et prseclari viri fecerunt : ut viles missos faciam, Her- 
cules imberbem sectans socium, amicos deseruit, &c. Vestrge libidines intra 
suos naturae fines coerceri non possunt, quin instar fluvii exundantis atrocem 
foeditatem, tumultum, confusionemque naturse gignantin re Venerea: nam et 
capras, porcos, equos iiiierunt viri et fceminse, insano bestiarum am ore exarse- 
runt, unde Minotauri, Cenfcauri, Sylvan i, Sphinges, &c. iSed ne coiifutando 
doceam, aut ea foras efferam quce non omnes scire convenit (Ihcec enim doctis 
solummodo, quod causa non absimili ^ Podericus, scripta velim), ne levissimis 
ingentis et depravatis mentious fosdissimi sceleris iwtitiam^ &c., nolo quern diu~ 
tius hisce sordibus inquinare. 

I come at last to tliat heroical love wliicli is proper to men and -women, is a 
frequent cause of melanclioly, and deserves mucli rather to be called burning 
lust, than by such an honourable title. There is an honest love, I confess, 
which is natural, laqueus occuUus captivaois corda hominum, ut ct mulieribus 
non 2')ossint separari, " a secret snare to captivate the hearts of men," as 
* Christopher Fonseca proves, a strong allurement, of a most attractive, occult, 
adamantine property, and powerful virtue, and no man living can avoid it. 
" £!t qui vim non sensit amoris, aut lapis est, aut bellua. He is not a man but 
a block, a very stone, aut ^ Numen, aut Nebuchadnezzar, he hath a gourd for 
his head, a,pepon for his heart, that hath not felt the power of it, and a rare 
creature to be found, one in an age, Qui nunquam visce Jlagravit amore puellce ;^ 
for semel insanivimus omnes, dote we either young or old, as ^he said, and 
none are excepted but Minerva and the Muses : so Cupid in ^Lucian complains 
to his mother Venus, that amongst all the rest his arrows could not pierce 
them. But this nuptial love is a common passion, an honest, for men to love 
in the way of marriage; ut materia appetit formam, sicmidier virum.^ You 
know marriage is honourable, a blessed calling, appointed by God himself in 
Paradise; it breeds true peace, tranquillity, content, and happiness, qud nulla 
est autfuit unquam sanctior conjunctio, as Daphnseus in ''Plutarch could well 

'I Herodotus 1. 2. Euterpse: uxores insignium virorum non statim vita functas tradunt condendas, ac 
ne eas quidem foeminas quge formos£e sunt, sed quatriduo ante defunctas, ne cum iis salinarii concumbant, 
&c. o Metam. 13. P Seneca de ira, 1. 11. c. 18. * NiUlus est meatus ad quem 

non pateat aditus impudicitiae. Clem. Alex, pgedag. lib. 3. c. 3. ^Seneca 1. nat. quaest. J" Tom. P. 

Gryllo. s x)e morbis mulierum, 1. 1. c. 15. t Amphitheat. amor. c. 4. interpret. Curtio. ^^neas 

Sylvius Juvenal. " And he who has not felt the influence of love is either a stone or a beast." ^ Tertul. 
prover. lib. 4. adversus Mane. cap. 40. y " One whom no maiden's beauty had ever affected." '^Chaucer. 
^Tom. 1. dial, deorum Lucianus. Amore non ardent Musse. b " As matter seeks form, so woman turns 
towards man." ^ In amator. dialog. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] 



Love's Power and Extent 



499 



prove, et qum generi humano immortalitatem parat, when tliej live v/ithoiit 
jarring, scolding, lovingly as they should do. 



" d Felices ter et atnplius 

Qiios irrupt a tenet copula, nee ullis 
Divulsus querimoniis 

Suprema citius solvit amor die." 



I "Thrice happy they, and more than that. 

Whom hond of love so firmly ties. 
That without brawls till death them part, 
'Tis undissolved and never dies. 



As Seneca lived with his Paulina, Abraham and Sarah, Orpheus and Eurydice, 
Arria and Pcetus, Artemisia and Mausolus, liubenius Celer, that would needs 
have it engraven on his tomb, he had led his life with Ennea, his dear wife, 
forty-three years eight months, and never fell out. There is no pleasure in 

this world comparable to it, 'tis summum inortalitatis honwn ^liominum 

divumque voluptas, Alma Venus latetenim in muliere aliquid majus poten- 

tiusque omnibus aliis humanis voluptatibus, as ^one holds, there's something in 
a woman beyond all human delight; a magnetic virtue, a charming quality, an 
occult and powerful motive. The husband rules her as head, but she again 
commands his heart, he is her servant, she his only joy and content ; no happi- 
ness is like unto it, no love so great as this of man and wife, no such comfort 
as ^placens uxor, a sweet wife : ^Omnis amor magnus, sed aperto in C07ijuge 
major. When they love at last as fresh as they did at hrst, ^ Charaque charo 
consenescit conjugi, as Homer brings Paris kissing Helen, after they had been 
married ten years, protesting withal that he loved her as dear as he did the 
first hour that he was betrothed. And in their old age, when they make 
much of one another, saying, as he did to his v^^ife in the poet, 



' kUxor vivamus quod viximus, et moriamur, 
Servantes nomen sumpsimus in thalamo : 
Nee ferat ulla dies ut comamtemur in scvo, 
Quin tihi sim juvenis, tuque puella mihi." 



■ Dear wife, let's live in love and die together, 

As hitherto we have in aU goo 1 -will : 
Let no day change or alter our affections, 
But let's he young to one another stUL" 



Such should conjugal love be, still the same, and as they are one flesh, so 
should they be of one mind, as in an aristocratical government, one consent, 
^ Geryon-like, coalescere in unum, have one heart in two bodies, will and nill 
the same. A good wife, according to Plutarch, should be as a looking-glass 
to represent her husband's face and passion : if he be pleasant, she should be 
merry : if he laugh, she shou.ld smile : if he look sad, she should participate 
of his sorrow, and bear a part with him, and so they should continue in mutual 
love one towards another. 



Et me ah araore tuo deducet nulla senectus, 
Sive ego Tythonus, sive ego Nestor ero." 



" No age shall part my love ft-om thee, sweet wife. 
Though I live Nestor or Tithonus' life." 



And she again to him, as the ^ Bride saluted the Bridegroom of old in Rome, 
uhi tu Caius, ego semper Caia, be thou still Caius, I'll be Caia. 

'Tis a happy state this indeed, when the fountain is blessed (saith Solomon, 
Prov. v. 17.) " and he rejoiceth with the wife of his youth, and she is to him 
as the loving hind and pleasant roe, and he delights in her continually." But 
this love of ours is immoderate, inordinate, and not to be comprehended in any 
bounds. It will not contain itself within the union of marriage, or apply to 
one object, but is a wandering, extravagant, a domineering, a boundless, an 
irrefragable, a destructive passion : sometimes this burning lust rageth after 
marriage, and then it is properly called jealousy ; sometimes before, and then 
it is called heroical melancholy ; it extends sometimes to co-rivals, &c., begets 
ra,pes, incests, murders : Marcus Antonius cornier essit Faustinam sororem, 
Caracalla Jidiam novercam, Nero rnatrem, Caligula sorores, Cyneras Myr- 
rhamfiliam, &c. But it is confined within no terms of blood, years, sex, or 
whatsoever else. Some furiously rage before they come to discretion or age. 



dHor. 6 Lucretius. fFonseca. S Hor. h Propert. iSimonides, griec. "She grows 

old ill love and in years together." kxiusonius. 1 Geryon amicitise symholum. "^ Propert. L 2. 

» I'lutarch. c. 30. Rom. hist. 



500 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

° Qiiartilla in Petronius never remembered she was a maid j and the wife of 
Bath, in Chaucer, cracks, 

Since I was twelve years o'J, believe, 
Husbands at Kirk-a^ur had I fiv.. 

^Aratine Lucretia sold her maidenhead a thousand times before she was 
twenty-four years old, plus millies vendiderat mrginitatem, &c. neque te celabo, 
non deerant qui ut integram amhirent. Pi,ahab, that harlot, began to be a pro- 
fessed quean at ten years of age, and was but fifteen when she hid the spies, 
as ^ Hugh Broughton proves, to whom Serrarius the Jesuit, qucest. 6. in cap. 2. 
Josue, subscribes. Generally women begin pubescere, as they call it, or catii- 
lh\e, as Julius Pollux cites, lib. 2. cap. 3. onomast. out of Aristophanes, '^at 
fourteen years old, then they do offer themselves, and some plainly rage. ^Leo 
Afer saith, that in Africa a man shall scarce find a maid at fourteen years of 
age, they are so forward, and many amongst us after they come into the teens 
do not live without husbands, but linger. What pranks in this kind the middle 
ages have played is not to be recorded. Si mihi sint centum linguce, sint oraque 
centuTTi, no tongue can sufficiently declare, every story is full of men and 
women's insatiable lust, Nero's, Heliogabali, Bonosi, &c. ^Ccelius AmpJiile- 
num, sed QuinUus Amphelinam depereunt^ &c. They neigh after other men's 
wives (as Jeremia cap. v. 8. complaineth) like fed horses, or range like town 
bulls, raptor es virginum et viduarum, as many of our great ones do. Solomon's 
wisdom was extinguished in this fire of lust, Samson's strengtii enervated, 
piety in Lot's daughters quite forgot, gravity of priesthood in Eli's sons, 
reverend old age in the Elders that would violate Susanna, filial duty in 
Absalom to his step-mother, brotherly love in Ammon towards his sister. 
Human, divine laws, precepts, exhortations, fear of God and men, fair, foul 
means, fame, fortune, shame, disgrace, honour cannot oppose, stave off, or 
withstand the fury of it, omnia vincit amor, &c. No cord nor cable can so 
forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread. The 
scorching beams under the equinoctial, or extremity of cold within the circle 
arctic, where the very seas are frozen, cold or torrid zone, cannot avoid or 
expel this heat, fury, and rage of mortal men. 

" ^ Qao fiigis all deniens, nulla est fuga, tu licet usqr.e 
Ad Taiiaim fugias, usque sequetur amor." 

Of women's unnatural, ^insatiable lust, what country, what village doth not 
complain ? Mother and daughter sometimes dote on the same man, father 
a-nd son, master and servant, on one woman. 

" Sed amor, sed ineffrenata libido, 

Quid castuin in terris inteutatumque reliquit ? " y 

What breach of vows and oaths, fury, dotage, madness, might 1 reckon up 1 
Yet this is more tolerable in youth, and such as are still in their hot blood 1 
but for an old fool to dote, to see an old lecher, what more odious, what can 
be more absurd-? And yet what so common 1 Who so furious 1 ^ Amareea 
cetate si occeperint, onulto insaniunt acrius. Some dote then more than ever 
they did in their youth. How many decrepit, hoary, harsh, writhen, bursten- 
bellied, crooked, toothless, bald, blear-eyed, impotent, rotten old men shall 
you see flickering still in every place ? One gets him a young wife, another 
a courtezan, and when he can scarce lift his leg over a sill, and hath one foot 
already in Charon's boat, when he hath the trembling in his joints, the gout in 

° Junonem liabeam iratam, si unquam meminerim me virginem fuisse. Infans enim paribus inquinata 
sum et subinde majoribus me applicui, donee ad aitatem perveni ; ut Milo vilulum, <fec. P Pornodiciasc, 
dial. lat. interp. Casp. Barthio ex Ital. lAngelico scriptur. concentu. ^Epictetus, c. 42. mulieres 
statim ab anno 14. movere incipiunt, &c. attrectari se sinunt et exponunt. Levinu Lemnius. ^Lib. 3 
fol. 126. t Catullus. u Euripides. " Whithersoever enraged you fly there is no escape. Although 

you reach the Tauais, love will still pursue you." ^Dq mulierum inexhausta libidine luxuque insatiabili 

onnies teque regiones conquei-i posse existimo. Steph. y " What have lust and mirestrained desii'C left 

chaste or inviolate upon earth ? " ^ Plautus. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Loves Power and Extent. 501 

his feet, a perpetual rheiim. in his head, "a continnate cough," ^ his sight 
fails him, thick of hearing, his breath stinks, all his moisture is dried up and 
gone, may not spit from him, a very child again, that cannot dress himself, or 
cut his own meat, yet he will be dreaming of, and honing after wenches, what 
can be more unseemly ? Worse it is in women than in men, when she is cetate 
declivis, dlu vidua, mater olim, parum decore rnatrimoniam sequi videtur, an 
old widow, a mother so long since (^in Pliny's opinion), she doth very unseemly 
seek to marry, yet whilst she is so ''old a crone, a beldam, she can neither see, 
nor hear, go nor stand, a mere ^carcase, a witch, and scarce feel; she catter- 
wauls, and must have a stallion, a champion, she must and will marry again, 
and betroth herself to some young man, ® that hates to look on, but for her 
goods ; abhors the sight of her, to the prejudice of her good name, her own 
undoing, grief of friends, and ruin of her children. 

But to enlarge or illustra.te this power and effects of love, is to set a candle 
in the sun. ^ It rageth with all sorts and conditions of men, yet is most 
evident among such as are young and lusty, in the flower of their years, nobly 
descended, high fed, such as live idly, and at easej and for that cause (which 
our divines call burning lust) this ^ferinus insanus amor, this mad and beastly 
passion, as I have said, is named by our physicians heroical love, and a more 
honourable title put upon it, Amor nobilis, as ^ Savanarola styles it, because 
noble men and women make a common practice of it, and are so ordinarily 
affected with it. Avicenna, lib. 3. Fen. 1, tract. 4. cap. 33. calleth this passion 
Ilishi, and defines it " Ho be a disease or melancholy vexation, or anguish of 
mind, in which a man continually meditates of the beauty, gesture, manners 
of his mistress, and troubles himself about it : desiring," (as Savanarola adds) 
with all intentions and eagerness of mind, " to compass or enjoy her, ^as com- 
monly hunters trouble themselves about their sports, the covetous aljout their 
gold and goods, so is he tormented still about his mistress." Arnoldus Yilla- 
novanus, in his book of heroical love, defines it, " ^ a continual cogitation of 
that which he desires, with a confidence or hope of compassing it;" which 
definition his commentator cavils at. For continual cogitation is not the genius 
but a symptom of love ; we continually think of that which we hate and abhor, 
as well as that which we love ; and many things we covet and desire, without 
all hope of attaining. Carolus a Lorme, in his Questions makes a doubt, A71 
amor sit morbus, whether this heroical love be a disease : Julius Pollux 
Onomast. lib. 6. cap. 44, determines it. They that are in love are likewise 
^ sick ; lascivus, salax, lasciviens, et qui in venerem farit, vere est cegrotus^ 
Arnoldus will have it improperly so called, and a malady rather of the body 
than mind. Tully, in his Tusculans, defines it a furious disease of the mind ; 
Plato, madness itself. Ficinus, his Commentator, cap. 12. a species of mad- 
ness, "for many have run mad for women," Esdr. iv. 26. But ^Bhasis "a 
melancholy passion;" and most physicians make it a species, or kind of melan- 
choly (as will appear by the symptoms), and treat of it apart ; whom I mean 
to imitate, and to discuss it in all his kinds, to examine his several causes, to 
show his symptoms, indications, prognostics, effect, that so it may be with 
more facility cured. 

Tlie part affected in the meantime, as ° Arnoldus supposeth, " is the former 

* Oculi caligant, aures graviter audiunt, capilli flaunt, cutis arescit, flatus olet, tussis, &c. Cyprian, b Lib. 
8. Epist Ruffinus. ^ Hiatque turpis inter aridas nates podex. d Cadaverosa adoo nt ab inferis reversa 
videri possit, vult adhuc catullire. ^ Nam et matrimoniis est despectara senium. J2:ieas Silvius. f Quid 
toto terrarum orbe communius? quoe civitas, quod oppiduni, quas tamdia vacat amaionim exemplis? J^neas 
Silvius. Quis trigesimuni annum natus nullum amoi is causa peregit insigne facinusi' ego demefacio conjec- 
turam, quem amor in mille pericula niisit. SForestus, Plato. h Pract. major. Tract. 6. cap. 1. 

Kub. 11. de ffigrit. cap. quod his multum contingat. iHggc aegritudo est solicitudo melancholica in qua 

homo applicat sibi continuam cogitationem super pulchritudine ipsius quam amat, gestuum, moi-uni. 
k Animi forte accidens quo quis rem habere nimia aviditate concupiscit, ut ludos venatores, aurum et opes 
avari. 1 Assidua cogitatio super rem desideratam, cum confidentia obtinendi, ut spe apprehensum delec- 

tiibile, &c. ^Mo\'bus corporis potius quam auinii. ^ Amor est passio melancholica. ° Ob cakfuc- 
tior.em spirituum purs anterior capitis laborat ob consumptionem humiditatis. . 



502 Love-Mdanchohj, ^ [Part. 3. Sec. 2, 

part of the head for want of moisture," which his Commentator rejects. Lan- 
gius, med. epist. lib. 1. cap. 24. will have this passion seated in the liver, and 
to keep residence in the heart, "^to proceed iirst from the eyes so carried by 
our spirits, and kindled with imagination in the liver and heart ;" coget amare 
jecur, as the saying is. Medium feret per epar, as Cupid in Anacreon. For 
some such cause belike ^ Homer feigns Titius' liver (who was enamoured of 
Latona) to be still gnawed by two vultures day and night in hell, " ^ for that 
young men's bowels thus enamoured, are so continually tormented by love.'* 
Gordonius, cap. 2. part. 2. "^ will have the testicles an immediate subject or 
cause, the liver an antecedent." Fracastorius agrees in this with Gordonius, 
inde primitus imaginatio venerea, erectio, &c. titillatissimam partem vocat, itaut 
nisi extruso semine gestieyis voluptas non cessat, nee assidua veneris recordatio, 
addit Gnastivinius, Commeiit. 4. Sect. prob. 27. Arist. But ^properly it is a 
passion of the brain, as all other melancholy, by reason of corrupt imagination, 
and so doth Jason Pratensis, c. 19. de morb. cerebri (who writes copiously of 
this erotical love), place and reckon it amongst the affections of the brain. 
^ Melancthon de anhnci confutes those that make the liver a part affected, and 
Guianerius, Tract. 15. cap. 13. et 17. though many put all the affections in the 
heart, refers it to the brain. Ficinus, cap. 7. in Convivium Platonis, " will 
have the blood to be the part affected." Jo. Frietagius, cap. 14. noct. med. 
supposeth all four affected, heart, liver, brain, blood; but the major part concur 
upon the brain, ^ 'tis imaginatio Icesa ; and both imagination and reason are 
misaffected; because of his corrupt judgment, and continual meditation of that 
which he desires, he may truly be sp^id to be melancholy. If it be violent, or 
his disease inveterate, as I have determined in the precedent partitions, both 
imagination and reason are misaffected, first one then the other. 



MEMB. 11. 



SuBSECT. I. — Causes of Reroical Love, Temperature, full Diet, Idleness, 
Flace, Climate, <&c. 

Of all causes the remotest are stars. ^ Ficinus, cap. 19. saith they are most 
prone to this burning lust, that have Yenus in Leo in their horoscope, when 
the Moon and Yenus be mutually aspected, or such as be of Yenus' complexion. 
^ Plutarch interprets astrologically that tale of Mars and Yenus, " in whose 
genitures $ and ? are in conjunction," they are commonly lascivious, and if 
women, queans; "as the good wife of Bath confessed in Chaucer;" 

I followed aije mine inclination. 
By vii-tue of nuj constellation. 

But of all those astrological aphorisms which I have ever read, that of Cardan 
is most memorable, for which howsoever he is bitterly censured by ^Marinus 
Marcennus, a malapert friar, and some others (which ^ he himself suspected) 
yet methinks it is free, downright, plain and ingenuous. In his '^eighth Geni- 
ture, or example, he hath these words of himself. (5 ? and ^ in ^ digni- 
tatibus assiduani miJii Venereorum cogitationem prcEstabunt, ita ut nunquara 
quiescam. Et paulo post, Cogitatio Venereorum me torquet perpetud, et quam 

P Affectus animi concupiscibilis fe desiderio rei amatse per oculos in mente concepto, spiritus in corde et 
jecore incendens. 1 0dyss. et Metamor. 4. Ovid. ^ Quod talem carnificinam in adolescentum visceribua 
amor faciat inexplebilis. ^ Testiculi quoad causam conjunctam, epar antecedentem, possiint esse subjectum. 
t Propria passio cerebri est ob corruptam imaginationem. ^ Cap. de affectibus. ^ Est corruptio imagi- 

nativse et agstimativse facultatis, ob formam fortiter aCfixam, coiTuptumque judicium, ut semper de eo cogitet, 
ideoque recte melaneholicus appellatur. Concupiscentia vehemens ex corrupto judicio osstimaiirte virtutis. 
y Comment, in convivium Platonis. Irretiuntur cito quibus nascentibus Venus fuei it in Leone, vel Luna 
venerem vehementer aspexerit, et qui eadem complexione sunt prsediti. ^ Plei-umque ainatores sunt, et si 

fceminas, meretrices, \. de audiend. ^ Comment, in Genes, cap. 3. b Et si in hoc parum Ji pr^clara 

infamia stultitiaque abero, vincit tamen amor veritatis. ^ Edit. BasiL 1553. Cum Commentar. in Ptolomaai 
qiiadi-ipartitum. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 1.] 



Causes of Love-3Idanclioli/. 



503 



facto irnplere non Ucuit, autfecisse potentem puduit, cogitatione assidud mentitus 
sum voluptatem. Et alibi, ob d et^ dominium et radiorum mixliouem, pro- 
fundumfuit ingenium, sed lascivum, egoque turpi libidini deditus et ohsccenus. 
So far Cardan of liimself, quodde sefatetur ideo ^ut utilitatem adferat studiosis 
hujusce disciplincB, and for this lie is traduced by Marcennus, when as in effect 
lie saitli no more than what Gregory Nazianzen of old, to Cliilo his scholar, 
affhrebant se mihivisendce77iulieres, quarum prcEcellenti elegantid et decore spec- 
tabili tentabatur mece integritas pudicitice. Et quidemfiagitium mtavif arnica- 
t'lonis, at munditice virginalis florem arcana cordis cogitatione fcedavi. Sed ad 
rem. Aptiores ad masculinam venerem sunt quorum genesi Venus est in signo 
masculino, et in Saturni finibus aut oppositione, &c. Ptolomeus in quadripart. 
plura de his et specialia liabet apliorismata, longo proculdubio usu confirmata, 
et ab experientia multa perfecta, inquit commentator ejus Cardanus. Tho. 
Campanella, Astrologice lib. 4. cap. 8. articulis 4 and 5. insaniam amatoriam 
remonstrantia, multa praecseteris accumulat aphorismata, quae qui volet, consu- 
lat. Chiromantici ex cingulo Veneris plerumque conjecturam faciunt, et monte 
Veneris, de quorum decretis, Taisnerum, Johan. de Indagine, Goclenium, cete- 
rosque si lubet, inspicias. Physicians divine wholly from the temperature 
and complexion; phlegmatic persons are seldom taken, according to Ficinus 
Comment, cap. 9 j naturally melancholy less than they, but once taken they 
are never freed; though many are of opinion liatuous or hypochondriacal 
melancholy are most subject of all others to this infirmity. Valescus assigus 
their strong imagination for a cause, Bodine abundance of wind, Gordonius 
of seed, and spirits, or atomi in the seed, which cause their violent and furious 
passions. Sanguine thence are soon caught, young folks most apt to love, 
and by their good wills, saith ^Lucian, "would have a bout with every one 
they see : " the colt's evil is common to all complexions. Theomestus a young 
and lusty gallant acknowledgeth (in the said author) all this to be verified 
in him, " I am so amorously given ^you may sooner number the sea-sands, 
and snow falling from the skies, than my several loves. Cupid had shot all 
his arrows at me, I am deluded with various desires, one love succeeds an- 
other, and that so soon, that before one is ended I begin with a second; she 
that is last is still fairest, and she that is present pleaseth me most : as an 
hydra's head my loves increase, no lolaus can help me. Mine eyes are so 
moist a refuge and sanctuary of love, that they draw all beauties to them, and 
are never satisfied. I am in a doubt what fury of Venus this should be : 
alas, how have I offended her so to vex me, what Hippolitus am I ! What 
Telchin is my genius? or is it a natural imperfection, an hereditary passion ?" 
Another in^Anacreon confesseth that he had twenty sweethearts in Athens 
at once, fifteen at Corinth, as many at Thebes, at Lesbos, and at Rhodes, 
twice as many in Ionia, thrice in Caria, twenty thousand in all : or in a 
word, £/ <p\ik\a 'TTuvTa, &c. 



' Folia arborum omnium si 
Nosti ret'erre cuncta, 
Aut computare arenas 
In Kquore universas, 
Solum meorum amorura 
Te fecero logistam ? " 



' Canst count the leaves in May, 
Or sands i' th' ocean sea ? 
Tlien count my loves 1 pray." 



His eyes are like a balance, apt to propend each way, and to be weighed 
down with every wench's looks, his heart a weathercock, his affection tinder, 
or napthe itself, which every fair object, sweet smile, or mistress's favour sets 
on fire. Guianeiius, tract. 15. cap. 14. refers all this ^to "the hot tempera- 
ture of the testicles," Perandus a Frenchman in his Erotique Mel. (which 

d Fol. 445. Basil. Edit. ^ Dial, amortim. f Citius maris fluctus et nives coelo delabentes numeraria 

quam amores meos; alii amores aliis succedunt, ac priusquam desinant priores, incipiuut sequentes. Adeo 
liuinidis oculis meus inhabitat Asylus omnem formam ad se rapiens, ut nulla satietate expleatur. Quseuam 
hicc ira Veneris, &c. s is^um. xxiii. h Qui calidum testiculorura crasin habent, &c. 



BOi Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

^book came first to my hands after tlie third edition) to certain atomi in the 
seed, " such as are very spermatic and full of seed." I find the same in Aristot. 
sect 4. prob. 17. si nan secernatur semeji, cessare tentigines non possunt, as 
Gnastivinius his commentator translates it : for which cause those young men 
that be strong set, of able bodies, are so subject to it. Hercules de Saxonia 
hath the same words in effect. But most part I say, such as are aptest to love 
that are young and lusty, live at ease, stall-fed, free from cares, like cattle in 
a rank pasture, idle and solitary persons, they must needs hirquitullire, as 
Gnastivinius recites out of Censorinus : 

" k Mens erit apta capi turn quum tetissima rerum, I " The mind is apt to lust, and hot or cold, 
Ut seges in pingui luxuriabit huino." I As corn luxuriates in a better mould." 

The place itself makes much wherein we live, the clime, air, and discipline if 
they concur. In our Misnia, saith Galen, near to Pergamus, thou shalt scarce 
find an adulterer, but many at Rome, by reason of the delights of the seat. 
It was that plenty of all things, which made ^ Corinth so infamous of old, and 
the opportunity of the place to entertain those foreign comers ; every day 
strangers came in, at each gate, from all quarters. In that one temple of 
Venus a thousand whores did prostitute themselves, as Strabo writes, besides 
Lais and the rest of better note : all nations resorted thither, as to a school of 
Venus. Your hot and southern countries are prone to lust, and far more incon- 
tinent than those that live in the north, as Bodine discourseth at large, Method, 
hist. cap. 5. Molles Asiatici, so are Turks, Greeks, Spaniards, Italians, even 
all that latitude ; and in those tracts, such as are more fruitful, plentiful, and 
delicious, as Valence in Spain, Capua in Italy, domicilium luxus Tully terms 
it, and (which Hannibal's soldiers can witness) Canopus in Egypt, Sybaris, 
Phoeacia, Baise, °^ Cyprus, Lampsacus. In ^Naples the fruit of the soil and 
pleasant air enervate their bodies, and alter constitutions : insomuch that 
Florus calls it, Certamen Bacchi et Veneris, but ^Foliot admires it. In Italy 
and Spain they have their stews in every great city, as in Rome, Venice, 
Florence, wherein, some say, dwell ninety thousand inhabitants, of which ten 
thousand are courtezans ; and yet for all this, every gentleman almost hath 
a peculiar mistress; fornications, adulteries, are nowhere so common : urhs est 
jam tota lupanar ; howshouldaman live honest amongst so many provocations? 
now if vigour of youth, greatness, liberty I mean, and that impunity of sin 
which grandees take unto themselves in this kind shall meet, what a gap must 
it needs open to all manner of vice, with what fury will it rage? For, as 
Maximus Tyrius the Platonist observes, libido consequuta quumfuerit mate- 
riam improbam, et prcBVuptam licentiam, et effrejiatam audaciam, &c., what 
will not lust effect in such persons? For commonly princes and great men 
make no scruple at all of such matters, but with that whore in Spartian, quic- 
quid libet licet., they think they may do what they list, profess it publicly, and 
rather brag with Proculus (that writ to a friend of his in Rome, ^what famous 
exploits he had done in that kind) than any way be abashed at it. ^^ Nicholas 
Sanders relates of Henry VIII. (I know not how truly) Quod paucas vidit 
pulchriores quas non concupierit, et paucissimas concupterit quas non viola- 
rit, "He saw very few maids that he did not desire, and desired fewer whom he 
did not enjoy :" nothing so familiar amongst them, 'tis most of their business : 
Sardanapalus, Messalina, and Joan of Naples, are not comparable to ^meaner 

" i Printed at Paris 1624, seven years after my first edition. k Grid de art. 1 Gerbelius, descript. 

Orsecise. Rerum omnium afHuentia et loci mira opportunitas, nullo non die hospites in portas advertebant. 
Templo Veneris mille meretrices se prostituebant. ^ Tota Cypri insula delitiis incumbit, et ob id tantum 
luxurise dedita ut sit olim Veneri sacrata. Ortelius. Lampsacus, olim Priapo sacer ob vinum generosum, et 
loci delicias. Idem. '^ Agri Neapolitani delectatio, elegantia, amoenitas, vix intra modura humanum con- 
sistere videtur ; unde, &c. Leand. Alber. in Campania. ° Lib. de laud. urb. Neap. Disputat. de morbis 
animi, Reinoldo Interpret. P Lampridius, Quod decern noctibus centum virgines fecisset mulieres. 

^ Vita ejus. ^ If they contain themselves, many times it is not vii'tutis amove ; non dcest voluntas sed 
facultas. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 1.] Causes of Love-Melanclioly. 505 

men and women; Solomon of old had a thousand concubines; Aliasuerus his 
eunuchs and keepers; Nero his Tigellinus, panders, and bawds; the Turks, 
^Muscovites, Mogors, XerifFs of Barbary, and Persian Sophies, are no whit 
inferior to them in our times. Delectus jit oriiniiim puellarum toto regno for ind 
prcestantiorum (saith Jovius) pro iniperatore ; et quas ille linqint, nobiles habent; 
they press and muster up wenches as we do soldiers, and have their choice of 
the rarest beauties their countries can afford, and yet all this cannot keep 
them from adultery, incest, sodomy, buggery, and such prodigious lusts. We 
may conclude, that if they be young, fortunate, rich, high-fed, and idle withal, 
it is almost impossible that they should live honest, not rage, and preci^^itate 
themselves into these inconveniences of burning lust. 

" t Otium et reges prius et beatas 
Perdidit urbes." 

Idleness overthrows all. Vacuo pectore regnat amor, love tyranniseth in an 
idle person. A more abundas Antipho. If thou hast nothing to do, " "//z- 

vidia vel amore miser torquebere Thou slialt be haled in pieces with envy, 

lust, some passion or other. Homines niliil agendo male agere discunt; 'tis 
Aristotle's simile, " ^as match or touchwood takes fire, so doth an idle person 
love." Quceritur ^gistus quare sit f actus adulter, &c., why was ^gistus a 
whoremaster? You need not ask a reason of it. Ismenedora stole Baccho, a 
woman forced a man, as ^Aurora did Cephalus: no marvel, said ^Plutarch, 
Luxuriansopibus more hominum mulieragit: she was rich, fortunate and jolly, 
and doth but as men do in that case, as Jupiter did by Europa, Neptune by 
Amymone. The poets therefore did well to feign all shepherds lovers, to give 
themselves to songs and dalliances, because they lived such idle lives. JFor 
love, as ^Theophrastus defines it, is otiosi animi affectus, an affection of an 
idle mind, or as ^Seneca describes it, Juventd gig}dtur, luxu nutritur, fei'iis 
alitur, otioque inter Iceta fortunce bonce; youth begets it, riot maintains it, 
idleness nourisheth it, &c. which makes ^Gordonius the physician C(X/j>. 20. 
part. 2. call this disease the proper passion of nobility. Now if a weak 
judgment and a strong apprehension do concur, how, saith Hercules de Saxonia, 
shall they resist? Savanarola appropriates it almost to " "^ monks, friars, and 
religious persons, because they live solitary, fare daintily, and do nothing:" 
and well he may, for how should they otherwise choose? 

Diet alone is able to cause it : a rare thing to see a young man or a woman 
that lives idly, and fares well, of what condition soever, not to be in love. 
® Alcibiades was still dallying with wanton young women, immoderate in his 
expenses, effeminate in his apparel, ever in love, but why? he was over^ 
delicate inhis diet, too frequent and excessive in banquets, Ubicunque securitaSy 
ibi libido dominatur ; lust and security domineer together, as St. Hierome 
averreth. All which the wife of Bath in Chaucer freely justifies, 

For all to sicker, as cold engendreth hail, 

A liquorish tongue must have a liquorish tail. 

Especially if they shall further, it by choice diet, as many times those Sybarites 
and Phseaces do, feed liberally, and by^ their good will eat nothing else but 
lascivious meats. ^ Vi?ium imprimis generosum, legumen, fabas, radices om^ 
niumgenerum bene conditas^et largo pipere aspersas, car duos hortulanos, lactu- 
cas,^ erucas, rapas^porros, ccepas, nucem piceam, amygdalas dulces, electuaria, 
syrupos, succos, cochleas, conchas, pisces optime prcEparatos, ctviculas, testiculos 

s In Muscov. t Catullus ad Lesbiam. ^ Hor. ^ Polit. 8. num. 28. ut naptha ad ignera, sic amor 
ad iUos qui torpescunt ocio. ^ Pausanias Attic. lib. 1. Cephalus egregise form e juvenis ab aurora raptus 
quod ejus amore capta esset. ^ In amatorio. '^ E Stob*o ser. 62. b Amor otiosas cura est sollici- 

tudinis. ^ Principes plerumque ob licentiam et adfluentiam divitiarum istam passionem solent incurrerB. 
dArdenter appetit qui otiosani vitam agit, et communiter incuvrit liecpassio solitaries delitiose viventes, 
incoutinentes, religiosos, &c. ^Plutarch, vit. ejus. f Vina parant animos veneri. 8;Sed nitul wucse 
faciunt biilbique salaces; Improba nee projiit jam satureia tibi. Ovid. 



506 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

animaUum.,ova, condimenta diversorum generum, molles lectos, pulvinaria, ^c. 
Et quicquid fere medici impotentid reivenerece. laboranti prcEScribunt, hoc quasi 
diasatyrion hahcnt in delitiis,ethis dapes rnultd delicatiores ; mulsum, exquisitas 
et exoiicas fruges, aromata, placentas, expressos succos multisferculis variatos, 
ipsumque vinum suavitate vincentes^ et quicquid culina, pharmacopoeia, aut 
quceque fere officina subministrare possit. Et hoc plerumque victu quum se 
ganeones infarciant, ^ut ille oh Clireseida suam, se hulbis et cochleis curavit; 
etiam ad Yenerem se parent, et ad hanc palestram seexerceant, qui fieri pos- 
sit ut non misere depereant, ^ut nnn peyiitus insaniartt'^ ^stuans venter cito 
despuit in libidinem, Hieronymus ait. ^Post prandia, Callyroenda. Quis 
enim continere se potest? ^Luxuriosa vq^ Vimxin., fomentuyn libidinis vocat 
Augustinus; blandum c?£Emo/?em, Bernardus; /«c ve^zms, Aristophanes, Non 
-^tna, non Vesuvius tantis ardoribus sestuant ac juveniles medull89 vino plense, 
addit ^^ Hieronymus : unde oh optimum vimim Lamsacus olim Priapo sacer: et 
venerandi Bacchi socia, apud ^Orpheum Yenus audit. Hcec si vinum sim- 
plex, et per se sumptum prazstare possit, nam °quo me Bacche rapis tui 

plenum"? quam non insaniam, quern non furor em a cceteris expectemus? 
^Gomesius salem enumerat inter ea quce. intempestivam libidinem provocare 
Solent, et salaciores fieri feminas ob esum salis contendit : Yenerem ideo dicunt 
ab Oceano ortam. 

" ^ Unde tot in Veneta scortorum millia cursant ? 
In proraptu causa est, est Venus orta mari." 

Et bine foeta mater Salaeea Oceani conjux, verbumque fortasse salax cb sale 
effluxit. Mala Bacchica tantum olim in amoribus prcBvaluerunt, ut coronce ex 
illis statucB Bacchi ponerentur. ^ Cubehis i?i vi?io maceratis utuntur Indi Ori- 
entales ad Venerem excitandam, et ^ Surax radice Africani. Cliinse radix 
eosdem effectus habet, talisque herbce meminit mag. nat. lib. 2. cap. 16. *Bap- 
tista Porta ex India allatce, cujus mentionem facit et Theopbrastus. Sedinfl- 
nita his similia apud Pliasin, Mattliiolum, Mizaldum, cceterosque medicos 
occurrunt, quorum ideo mentionem feci, 7ie quis imperitior in hos scopulos 
impingat, sed pro virili tanquam syrtes et cautes consult^ effugiat. 

SuBSECT. II. — Other causes of Love-Melancholy, Sight, Beauty from ike Face, 
Eyes, other parts, and how it pierceth. 

Many such causes may be reckoned up, but tbey cannot avail, except oppor- 
tunity be offered of time, place, and those other beautiful objects, or artificial 
enticements, as kissing, conference, discourse, gestures concur, with such like 
lascivious provocations. Kornmannus, in his book de linea amoris, makes five 
degrees of lust, out of ^Lucian behke, which he handles in five chapters, 
Visits, Colloquium, Convicius, Oscula, Tactus.^ Sight, of all other, is the first 
step of this unruly love, though sometime it be prevented by relation or hear- 
ing, or rather incensed. For there be those so apt, credulous, and facile to 
love, that if they hear of a proper man, or woman, they are in love before they 
see them, and that merely by relation, as Achilles Tatius observes. ^Such 
is their intemperance and lust, that they are as much maimed by report, as if 
they saw them. Callisthenes a rich young gentleman of Byzance in Thrace, 
hearing of ^Leucippe, Sostratus' fair daughter, was far in love with her, and 

h Petronius. Curavi me mox cibis validioribus, &c. iUti ille apud Skenkium, qui post potioneni, 

tixorem et quatuor ancillas proximo cubiailo cubantes, compressit. k Pers. Sat. 3, 1 Siracicles. Nox, 
et amor vinumque nihi! moderabile suadent. ^ Lip. ad Olympiam. ^ Hymno. ^Hor. 1. 3. Od. 25. 
P De sale lib. cap. 21. <1 Kornmannus lib. de virginitate. ^ Garcias ab horto aromatum lib. 1. cap. 28. 
B Surax radix ad coitum summe facit si quis comedat, aut infusionem bibat, membrum subito erigitur. Leo 
Afer. lib. 9. cap. ult. t Qu« non solum edentibus sed et genitale tangentibus tantum valet, ut coire summe 
desiderent; quoties fere velmt, possint; alios duodecies profecisse, alios ad 60 vices pervenisse refert. 
'i Lucian. Tom. 4. Dial, amorum. ^ " Sight, conference, a,ssociation, kisses, touch." ^ ^ Ea enim 

hominum intemperantium libido est ut etiam fama ad amandum impellantur, et audientes seque affiuimuur 
ac vidcntes. ^Formosam Sostrato liliam audieosi uxorem cupit, et sola illius auditione ardet. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] Causes of Lom-Melanclioly. 507 

out of fame and common rumour, so mucli incensed, that he would needs have 
her to be his wife." And sometimes by reading they are so affected, as he in 
^ Lucian confesseth of himself, " I never read that pkice of Panthea in Xeno- 
phon, but I am as much affected as if T were present with her." Such persons 
commonly ^ feign a kind of beauty to themselves; and so did those three gen- 
tlewomen in '^Balthasar Castillo fall in love with a young man Avhom they never 
knew, but only heard him commended : or by reading of a letter ; for there is 
a grace cometh from hearing, ^ as a moral philosopher informeth us, " as v/ell 
from sight; and the species of love are received into the phantasy by relation 
alone:" ^ut cwpere ah aspectu, sic velle ah auditu, both senses affect. Inter- 
dum et absentes atnamus, sometimes we love those that are absent, saith Phi- 
lostratus, and gives instance in his friend Athenorodus, that loved a maid at 
Corinth whom he never saw; non oculi sed mens videt, we see with the eyes 
of our understanding. 

But the most familiar and usual cause of love is that which comes by sight, 
which conveys those admirable rays of beauty and pleasing graces to the heart. 
Piotinus derives love from sight, hug quasi ooaffig. ^Si nescis, ocidi sunt in amore 
duces, '•' the eyes are the harbingers of love," and the first step of love is sight, 
as ^Lilius Giraldus proves at large, hisL deor. syntag. 13. they as two sluices 
let in the influences of that divine, powerful, soul-ravishing, and captivating 
beauty, which, as ^one saith, "is sharper than any dart or needle, wounds deeper 
into the heart; and opens a gap through our eyes to that lovely wound, which 
pierceth the soul itself." (Eccius. 18.) Through it love is kindled like a fire. 
This amazing, confounding, admirable, amiable beauty, "Hhan which in all 
nature's treasure (saith Isocrates) there is nothing so majestical and sacred, 
nothing so divine, lovely, precious," 'tis nature's crown, gold and glory; 
honum si non suramum, de summis tamen non infrequenter triumphans, whose 
power hence may be discerned ; we contemn and abhor generally such things 
as are foul and ugly to behold, account them filthy, but love and covet that 
which is fair. 'Tis ^ beauty in all things vfhich pleaseth and allureth us, a fair 
hawk, a fine garment, a goodly building, a fair house, &c. That Persian 
Xerxes when he destroyed all those temples of the gods in Greece, caused that 
of Diana, in integrum servari, to be spared alone for that excellent beauty and 
niagnificen(?e of it. Inanimate beauty can so command. 'Tis that which 
painters, artificers, orators, all aim at, as Eriximachus the physician, in Plato 
contends, " ^It was beauty first that ministered occasion to art, to find out the 
knowledge of carving, painting, building, to find out models, perspectives, rich 
furnitures, and so many rare inventions." Whiteness in the lily, red in the 
rose, purple in the violet, a lustre in all things without life, the clear light of 
the moon, the bright beams of the sun, splendour of gold, purple, sparkling 
diamond, the excellent feature of the horse, the majesty of the lion, the colour 
of birds, peacocks' tails, the silver scales of fish, we behold with singular 
delight and admiration. "°^ And which is lich in plants, delightful in flowers, 
wonderful in beasts, but most glorious in men," doth make us affect and ear- 
nestly desire it, as when we hear any sweet harmony, an eloquent tongue, see 
any excellent quality, curious work of man, elaborate art, or aught that is 
exquisite, there ariseth instantly in ns a longing for the same. "We love such 
men, but most part for comeliness of person ; we call them gods and goddesses 

* Quoties de Panthea Xenophontis locum periego, ita animo affectns ac si coram intnerer. b Pulchritu- 
dinem sibi ipsis confinffunt, Imagines. ^De anlico lib. 2. fol.lie. 'tis a pleasant story, and related at 

large by him. d Gratia venit ah audita £Bque ac visu, et species amoris in phantasiam recipiuiit sola 

relatione. Picolomineus grad. 8. c. 33. ^Lips. cent. 2. epist. 22. Beautie's Encomions. f Propert. 

g Amoris prinimn gradum visus habet, ut aspiciat rem amatam. h Achilles Tatius lib 1. Forma telo 

quovis acutior ad iuferendum vulnus, perque oculos amatorio -viilnevi aditum patefaciens in animum peiietrat. 
i In tota rerum natura nihil forma divinins, nihil augustius, nihil [iretiosius, cujus vires hinc lacLLe intelli- 
guntur, &c • k Christ. Fonseca. IS. L. "^ Bruys prob. 11. de forma h Lucianos. 



508 Love-Melanclwly. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

divine, serene, happy, &c. And of all mortal men tliey alone (° Calcagnimis 
holds) are free from calumny ; qui divitiis, magisiratu et gloria Jlorent, injurid 
lacessimus, we backbite, wrong, hate renowned, rich, and happy men, we repine 
at their felicity, they are undeserving we think, fortune is a step-mother to us, 
a parent to them. " We envy (saith ° Isocrates,) wise, just, honest men, 
except with mutual offices and kindnesses, some good turn or other, they extort 
this love from us ; only fair persons we love at first sight, desire their acquaint- 
ance, and adore them as so many gods : we had rather serve them than com- 
mand others, and account ourselves the more beholding to them, the more ser- 
vice they enjoin us : though they be otherwise vicious, dishonest, we love them, 
favour them, and are ready to do them any good office for their ^ beauty's sake, 
though they have no other good quality beside. Die igitur oformose adoles- 
cens (as that eloquent Phavorinua breaks out in ^ Stobeus), die A utiloque, sua- 
vius nectare loqueris; die 6 Telemache, vehementius Ulyssedicis; die Alcibiades 
uteunque ebrius, lihentlus tihi lieet ebrio auscultahhnus. " Speak, fair youth, 
speak Autiloquus, thy words are sweeter than nectar, speak O Telemachus, 
thou art more powerful than Ulysses, speak Alcibiades though drunk, we will 
willingly hear thee as thou art." Faults in such are no faults : for when the 
said Alcibiades had stolen Anytus his gold and silver plate, he was so far from 
prosecuting so foul a fact (though every man else condemned his imi^udence 
and insolency) that he wished it had been more, and much better (he loved him 
dearly) for his sv\^eet sake. " No worth is eminent in such lovely persons, all 
imperfections hid;" non enim facile de his quos plurimum diligimus, turpitu- 
dinem suspieamur, for hearing, sight, touch, (fee, our mind and all our senses 
are captivated, omnes sensus formosus delectat. Many men have been preferied 
for their person alone, chosen kings, as amongst the Indians, Persians, Ethi- 
opians of old ; the properest man of person the country could afford, was elected 
their sovereign lord ; G^^atior est 'pulchro veniens e corpore virtus, ^and so have 
many other nations thought and done, as ^ Curtis observes : Ingens enim 
in corporis niajestate veneratio est, "for there is a majestical presence in such 
men;" and so far was beauty adored amongst them, that no man was thought 
fit to reign, that was not in all parts complete and supereminent. Agis, king 
of Lacedsemon, had like to have been deposed, because he married a little wife, 
they would not have their royal issue degenerate. Who would ever have 
thought that Adrian the Fourth, an English monk's bastard (as ^Papirius 
Massovius writes in his life), inops a suis relictus, squalidus et miser, a jjoor 
forsaken child, should ever come to be pope of Kome? But why was it? 
JErat aeri ingenio, facundid expeditd, eleganti corpore, facieque Icetd ae hilari 
(as he follows it out of ^ Nubrigensis, for he ploughs with his heifer), "he was 
wise, learned, eloquent, of a pleasant, a promising countenance, a goodly, pro- 
per man ; he had, in a word, a winning look of his own," and that carried it, 
for that he was especially advanced. So " Saul was a goodly person and 
a fair." Maximinus elected emperor, &c. Branchus the son of Apollo, whom 
he begot of Jance, Succron's daughter (saith Lactantius), when he kept King 
Admetus' herds in Thessaly, now grown a man, was an earnest suitor to his 
mother to know his father; the nymph denied him, because Apollo had con- 
jured her to the contrary; yet overcome by his importunity at last shesenthimto 
Ms father ', when he came into Apollo's presence, malas Dei reverenter osculatus, 

11 Lib. de calumnia. Formosi Calumnia vacant; dolemus alios meliore loco positos, fortunam nobis nover- 
cam illis, (fee. '^Invidemus sapientibu<, justis, nisi beneficiis assidue amorem extorquent; solos formosos 

amamus et primo velut aspectu benevolentia conjungiinur, et eos tanquam Deos colimus, libentius iis servi- 
mus qiiam aliis imperamus, majoremque, &c. P FormEe majestatem Barbari verentur, nee alii majores 

quarn quibus eximia forma natura doiiata est, Herod, lib. 5. Cuitias 6. Arist Polit. ^Serm. 63. Pliitarcli. 
vit. ejus. Brisoiiius Strabo. ^ " Virtue appears more gracefully in a lovely personage." ^ Lib. 5 

magiiorumque operum non alios capaces putaut quam quos eximia specie natura donavit. t Lib. de viti.» 

poutilicum. Rom. ^ Lib. 2. cap. G, 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] Causes of Love- Melancholy. 509 

lie carried himself so well, and was so fair a young man, that Apollo was infi- 
nitely taken with the beauty of his person, he could scarce look off him, and 
said he was worthy of such parents, gave him a crown of gold, the spirit of 
divination, and in conclusion made him a demi-god. vis superba formce, a 
goddess beauty is, whom the very gods adore, nam pulchros dii amant ; she is 
Amoris domina, love's harbinger, love's loadstone, a witch, a charm, &c. 
Beauty is a dower of itself, a sufficient patrimony, an ample commendation, an 
accurate epistle, as ^ Lucian, ^ Apuleius, Tiraquellus, and some others conclude. 
Imperio digna forma, beauty deserves a kingdom, saith Abulensis, paradox 2. 
cap. 110. immortality ; and ^ "more have got this honour and eternity for their 
beauty, than for all other virtues besides :" and such "as are fair, "are worthy 
to be honoured of God and men." That Idalian Ganymede was therefore 
fetched by Jupiter into heaven, Hsephestion dear to Alexander, Antinous to 
Adrian. Plato calls beauty for that cause a privilege of nature, Naturm gau~ 
dentis opus, nature's master-piece, a dumb comment ; Theophrastus, a silent 
fraud; still rhetoric, Carneades, that persuades without a speech, a kingdom with- 
out a guard, because beautiful persons command as so many captains ; So- 
crates, a tyranny, "which tyranniseth over tyrants themselves;" which made 
Diogenes belike call proper women queens, quodfacerent homines quae prceci- 
perent, because men were so obedient to their commands. They will adore, 
cringe, compliment, and bow to a common wench (if she be fair) as if she were 
a noble woman, a countess, a queen, or a goddess. Those intemperate young 
men of Greece erected at Delphos a golden image with infinite cost, to the 
eternal memory of Phryne the courtezan, as ^lian relates, for she was a most 
beautiful woman, insomnch saith ^Athenseus, that Apelles and Praxiteles drew 
Venus's picture from her. Thus young men will adore and honour beauty ; 
nay kings themselves I say will do it, and voluntarily submit their sovereignty 
to a lovely woman. " Wine is strong, kings are strong, but a woman 
strongest," 1 Esd. iv. 10. as Zerobabel proved at large to King Darius, his 
princes and noblemen. " Kings sit still and command sea and land, &c., all 
p;^y tribute to the king ; but women make kings pay tribute, and have domi- 
nion over them." When they have got gold and silver, they submit all to a 
beautiful woman, give themselves wholly to her, gape and gaze on her, and all 
men desire her more than gold or silver, or any precious thing : they will leave 
father and mother, and venture their lives for her, labour and travel to get, 
and bring all their gains to women, steal, fight, and spoil for their mistress's 
sake. And no king so strong, but a fair woman is stronger than he is. "All 
things" (as^he proceeds) "fear to touch the king; yet I saw him and Apame 
his concubine, the daughter of the famous Bartacus, sitting on the right hand 
of the king, and she took the crown off his head, and put it on her own, and 
stroke him with her left hand ; yet the king gaped and gazed on her, and 
when she laughed, he laughed, and when she was angry he flattered to be 
reconciled to her." So beauty commands even kings themselves ; nay whole 
armies and kingdoms are captivated together with their kings ; ^ Forma vincit 
ar'i)iatos, ferrum p)ulchritudo captivat ; vincentur specie, qui non vincentur 
pralio. And 'tis a great matter saith ^Xenophon, "and of which all fair 
persons may worthily brag, that a strong man must labour for his living if he 
will have aught, a valiant man must fight and endanger himself for it, a wise 
man speak, show himself, and toil ; but a fair and beautiful person doth all 

3^ Dial, araorum c. 2. de magia. Lib 2. connub. cap. 27. Virgo formosa et si oppidb pauper, abundfe est 
dotata. y Isucrates pluies ob fomiam immortalitatem adepti sunt qnam ob reliquas omnes virtutes. 

2 Lucian Tom. 4. Chori £Emon. Qui pulcliii, merito apud Decs et apud homines honore affecti. Muta com- 
mendatio, quavis epistola ad commendandum efflcacior. ^ Lib. 9. Var. liist. tanta formse elegantia ut ab 

ea nuda, &c. b Esdras, iv. 29. ^ Origen horn. 23. in Numb. In ipsos tyrannos tyrannidem exercet. 

d Illud certe magnum ob quod gloriari possunt formosi, quod robustos necessarium sit laborare, fortemperi- 
culis se objicere, sapientem, &c 



010 Love-Mel<inclioly. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

witli ease, he compassetli his desire without any pains-taking :" God and men 
heaven and earth conspire to honour him j every one pities him above other, if 
he be in need, ^and all the world is willing to do him good. ^Chariclea fell 
into the hand of pirates, but when all the rest were put to the edge of the 
sword, she alone was preserved for her person. ^When Constantinople was 
sacked by the Turk, Irene escaped, and was so far from being made a captive, 
that she even captivated the Grand Seignior himself. So did Rosamond insult 
over King Henry the Second. 

" h I was so fair an oT)joct ; 

Whom fortur.e ma^le my kinj?, my lovemjide subject; 
He found by proof the privilege of beauty. 
That it had power to countermand all duty." 

It captivates the very gods themselves, Morosiora numina, 

" i Deus ipse deorum 

Factus Ob banc formam bos, equus, imber, olor." 

And those mail genii are taken with it, as ^I have already proved. Formo- 
sam Barbari verentur, et ad spectum pulclirum iminanis animus mansuescit, 
(Heliodor. lib. 5.) The barbarians stand in awe of a fair woman, and at a 
beautiful aspect a fierce spirit is pacified. For when as Troy was taken, and 
the wars ended (as Clemens ^Alexandrinus quotes out of Euripides), angry 
Menelaus with rage and fury armed, came with his sword drawn, to have killed 
Helen, with his o^vll hands, as being the sole cause of all those wars and mise- 
ries : but when he saw her fair face, as one amazed at her divine beauty, he 
let his weapon fall, and embraced her besides, he had no power to strike so 
sweet a creature. Urgo hebetantur enses 2^ulchritudine, the edge of a sharp 
sword (as the saying is) is dulled with a beautiful aspect, and severity itself is 
overcome. Hiperides the orator, when Phryne his client was accused at Athens 
for her lewdness, used no other defence in her cause, but tearing her upper 
garment, disclosed her naked breast to the judges, with which comeliness of 
her body and amiable gesture they v^ere so moved and astonished, that they 
did acquit her forthwith, and let her go. O noble piece of justice ! mine author 
exclaims : and who is he that would not rather lose his seat and robes, forfeit 
his office, than give sentence against the majesty of beauty? Such prero- 
gatives have fair persons, and they alone are free from danger. Partheno- 
pseus was so lovely and fair, that when he fought in the Theban wars, if his 
face had been by chancebare, no enemy would ofi'er to strike at or hurt him, 
such immunities hath beauty. Beasts themselves are moved with it. Sinalda 
was a woman of such excellent feature, "^and a queen, that when she was to be 
trodden on by wild horses for a punishment, " the wild beasts stood in admi- 
ration of her person, (Saxo Grammaticus, lib. 8, Dan. hist.) and would not hurt 
her." Wherefore did that royal vii'gin in ^ Apuleius, when she fled from the 
thieves' den, in a desert, make such an apostrophe to her ass on whom she 
rode ; (for what knew she to the contrary, but that he was an ass?) Si me 
parentibus et procoformoso reddideris, quas tibi gratias, quos honores habebo, 
quos cibos exhibebo .?° She would comb him, dress him, feed him, and trick 
him every day herself, and he should work no more, toil no more, but rest and 
play, &c. And besides she would have a dainty picture drawn, in perpetual 
remembrance, a virgin riding upon an ass's back with this motto, J sino vector e 
regia virgo fugiens captivitatem ; v/hy said she all this? why did she make 
such promises to a dumb beast ? but that she perceived the poor ass to be 

^Majorem vim habetadcommendandam forma, quam accurate sci-ipta epi.stola. Arist. f Heliodor. 

lib. 1. SKnowles. hist. Turcica. h Daniel in complaint of Rosamond. i Stroza Alius Epig. "The 

king of the gods on account of this beauty became a bull, a shower, a swan." kSect. 2. Mem. 1. Sub. 1. 
1 Stromatmn 1. post captain Trojam cam impetu ferretur ad occidendam llelenara, stupore adeo pulchri- 
tudiniscorreptus ut fernim excideret, &c. '^Tantse fornije tuit ut cum vincta loris feris exposita foret, 

equorum calcibus obterenda, ipsis jumeniis admirationi fait ; Isedere noluerunt. ^ Lib. 8. mules. ° " If 
you will restore me to my parents, and my beautiful lover, what thanks, what honour shall I owe you, what 
provender shall I not supply you ?" 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] 



Beauty a Cause. 



511 



taken with her beauty ; for lie did often ohliqiio collo pedes piiellce decoros hasiare, 
kiss ber feet as sbe rode, et ad delicatidas vocidas tentahat ad/dmure, oifer to give 
consent as mucb as in bini was to her delicate speeches, and besides he had 
some feeling, as she conceived of her misery. And why did Theogine's horse 
in Heliodoriis ^curvet, prance, and go so proudly, exultans alacriter et super- 
Mens, &c., but that such as mine author supposeth, he was m love with his 
master? dixisses ipsum equum pulchrum intelllgere pidchram domine formam? 
A fly lighted on ^ Malthius' cheek as he lay asleep j but why*? Not to hurt 
him, as a parasite of his, standing by, well perceived, non ut pungeret, sed ut 
oscularetur, but certainly to kiss him, as ravished with his divine looks. Ina- 
nimate creatures, I suppose, have a touch of this. When a drop of ^'Psyche's 
candle fell on Cupid's shoulder, I think sure it was to kiss it. When Venus 
ran to meet her rose-cheeked Adonis, as an elegant ^poet of ours sets her out, 

the bushes in the M'ay 



Some catch her neck, some kiss her face, 
Some twine about her legs to make her stay, 
And all did covet her for to embrace." 



Aer ipse amove inficitur, as Heliodorus holds, the air itself is in love : for 
when Hero played upon her lute. 



t The wanton air in twenty sweet fonns danc't 
After her fingers," 



and those lascivious winds stayed Daphne when she fled from Apollo; 



•^ nudabant corpora venti, 



Obviaque adversas vibrabaut flamiiia vcstes." 

Boreas Ventus loved Hyacinthus, and Orithya Ericthon's daughter of Athens; 
vi rapuit, kc, he took her away by force, as she was playing with other 
wenches at Ilissus, and begat Zetes and Galias his two sons of her. That seas 
and waters are enamoured with this our beauty, is all out as likely as that of 
the air and winds ; for when Leander swam in the Hellespont, Neptune with 
his trident did beat down the waves, but 

" They still mounted up intending to have kiss'd him, 
And fell in drops like tears because they missed him." 

The ^ river Alpheus was in love with Arethusa, as she tells the tale herself, 

" viridesqu.e manu siccata capillos, 

Fluminis Alphei veteres recitavit araores; 
Pars ego Nyaipharum," ^ &c. 

When our Thame and Isis meet 

"^Oscula mille sonant, eonnexu bracliia pallent, 
Mutuaque explicitis connectunt colla lacertis." 

Inachus and Pineus, and how many loving rivers can I reckon up, whom 
beauty hath enthralled ! I say nothing all this while of idols themselves that 
have committed idolatry in this kind, of looking-glasses, that have been rapt 
in love (if you will believe ^ poets), when their ladies and mistresses looked on 
to dress them. 



■ Et si non habeo sensum, tua gratia sensum 
Exhibet, et calidi sentio ami.ris onus. 
Dirigis hue quotijs spectantia lumina, flamma 
Succendunt inopi saucia membra milii. " 



' Tliough I no sense at all of feeling have, 
Yet your sweet looks do animate and save; 
And when your speaking eyes do this way turn, 
Metliiiiks my woimded members live and burn." 



I could tell you such another story of a spindle that was fired by a fair lady's 
^ looks, or fingers, some say, I know not well whether, but fired it was by 
report, and of a- cold bath that suddenly smoked, and was very hot when 
naked Coelia came into it, '■^ Miramur quis sit tantus et unde vapor," ^ &c. But 

P^Ethiop. 1. 3. <lAtheneus, lib. 8. ^ Apuleius Aur. asino. ^ g^akspeare . t Marlowe. 

^ Ov. Met. 1 . ^ Ov. Met. lib. 5. y " And with her Jiand wiping otf the drops from her green 

tresses thus began to relate the loves of Alpheus. I was tonnerly an Achaian nymph," &c. ^ Lelund. 

" Their I'ps resound witLi thousand kisses, their arms are pallid with the close embrace, and their necks are 
mutually entwined by their fond caresses." ^ Angerianus bSilonge aspiciens liaec urit lumine 

divos atque homines prope, cur urere lina nequit ? Angerianus. '^ " We wonder how great the 

honour and whence it comes." 



512 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

of all tlie tales in this kinil, that is the most memorable of ^ Death himself, 
when he should have strucken a sweet young virgin with his dart, he fell in 
love with the object. Many more such could I relate which are to be believed 
with a poetical faith. So dumb and dead creatures dote, but men are mad, 
stupified many times at the first sight of beauty, amazed, ® as that fisherman 
in Aristsenetus, that spied a maid biithing herself by the sea-side. 

" f Soluta mihi sunt omnia membra 

A capite ad calcem, scnsusqne omnis periit 

De pectore, tarn immensus stupor animam invasit mihi." 

And as ^ Lucian, in his images, confesses of himself, that he was at his 
mistress's presence void of all sense, immovable, as if he had seen a Gorgon's 
head: which was no such cruel monster (as ^Coelius interprets it, lib. 3. cap. 
9.), " but the very quintessence of beauty," some fair creature, as without 
doubt the poet understood in the first fiction of it, at which the spectators 
were amazed. ^ Miseri quibus intentata nites, poor wretches are compelled at 
the very sight of her ravishing looks to run mad, or make away with them- 
selves. 

"k They wait the sentence of her scornful eyes; 
And whom she favours lives, the other dies." 

^Heliodorus, lib. 1. brings in Thyamis almost besides himself, when he saw 
Chariclia first, and not daring to look upon her a second time, "for he thought 
it impossible for any man living to see her and contain Limself." The very 
fame of beauty will fetch them to it many miles off (such an attractive power 
this loadstone hath), and they will seem but short, they will undertake any 
toil or trouble, "^ long journeys, Penia or Atalanta shall not overgo them, 
through seas, deserts, mountains, and dangerous places, as they did to gaze 
on Psyche : " many mortal men came far and near to see that glorious object 
of her age," Paris for Helena, Corebus to Troja. 



" Illis Ti-ojam qui forte diehus 



Venerat insano Cassandraj insensus amore," 

" who inflamed with a violent passion for Cassandra, happened then to be in 
Troy." King John of France, once prisoner in England, came to visit his old 
friends again, crossing the seas; but the truth is, his coming was to see the 
Countess of Salisbury, the nonpareil of those times, and his dear mistress. 
That infernal god Pluto came from hell itself, to steal Proserpine; Achilles 
left all his friends for Polixena's sake, his enemy's daughter; and all the " Gre- 
cian gods forsook theii' heavenly mansions for that fair lady, Philo Dioneus 
daughter's sake, the paragon of Greece in those days; edenim venustatejuit, ut 
earn certatim omnes dii conjugem expeterent : " for she was of such surpassing 
beauty, that all the gods contended for her love." ° Formosa divis imperat 
puella : " the beautiful maid commands the gods." They will not only come 
to see, but as a falcon makes a hungry hawk hover about, follow, give attend- 
ance and service, spend goods, lives, and all their fortunes to attain; 

" Were beauty under twenty locks keptfast, 
Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last." 

When fair ^ Hero came abroad, the eyes, hearts, and affections of her spec- 
tators were still attendant on her. 

"lEt medios inter vultus supereminet omnes, 1 "^So far above the rest fair Hero shined, 

rerque urbem aspiciunt venientem nmninis instar." | And stole a\vay the enchanted gazer's mind. " 

d Idem Anger. ^ Obstupuit mirabundus membronim elegantiam, &c. Ep. 7. f Stobseus fe graeco. 

" My Umbs became relaxed, 1 was overcome from head to foot, all self-possession fled, so great a stupor over- 
burdened my mind." 8 Parum abfuit quo minus saxum ex homine factus sura, ipsis statuis immobiiiorem 
me fecit. h Veteres Gorgonis fabulam confinxerunt, exhnium format decu.s stupidos reddens. i Hor. 

Ode 5. k Marios Hero. 1 Aspectiim virglnis sponte fugit insaaus tere, et impossibile existimans ut 

simul eam aspicere quis possit, et intra temperantise metas se continere. ^ Apuleius, 1. 4. Multi mor- 

talcs longis itineribus, &c. ^Kic. Gerbel. 1. 5. Achaia, <>I. Secundusbasiomm lib. PMusseus 

ilia autem bene morata, per £edem qnocunque vagabatur, sequentem mentem habebat, et oculos, et corda 
virorum. *1 Homer. r Marlowe. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] Beauty a Cause. 513 

®When Peter Aretine's Lncretia came first to Rome, and that the fame of her 
hesiuty, ad U7'banaruvi deliciaruni sectatores venerat,nemo iion ad videndam earn, 
&c. were spread abroad, they came in (as they say) thick and threefold to see her, 
and hovered about her gates, as they did of old to Lais of Corinth, and Phryne 
of Thebes. ^ Ad cvjusjacint Grcecia tola fores, " at whose gates lay all Greece." 
""Every man sought to get her love, some with gallant and costly apparel, 
some with an affected pace, some with music, others with rich gifts, pleasant 
discourse, multitude of followers ; others with letters, vows, and promises, to 
commend themselves, and to be gracious in her eyes." Happy was he tliat 
could see her, thrice happy that enjoyed her company. Charmides ^in Plato 
was a proper young man, in comeliness of person, " and all good qualities, far 
exceeding others; whensoever fair Charmides came abroad, they seemed all 
to be in love with him (as Critias describes their carriage), and were troubled 
at the very sight of him ; many came near him, many followed him whereso- 
ever he went," as those ^ formarum spectatores did Acontius, if at any time he 
walked abroad: the Athenian lasses stared on Alcibiades; Sappho and the 
Mitilenean women on Phaon the fair. Such lovely sights do not only please, 
entice, but ravish and amaze. Cleonimus, a delicate and tender youth, present 
at a feast which Androcleshis uncle made in Pirseo at Athens, when he sacri- 
ficed to Mercury, so stupified the guests, Dineas, Aristippus, Agasthenes, and 
the rest (as Charidemus in ^Lucian relates it), that they could not eat their 
meat, they sat all supper time gazing, glancing at him, stealing looks, and 
admiring of his beauty. Many will condemn these men that are so enamoured, 
for fools; but some again commend them for it; many reject Paris's judgment, 
and yet Lucian approves of it, admiring Paris for his choice ; he would have 
done as much himself and by good desert in his mind ; beauty is to be pre- 
ferred "^before wealth or wisdom." ^Athenseus, Deipnosophist, lib. 13. 
co,p. 7, holds it not such indignity for the Trojans or Greeks to contend ten 
years, to spend so much labour, lose so many men's lives for Helen's sake, 
'^for so fair a lady's sake, 

" Ob talem uxorem cui prsestantissima fonaa, 
Nil mortale refert." 

That one woman was worth a kingdom, a hundred thousand other women, a 
world itself Well might ^ Sterpsichores be blind for carping at so fair a 
creature, and a just punishment it was. The same testimony gives Homer of 
the old men of Troy, that were spectators of that single combat between Paris 
and Menelaiis at the Seian gate, when Helen stood in presence ; they said all, 
the war was worthily prolonged and undertaken ® for her sake. The very 
gods themselves (as Homer and ^Isocrates record) fought more for Helen than 
they did against the giants. When ^ Yenus lost her son Cupid she made 
proclamation by Mercury, that he that could bring tidings of him should have 
seven kisses ; a noble reward some say, and much better than so many golden 
talents, seven such kisses to many men were more precious than seven cities, 
or so many provinces. One such a kiss alone would recover a man if he were 
a dying, ^Suaviolum Stygia sic te de valle reducet, &c. Great Alexander 
married Poxane, a poor man's child, only for her person. ^ 'Twas well done 
of Alexander, and heroically done; I admire him for it. Orlando was mad for 
Angelica, and who doth not condole his mishap ? Thisbe died for Pyramus, 

s Pernodidascalo dial. Ttal. Latin, donat. ^ Gasp. Barthio Germano. tPropertius. ^Vestium 

splendoreet elegantia, ambitione incessus, donis, cantilenis, &c.. gratiam adipisci. ^Prse cajteris 

corpoiis proceritate et egregia indole mirandus apparebat, casteri autem capti ejus amore videbantur, &c. 
yAristaenetus, ep. 10. ^Tom. 4. Dial, meretr. respicientes et ad formam ejus obstupescentes. a In 

Charidemo; sapientia; merito piilchiitudo prjefertur et opibus. b Indignum nihil est Troas fortes et 

Achii'os tempore tarn longo perpessos esse laboi-e. <^Diirna quidera fades pro qua vel obiret Achilles, vel 

Priamus, belli causa probanda fuit. Proper, lib. 2. dCoecus qui Helenge foi-mam carpsei-at ^ Those 

mutinous Turks that murmured at Mahomet, when they saw Irene, excused his absence. Knowls. fin 

laudem Helenas erat. K Apul. miles, lib. 4. h Secun. baa. 13. iCurtius, 1. 1. 

2h 



514 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2 

Dido for ^Eeas ; who dotli not weep, as (before his conversion) ^ Austin did 
in commiseration of her estate ! she died for him j " methinks (as he said) I 
could die for her." 

But this is not the matter in hand ; what prerogative this beauty hath, of 
what power and sovereignty it is, and how far such persons that so much 
admire, and dote upon it, are to be justified; no man doubts of these matters ; 
the question is, how and by what means beauty produceth this effect 1 By 
sight : the eye betrays the soul, and is both active and passive in this business ; 
it wounds and is wounded, is an especial cause and instrument, both in the 
subject and in the object. "^ As tears, it begins in the eyes, descends to the 
breast;" it conveys these beauteous rays, as I have said, unto the heart. Ut 
vidi ut peril. ^Marsvidet hanc, visamque cupit. Shechem saw Dinah the 
daughter of Leah, and defiled her, Gen. xxxiv. 3. Jacob, Rachel, xxix. 17, 
"for she was beautiful and fair." David spied Bathsheba afar off", 2 Sam.xi. 2. 
The elders, Susanna, ^^ as that Orthomenian Strato saw fair Aristoclea the 
daughter of Theophanes, bathing herself at that Hercyne well in Lebadea, and 
were captivated in an instant. Viderunt oculi, rapuerunt pectora Jiammce ; 
Ammon fell sick for Thamar's sake, 2 Sam. xiii. 2. The beauty of Esther 
was such, that she found favour not only in the sight of Ahasuerus, "but of all 
those that looked upon her." Gerson, Origen, and some others, contended 
that Christ himself was the fairest of the sons of men, and Joseph next unto 
him, speciosus prce Jiliis hominum, and they will have it literally taken ; his 
very person was such, that he found grace and favour of all those that looked 
upon him. Joseph was so fair, that, as the ordinary gloss hath it, filice 
decurrerent per murum, et ad fenestras, they ran to the top of the walls and to 
the windows to gaze on him, as we do commonly to see some great personage 
go by : and so Matthew Paris describes Matilda the Empress going through 
CuUen. °P. Morales the Jesuit saith as much of the Virgin Mary. Antony 
no sooner saw Cleopatra, but, saith Appian, lib. 1, he was enamoured of her. 
^Theseus at the first sight of Helen was so besotted, that he esteemed himself 
the happiest man in the world if he might enjoy her, and to that purpose 
kneeled down, and made his pathetical prayers unto the gods. *^Charicles, by 
chance, espying that curious picture of smiling Yenus naked in her temple, 
stood a great while gazing, as one amazed; at length, he brake into that mad 
passionate speech, " O fortunate god Mars, that wast bound in chains, and 
made ridiculous for her sake!" He could not contain himself, but kissed he..' 
picture, I know not how oft, and heartily desired to be so disgraced as Mari 
was. And what did he that his betters had not done before him ? 

'""atque aliquis de diis non tristibus optat 

Sic fieri turpis " ■ 

When Yenus came first to heaven, her comeliness was such, that (as mine' 
author saith) "^all the gods came flocking about, and saluted her, each of 
them went to Jupiter, and desired he might have her to be his wife." When 
fair * Antilochus came in presence, as a candle in the dark his beauty shined, 
all men's eyes (as Xenophon describes the manner of it) '"'were instantly fixed 
on him, and moved at the sight, insomuch that they could not conceal them- 
selves, but in gesture or looks it was discerned and expressed." Those other 
senses, hearing touching, may much penetrate and affect, but none so much, 
none so forcible as sight. Forma Briseis mediis in armis movit Achillem, 
Achilles was moved in the midst of a battle by fair Briseis, Ajax by Tecmessa ; 

kConfessi. 1 Seneca, amor in oculis oritur. ™ Ovid. Fast. 'i Plutarch. o Lib. de pulchrifc 

Jesu et Mariae. P Lucian Chari demon supra omnes mortales felicissimum si hac frui posset. *1 Luciaii 

amor. Insanum quiddam ac fuiibundum exclamans. fortunatissime deorum JMars qui propter hanc 
vinctus tuisti. ^ Ov. Met. 1.3. ^ Omnes dii complexi sunt, et in uxorem sibi petierunt, Nat. 

Comes de Venere. t Ut cum lux noctis affulget, omnium oculos incumt ; sic Antiloquus, &c 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] Beauty a Cause. 515 

Judith captivated that great Captain Holofernes: Dalilali, Samsou ; Rosa- 
mund, ""Heiiry the Second; Roxolana, Solyman the Magnificent, &c. 

Kai vvp xiXf) Tjf ovc-a,.'* 

"A fair woman overcomes fire and sword." 

"y Nought under heaven so strongly doth allure I Driven with the power of an heart-burning eyo. 
The sense of man and all his mind possess. And lapt in flowers of a golden tress, 

As beauty's loveliest bait, that doth procure That can with melting pleasure mollify 

Great warriors erst their rigour to suppress, 1 Their harden'd hearts inur'd to cruelty." 

And mighty hands forget their manliness, | 

Oitiphon ingenuously confesseth, that he no sooner came in Leucippe's 
presence, but that he did corde tremere, et oculis lascivms inticeri ; *he was 
wounded at the first sight, his heart panted, and he could not possibly turn his 
eyes from her. So doth Calysirisin Heliodorus, lib. 2. Isis Priest, a reverend 
old man, complain, who by chance at Memphis seeing that Thracian E-odophe, 
might not hold his eyes off her : "''I will not conceal it, she overcame me 
with her presence, and quite assaulted my continency which I had kept unto 
mine old age ; I resisted a long time my bodily eyes with the eyes of my 
understanding; at last I was conquered, and as in a tempest carried head- 
long." c Xenophiles, a philosopher, railed at women downright for many 
years together, scorned, hated, scofied at them ; coming at last into Daphnis 
a fair maid's company (as he condoles his mishap to his friend Demaritis), 
though free before, Intactus nullis ante cupidinihus, was far in love, and quite 
overcome upon a sudden Victus sum fateor a Daphnide, &c. I confess I 
am taken, 

" d Sola hsec inflexit sensus, animumque labentem 
Impulit" 

I could hold out no longer. Such another mishap, but worse, had Stratocles 
the physician, that blear-eyed old man, muco plenus (so e Prodromus describes 
him) ; he was a severe woman's-hater all his life, foeda et contumeliosa semper 
infcBminas profatus, a bitter persecutor of the whole sex, humanas aspides et 
vip&ras appellebat, he forswore them all still, and mocked them wheresoever he 
came, in such vile terms, ut matrem et sorores odisses, that if thou hadst heard 
him, thou wouldst have loathed thine own mother and sisters for his word's 
sake. Yet this old doting fool was taken at last with that celestial and divine 
look of Myrilla, the daughter of Anticles the gardener, that smirking wench, 
that he shaved off his bushy beard, painted his face, ^ curled his hair, wore a 
laurel crown to cover his bald pate, and for her love besides was ready to run 
mad. For the very day that he married he was so furious, ut sdis occasum 
minus expectare posset ( a terrible, a monstrous long day), he could not stay till 
it was night, sed omnibus insalutatis in thalamum festinans irrupit, the meat 
scarce out of his mouth, without any leave taking, he would needs go presently 
to bed. What young man, therefore, if old men be so intemperate, can secure 
himself? Who can say I will not be taken with a beautiful object? I can, 
I will contain. No, saith^Lucian of his mistress, she is so fair, that if thou 
dost but see her, she will stupify thee, kill thee straight, and. Medusa like, 
turn thee to a stone ; thou canst not pull thine eyes from her, but as an 
adamant doth ii'on, she will carry thee bound headlong whither she will herself, 
infect thee like a basilisk. It holds both in men and women. Dido was 

^Delevit omnes ex animo mulieres. ^ Nam vincit et vel ignem, femimque si qua pulchra est. Anacreon, 2 
y Spenser ia his Faerie Queene. ^Achilles Tatius, lib. 1. ^ Statim ac earn contemplatus sum, occidi ; 

oculos a virgine avertere conatus sum, sed illi repugnabant. b Pudet dicere, non celabo tamen. Memphim 
veniens me vieit, et coutinentiam expugnavit, quam ad senectutem usque servaram ; ocuhs corporis, &c. 
** Nunc primum circa haiic anxius animi hsereo. Aristaenetus. ep. 17. dVirg^n. 4. "She alone hath 

captivated my feelings, and fixed my wavering mind." ^Amaranto dial. fComasque ad speculum 
disposuit. 8 Imag. Polistrato. Si illam saltem tntuearLs, statuis immobiliorem te faciet : si conspexeris 
earn, non relinquetur facultas oculos ab ea amovendi; abducet te alligatum quocunque voluerit, ut feiTUia 
ad se trahere terunt adamantem. 



.516 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

amazed at Eneas' presence ; Ohslupult primo aspectu Sidonia Dido ; and as 
lie feelingly verified out of his experience ; 

*' h Quam ego postquafn vidi, non ita amavi ut sani solent I *' I lov'd her not as others soberly, 

Homines, sed eodem pacto ut insani solent." 1 But as a madman rageth, so did I." 

So Museus of Leander, nusquam lumen detorquet ah ilia ; and ^ Chaucer of 
Palamon, 

He cast his eye upon Emilia, 
And therewith he blent and cried ha, ha, 
As though he had been stroke unto the hearta. 

If you desire to know more particularly what this beauty is, how it doth 
Tnjiuere, how it doth fascinate (for, as all hold, love is a fascination), thus in 
brief "^This comeliness or beauty ariseth from the due proportion of the 
whole, or from each several part." For an exact delineation of which, I refer 
you to poets, historiographers, and those amorous writers, to Lucian's Images, 
and Charidemus, Xenophon's description of Panthea, Petronius Catalectes, 
Heliodorus Chariclia, Tacius Leucippe, Longa Sophista's Daphnis and Cloe, 
Theodorus Prodromushis Rhodanthes, Aristsenetus and Philostratus Epistles, 
Balthasar Castillo, lib. 4 de aulico. Laurentius, cap. 10, de melan. -^neas 
Sylvius his Lucretia, and every poet almost, which have most accurately de- 
scribed a perfect beauty, an absolute feature, and that through every member, 
both in men and women. Each part must concur to the perfection of it; for 
as Seneca saith, Ep. 33. lib. 4. Non est forjiiosa mulier cujus cms laudatur 
et brachium, sed ilia cujus nmid universajacies admirationem singulis partibus 
dedit ; "She is no fair woman, whose arm, thigh, &c. are commended, except 
the face and all the other parts be correspondent.*' And the face especially 
gives a lustre to the rest : the face is it that commonly denominates a fair or 
foul : arx formce fades, the face is beauty's tower ; and though the other 
parts be deformed, yet a good face carries it {fades non uxor amatur), that 
alone is most part respected, principally valued, deliciis suis ferox, and of itself 
able to captivate. 

"1 Urit te Glycerse nitor, 
Urit grata pi'otervitas, 
Et vultus nimiiim lubricus aspicL" 

** Glycera's too fair a face was it that set him on fire, too fine to be beheld." 
When ™ Chserea saw the singing wench's sweet looks, he was so taken, that 
he cried out, faciem pulchram, deleo omnes dehinc ex animo mulieres, tcedet 
quotidianarum harum formarum ! "O fair face, I'll never love any but her, 
look on any other hereafter but her j I am weary of these ordinary beauties, away 

with them." The more he sees her, the worse he is, uritque videndo as 

in a burning-glass, the sunbeams are re-collected to a centre, the rays of love 
are projected from her eyes. It was ..^neas's countenance ravished Queen 
Dido, Os humerosque Deo similis, he had an angelical face. 

" ^0 sacros vultus Baccho vel Apolline dignos, I " sacred looks, befitting majesty, 

Quos Yir, quos tutb foemina nulla videt I " ] Which never mortal wight could safely see." 

Although for the greater part this beauty be most eminent in the face, yet 
many times those other members yield a most pleasing grace, and are alone 
sufficient to enamour. A high brow like unto the bright heavens, cceli pul- 
cherrima plaga, Frons ubi vivit honor, frons ubi ludit amor, whiteand smooth 
like the polished alabaster, a pair of cheeks of vermilion colour, in which love 
lodgeth ; ^ Amor qui mollibus genis puellce pernoctas : a coral lip, suamorum 
delubrum, in which Basia mille patent, basia mille latent, "A thousand appear, 
as many are concealed;" gratiarum sedes gratissima; a sweet-smelling flower, 

h Plaut. Merc . i In the Knight's Tale. k Ex debita totius proportione aptaque partinm compo- 

Birione. Piccolomineus. IHor. Od. 19. lib. 1. "^ Ter. Eunuch. Act. 2. seen. 3. ii Petronius Catall. 

Sophocles, Antigone. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] Beauty a Cause, 517 

from which bees may gather honey, ^ Mellilegce volucres quid adhuc cava thyma 
rosasque, &c. 

" Omnes ad domino labra venite meae, 
Ilia rosas spirat," &c. 

A white and' round neck, that via lactea, dimple in che chin, black eye-brows, 
Cupidinis arcus, sweet breath, white and even teeth, which some call the sale- 
piece, a fine soft round pap, gives an excellent grace, ^ Quale decus tumidis 
Pario de marmore mammis /" ^and make a pleasant valley lacteum sinum, 
between two chalky hills, Sororiantes papillulas, et ad prurituni frigidos aina- 
tores solo aspectu excitantes. Unde is, ^ Forma papillarum quam fuit apta 
prenii ! — Again Urebant oculos durce stantesque tnamillce. A flaxen hair ; 
golden hair was even in great account, for which Virgil commends Dido, Non~ 
du7)% sustulerat Jlavum Proserp)inina crinem, Et crines nodantur in auruin, 
ApoUonius (Argonaut, lib. 4. Jasonisflava coma incendlt cor Medece) will have 
Jason's golden hair to be the main cause of Medea's dotage on him. Castor 
and Pollux were both yellow haired. Paris, Menelaiis, and most amorous 
young men, have been such in all ages, molles ac suaves^ as Baptista Porta 
infers, ^ Physiog. lib. 2. lovely to behold. Homer so commends Helen, makes 
Patroclus and Achilles both yellow haired: Pulchricoma Yenus, and Cupid 
himself was yellow haired, in aurum coruscante et crispante capillo, like that 
neat picture of Narcissus in Callistratus j for so ^Psyche spied him asleep, 
Briseis, Polixena, (he. flavicomce omnes, 



and Hero the fair, 



Wliom young Apollo courted for her hair." 

Leland commends Guithera, King Arthur's wife, for a fair flaxen hair : so Paulus 
^milius sets out Clodeveus, that lovely king of France. ^ Synesius holds 
every eifeminate fellow or adulterer is fair haired : and Apuleius adds that 
Yenus herself, goddess of love, cannot delight, ""^though she come accompa- 
nied with the graces, and all Cupid's train to attend upon her, girt with her 
own girdle, and smell of cinnamon and balm, yet if she be bald or badhaired, 
she cannot please her Yulcan." "Which belike makes our Yenetian ladies at 
this day to counterfeit yellow hair so much, great women to calamistrate and 
curl it up, vibrantes ad gratiam crines, et tot orbibus in captivitatem flexos, to 
adorn their heads with spangles, pearls, and made-flowers; and all courtiers 
to effect a pleasing grace in this kind. In a word, "^the hairs are Cupid's 
nets, to catch all comers, a brushy wood, in which Cupid builds his nest, and 
under whose shadow all loves a thousand several ways sport themselves." 
A little soft hand, pretty little mouth, small, fine, long fingers, Gratice qucB 

digitis 'tis that which Apollo did admire in Daphne, laudat digitosque 

manusque; a straight and slender body, a small foot, and well-proportioned 
leg, hath an excellent lustre, ^Cui totum incumbit corpus uti fundamenio aides. 
Clearchus vowed to his friend Amyander in ^Aristsenetus, that the most attrac- 
tive part in his mistress, to make him love and like her first, was her pretty 
leg and foot : a soft and white skin, &c. have their peculiar graces, ^Nebula 
haud est mollior ac hujus cutis est, cedipol papillam bellulam. Though in men 

these parts are not so much respected j a grim Saracen sometimes, nudus 

membra Pyracmon, a martial hirsute face pleaseth best; a black man is a 
pearl in a fair woman's eye, and is as acceptable as "^lame Yulcan was to 

P Jo. Secundus 'bas. 19. <lLcech{Ens. ^ Arandus. Vallis amosnissima e duobns montibus composita 

niveis. ^ Ovid. t FoL 77. Dapsiles hilares amatores, &c. ^ When Cupid slept. Ctesariem auream 

habentem, ubi Psyche vidit, mollemque ex ambrosia cervicem inspexit, crines crispos, pui-pureas genas can- 
didasque, &c. Apuleius. ^ In laudem calvi ; spleudida coma quisque adulter est ; alUcit aurea coma. 

y Venus ipsa non placeret comis nudata, capite spoliata, si qualis ipsa Venus cum fuit virgo omni gi-atiarum 
choro stipata, et toto copidinum populo concinuata, baltheo suo cincta, cinnama fragrans, et balsaraa-, si calva 
processerit, placere non potest Vukano suo. ^ Arandus. Capilh retia Cupidinis, sylva csedua, in qua 

nidificat Cupido, sub cujus umbra amores mUle modis se exercent. ^Theod. Frodromus Amor. lib. i. 

b Epist 72. Ubi pulchram tibiam, bene compactam tenuem*iue pedem vidL ^ Plaut. Cas. d Claudua 

optime rem agit. 



518 Love 'Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

Venus; for he being a sweaty fuliginous blacksmith, was dearly beloved of 
her, when fair Apollo, nimble Mercury were rejected, and the rest of the 
sweet-faced gods forsaken. Many women (as Petronius ^observes) sordibus 
calent (as many men are more moved with kitchen wenches, and a poor market 
maid, than all these illustrious court and city dames) will sooner dote upon a 
slave, a servant, a dirt dauber, a brontes, a cook, a player, if they see his naked 
legs or arms, thorsaque hrachia^ &c., like that huntsman Meleager in Philo- 
stratus, though he be all in rags, obscene and dirty, besmeared like a ruddleman, 
a gipsy, or a chimney-sweeper, than upon a noble gallant, Nireus, Ephestion, 
Alcibiades, or those embroidered courtiers full of silk and gold. ^Justine's 
wife, a citizen of Rome, fell in love with Py lades a player, and was ready to 
run mad for him, had not Galen himself helped her by chance. Faustina the 
empress doted on a fencer. 

Not one of a thousand falls in love, but there is some peculiar part or other 
■which pleaseth most, and inflames him above the rest. ^ A company of young 
philosophers on a time fell at variance, which part of a woman was most desi- 
rable and pleased best? some said the forehead, some the teeth, some the 
eyes, cheeks, lips, neck, chin, &c., the controversy was referred to Lais of 
Corinth to decide ; but she, smiling, said, they were a company of fools j for 
suppose they had her where they wished, what would they ^ first seek? Yet 
this notwithstanding I do easily grant, neque quis vestrum negaverit opinoTf 
all parts are attractive, but especially ^ the eyes,^ 

" vldet igne micantes, 

Sideribus similes oculos" 

which are love's fowlers ; ^aucupium amoris, the shoeing horns, " the hooks 
of love (as Arandus will), the guides, touchstone, judges, that in a moment 
cure mad men, and make sound folks mad, the watchmen of the body ; what 
do they not?" How vex they not? All this is true, and (which Athenseus 
lib. 13. dip. cap. 5. and Tatius hold) they are the chief seats of love, and James 
Lernutius^ hath facetely expressed in an elegant ode of his, 



" Amorem ocellis flarameolis herae 
Vidi insidentem, credite posteri, 
Fratresque circum ludibundos 
Cum pharetra volitare et arcu," 



' I saw Love sitting in my mistress' eyes 

Sparkling, believe it all posterity, 
And his attendants playing round about, 
With bow and arrows ready for to fly." 



ScaUger caUs the eyes, "^Cupid's arrows; the tongue, the lightning of love; 
the paps, the tents :" ^ Balthasar Castillo, the causes, the chariots, the lamps 
of love, 

" semula lumina stellis, I " Eyes emulating stars in light, 

Lumina qua; possent soUicitare deos." 1 Enticing gods at the first sight ; " 

Love's orators, Petronius. 



' O blandos oculos, et 6 facetos, 
Et quadam propria nota loquaces 
Illiciest Venus, et leves amores, 
Atque ipsa in medio sedet voluptas.' 



' sweet and pretty speaking eyes, 
Where Venus, love, and pleasure lies." 



Love's torches, touch-box, napthe and matches, ^TibuUus. 

*' lllius ex oculis qnum vult exurere divos, I "Tart Love when he will set the gods on fire, 

Accendit geminas lampades acer amor." | Lightens the eyes as torches to desh'e." 

Leander, at the first sight of Hero's eyes, was incensed, saith Musseus. 



Simul in ^oculorum radiis crescebat fax amorum, 

Et cor fervebat invecti ignis impetu ; 

Pulchritudo enim Celebris immaculatae foeminse, 

Acutior hominibus est veloci sagitta. 

Oculus verb via est, ab oculi ictibus 

Vulnus dilabitur, et in prsecordia viri manat." 



Love's torches 'gan to burn first in her eyes, 

And set his he irt oa fire which never dies : 

For the fair beauty of a virgin pure 

Is sharper than a dart, and doth inure 

A deeper wound, which pierceth to the heart 

By the eyes, and causeth such a cruel smart." 



® FoL 5. Si servum viderint, aut flatorem altius cinctum, aut pulvere perfusum, aut histrionem in scenam 

traductum, &c. f Me pulchra fateor carere forma, venim luculenta nostra est. Petronius Catal. de Priapo. 

8 Galen. h Calcagninus Apologis. Quae pars maxime desiderabilis ? Alius frontem, alius genas, <kc. 

i Inter foemineum. k Heiisius. 1 Sunt enim oculi, prsecipuse pulchritudinis sedes. lib. 6. ™ Amoris 

hami, duces, judices et indices qui momento insanos sanant, sanos insanire cogunt, oculatissimi corporis 
excubitores, quid non agunt? Quid non cogunt? ^ Ocelli carm. 17. cujus et Lipsius epist. quaest. lib. 3. 

cap. II. meminlt ob elegantiam. <> Cynthia prima suis raiserum me cepit ocellis, contactum nullis ante 

eupidinibus. Propert. 1. I. PIncatalect. 1 De Sulpicio, lib. 4. '^ Pulchritudo ipsa per occultos 

radios in pectus amantis dimanans amatsa rei formam insculpsit, Tatius, 1.5. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] Beauty a Cause. 519 

*A modern poet brings in Anmon complaining of Tbamar, 



" et me fascino 

Occidit illc risus et formse lepos, 
Ille nitor, ilia gratia, et verus decor, 
niae aemnlantes purpuram, et ^ rosas ?ense, 
Oculique vinctaaque aureo nodo c mse." — 



It was thy beauty, 'twas thy pleasing smile, 
Thy grace and comeliness did me hegnile ; 
Thy rose-like cheeks, and unto purple fair 
Thy lovely eyes and golden knotted hair." 



*Philostratus Lemnius cries out on Ms mistress's basilisk eyes, ardentes faceSj 
those two burning glasses, they had so inflamed his soul, that no water could 
quench it. " What a tyranny (saith he), what a penetration of bodies is this ! 
thou drawest with violence, and swallowest me up, as Charybdis doth sailors 
with thy rocky eyes : he that falls into this gulf of love, can never get out," 
Let this be the corollary then, the strongest beams of beauty are still darted 
from the eyes. 

♦' ^ Nam quis lumina tanta, tanta • " For who such eyes with his can see, 

Posset luminihus suis tueri, And not fo^th^\^.th enamoui''d be ! " 

Non statim trepidansque, palpitansque, 
Prse desiderii gestuantis aura ?" &c I 

And as men catch dotterels by putting out a leg or an arm, with those mutual 
glances of the eyes they first inveigle one another. ^Cynthia prima suis mise- 
Tum me cepit ocellis. Of all eyes (by the way) black are most amiable, 
enticing and fairer, which the poet observes in commending of his mistress. 
"^ Spectandum nigris oculis, nigroque capillo^ which Hesiod admires in his 
Alcmena, 

" 2 Cujus k vertice nlgricantibus oculis I " From her black eye?, and from her golden face, 

Tale quiddam spirat ac ab aurea Venere." | As if from Venus came a lovely grace." 

and ^Triton in his Milaene nigra oculos formosa mihi.. ^ Homer useth 

that epithet of ox-eyed, in describing Juno, becauLse a round black eye is the 
best, the son of beauty, and farthest from black the worse: which ^Polydore 
Virgil taxeth in our nation : Angli ut plurinium ccesiis oculis, we have gray eyes 
for the most part. Baptista Porta, Physiognom. lib. 3. puts gray colour upon 
children, they be childish eyes, dull and heavy. Many commend on the other 
side Spanish ladies, and those ^ Greek dames at this day, for the blackness of 
their eyes, as Porta doth his Neapolitan young wives. Suetonius describes 
Julius Csesar to have been nigris vegetisque oculis micantibus, of a black quick 
sparkling eye : and although Averroes in his CoUiget will have such persons 
timorous, yet without question they are most amorous. 

Now last of all, I will show you by what means beauty doth fascinate, be- 
"witch, as some hold, and work upon the soul of a man by the eye. For 
certainly I am of the poet's mind, love doth bewitch and strangely change us. 



' 6 Ludit amor sensus, oculos perstringit, et aufert 
Libertatem animi, mira nos fascinat arte. 
Credo aliquis dsemon subiens prsecordia flammam 
Concitat, et raptam toUit de cardine mentem." 



' Love mocks our senses, curbs our liberties, 
And doth bewitcli us with his art and rings, 
I think some devil gets into our entrails, [hinges.'» 
And kindles coals, and heaves our souls from th» 



Heliodorus, lib. 3. proves at large, ^that love is witchcraft, "it gets in at our 
eyes, pores, nostrils, engenders the same qualities and affections in us, as were 
in the party whence it came." The manner of the fascination, as Ficinua 
10. cap. com. in Plat, declares it, is thus: "Mortal men are then especially 
bewitched, when as by often gazing one on the other, they direct sight to 
sight, join eye to eye, and so drink and suck in love between them; for the 
beginning of this disease is the eye. And therefore he that hath a clear eye, 
though he be otherwise deformed, by often looking upon him, will make one mad, 
and tie him fast to him by the eye." Leonard. Varius, lib. 1. cap. 2. defas- 

* Jacob Cornelius Amnon. Tragsed. Act. 1. sc. 1. s jjosgg formosarum oculis nascuntur, et hilaritas 

vultus eleganti« corona. Philostratus deliciis. t Epist. et in deliciis, abi et oppugnationem relinque, quara 
tiamma non extinguit ; nam ab amore ipsa flamma sentit incendium : quae corporum penetratio, qu£e tyrannia 
hEec?&c. "1 Loecheus Panthea. ^Propertius. " The wretched Cynthia first captivates with her 

sparkling eyes." yOvid. amorum, lib. 2. eleg. 4. ^gcut. Hercul. », ^alcagninus dial. bniadl. 

^'ilist. lib. 1 d Sands' relation, fol. 67. ^Mantuan. f Amor per oculos, nares, poros intluens, 

«fec. Mortales turn summopere fascinantur quando frequentissimo intuitu aciem dirigentes, «&c. Ideo si quia 
nitore poUeat oculorum, &c. 



^20 Love-MelancJiohj, [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

cinat. telletli us, tliat by tliis interview, "^tlie purer spirits are infected," the 
one eye pierceth through the other with his rays, which he sends forth, and 
many men have those excellent piercing eyes, that, which Suetonius relates of 
Augustus, their brightness is such, they compel their spectators to look off, 
and can no more endure them than the sunbeams. ^Barradius, lib. 6. cajx 10. 
de Harmonia Evangel, reports as much of our Saviour Christ, and ^ Peter 
Morales of the Virgin Mary, whom Mcephorus describes likewise to have been 
yellow-haired, of a wheat coloiu-, but of a most amiable and piercing eye. The 
rays, as some think, sent from the eyes, carry certain spiritual vapours with 
them, and so infect the other party, and that in a moment. I know, they that 
hold visiofit intra mittendo, will make a doubt of this; but Eicinus proves it 
from, blear-eyes. "^That by sight alone, make others blear-eyed j and it is 
more than manifest, that the vapour of the corrupt blood doth get in toge- 
ther with the rays, and so by the contagion the spectators' eyes are infected." 
Other arguments there are of a basilisk, that kills afar off by sight, as that 
Ephesian did of whom ^Philostratus speaks, of so pernicious an eye, he 
poisoned all he looked steadily on: and that other argument, menstruce 
foemincB, out of Aristotle's problems, morboscB Capivaccius adds, and ™Sep- 
talius the commentator, that contaminate a looking-glass with beholding 
it. " ^ So the beams that come from the agent's heart, by the eyes, infect the 
spirits about the patients, inwardly wound, and thence the spirits infect the 
blood." To this effect she complained in °Apuleius, "Thou art the cause of 
my grief, thy eyes piercing through mine eyes to mine inner parts, have set my 
bowels on fire, and therefore pity me that am now ready to die for thy sake." 
Ficinus illustrates this with a familiar example of that Marrhusian Ph<^drus 
and Theban Lycias, "^^Lycias he stares on Phsedrus' face, and Phsedrus 
fastens the balls of his eyes upon Lycias, and with those sparkling rays sends 
out his spirits. The beams of Phi^drus' eyes are easily mingled with the 
beams of Lycias', and spirits are joined to spirits. This vapour begot in Phse- 
drus' heart, enters into Lycias' bowels : and that which is a greater wonder, 
Phsedrus' blood is in Lycias' heart, and thence come those ordinary love- 
speeches, my sweetheart Phsedrus, and mine own self, my dear bowels. And 
Phsedrus again to Lycias, O my light, my joy, my soul, my life. Phsedrus 
follows Lycias, because his heart would have his spirits, and Lycias follows 
Phsedrus, because he loves the seat of his spirits ; both follow; but Lycias the 
earnester of the two ; the river hath more need of the fountain, than the foun- 
tain of the river; as iron is drawn to that which is touched with a loadstone, 
but draws not it again; so Lycias draws Phsedrus." But how comes it to 
pass then, that the blind man loves that never saw? We read in the 
Lives of the Fathers, a story of a child that was brought up in the wilderness, 
i^'om his infancy, by an old hermit ; now come to man's estate, he saw by 
chance two comely women wandering in the woods : he asked the old man 
what creatures they were, he told him fairies ; after a while talking obiter, the 
hermit demanded of him, which was the pleasantest sight that ever he saw in 
his life 1 He readily replied, the two ^fairies he spied in the wilderness. So 
that, without doubt, there is some secret loadstone in a beautiful woman, a 

g Spiritus piiriores /ascinantur, oculus k se radios emittit, &c. h Lib. de pulch. Jes. et Mar. 

iLib. 2. c. 23. colore triticatn refereiite, crine fiiva, acribus oculis. kLippi solo intuitu alios lippos 

faciunt, et patet una cum radio vaporem corrupt! sanguinis emanare, cujus contagione ocidos spectantis 
inficitur. 1 Vita Apollon. ^ Comment, in Aristot. Probl. ^ Sic radius a corde percutientis 

inissus, regimen proprium repetit, cor vulnerat, per oculos et sanguinem inficit et spiritus, subtili quadam vi. 
Castil. lib. 3. de aulico. <^Lib. 10. Causa oranis et origo omnis prsesentis doloris tute es; isti enim tui 

oculi, per meos oculos ad intima delapsi prsecordia, acerrimum meis medullis commovent incendium ; ergo 
miserere tui causa pereuntis. P Lycias in Phsedri vultura inliiat, Phsedrus in oculos Lycise scintillas 

suorum defigit oculorum ; cumque scintillis, &c. Sequitur Phsedrus Lyciam, quia cor suum petit spiritum; 
phaBdrum Lycias, quia spiritus propriam sedem postuiat. Verum Lycias, &c. iDasmonia inquit quae in 

hoc Eremo niiper occuiTebant. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Artijidal Allurements. 521 

magnetic power, a natural inbred affection, wliicli moves our concupiscence, and 
as be sings, 

" Methinks I have a mistress yet to come, 
And still I seek, I love, I know not whom." 

'Tis true indeed of natural and cbaste love, but not of tbis heroical passion, or 
ratber brutisb burninglust of wbicb we treat ; we speak of wandering, wanton, 
adulterous eyes, wbicb, as ^be saitb, "lie still in wait as so many soldiers, 
and wben tbey spy an innocent spectator fixed on tbem, slioot bim tbrougb, 
and presently bswitcb bim : especially wben tbey sball gaze and gloat, as 
wanton lovers do one upon anotber, and witb a pleasant eye conflict participate 
eacb otber's souls." Hence you may perceive bow easily and bow quickly we 
may be taken in love ; since at tbe twinkling of an eye, Pbiedrus' spirits may 
so perniciously infect Lj^cias' blood. "^iS'eifcber is it any wonder, if we but 
consider bow many otber diseases closely, and as suddenly are caugbt by infec- 
tion, plague, itcb, scabs, flux," (fee. Tbe spirits taken in, will not let bim rest 
tbat batb received tbem, but egg bim on. ^^Idque iMit corpus mens uncle 
estsaucia amore ; and we may manifestly perceive a strange eduction of spirits^ 
hj sucb as bleed at nose after tbey be dead, at tbe presence of tbe murderer ; 
but read more of tbis in Lemnius, lib. 2. de occult, nat. 7]%ir. ccqo. 7. Valleriola 
lib. 2. observ. cap. 7. Yalesius controv. Ficinus, Cardan, Labavius de cruentis 
cadaver ib us, &c. 

SuBSECT. III. — Artificial allurements of Love, Causes and Provocations to 
Lust ; Gestures, Clothes, Dower, c&c. 

Natukal beauty is a stronger loadstone of itself, as you bave beard, a great 
temptation, and piercetb to tbe very beart ; ^^ forma verecundce nocuit miJii 
visa iiuellce ; but mucb more wben tbose artificial enticements and provocations 
of gestures, clotbes, jewels, pigments, exornations, sball be annexed unto it ; 
tbose otber circumstances, opportunity of time and place sball concur, wbicb 
of tbemselves alone were all sufficient, eacb one in particular to produce tbis 
effect. It is a question mucb controverted by some wise men, forma debeat 
plus arti an naturoe ? Wbetber natural or artificial objects be more powerful 1 
but not decided : for my part I am of opinion, tbat tbougb beauty itself be a 
great motive, and give an excellent lustre in sordibus, in beggary, as a jewel 
on a dungbill will sbine and cast bis rays, it cannot be suppressed, wbicb 
Heliodorus feigns of Cbariclia, tbougb sbe were in beggar's weeds : yet as it is 
used, artificial is of more force, and mucb to be preferred. 



" ^ Sic dentata sihi videtur JEg\e, 
Emptis ossibus Indicoque curnu ; 
Sic qme nigrior est caden'e moro, 
Cerussata sihi placet Lychoiis." 



■So toothless M^le seems a pretty one, 
Set out M'ith new-hought teeth of Ind}' hone: 
So foul Lychoris blacker than berry 
Herself admires, now finer than cheiTy." 



Jobn Lerius tbe Burgandian, cap. 8. hist, navigat. in Brazil, is altogetber on 
my side. Tor wbereas (saitb be) at our coming to Brazil, we found botb men 
and women naked as tbey were born, witbout any covering, so mucb as of tbeir 
privities, and could not be persuaded, by our Frencbmen tbat lived a year witb 
tbem, to wear any, "^Many will tbink tbat our so long commerce witb naked 
women, must needs be a great provocation to lustj" but be concludes otber- 
wise, tbat tbeir nakedness did mucb less entice tbem to lasciviousness, tban 
our women's clotbes. " And I dare boldly affirm (saitb be) tbat tbose gbtter- 
ing attires, counterfeit colours, beadgears, curled bairs, plaited coats, cloaks, 

r Castillo de aulico, 1. 3. f j1. 228. Oculi ut milites in insidiis semper recubant, et subito ad visum sagittas 
eraittunt, &c. ^Nec minim si reliquos morbos qui ex contagione nascuntur consideremus, pestem, pru- 

ritara, scabiem, etc. t Lucretius. " And the body naturally seeks whence it is that the mind is so woundod 
by love." ^ In beauty, that of favour is preferred before that of colours, and decent motion is more than 

that of favour. Bacon's Essays. ^Martialis. y Multi taeite opinautur commercium illud adeo frequens 

cum barbaris nudis, ac presertim cum foiminis, adlibidinemprovocare, at minus multo noxiailloriun iiuditas 
(juam nostrarum foeminarom coitus, Ausim asseverare splendid um ilium cultum, faces, &c 



522 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

gowns, costly stomachers, guarded and loose garments, and all those other 
accoutrements, wherewith our countrywomen counterfeit a beauty, and so curi- 
ously set out themselves, cause more inconvenience in this kind, than that 
barbarian homeliness, although they be no whit inferior unto them in beauty. 
I could evince the truth of this bymany other arguments, but lappeal (saith he) 
to my companions at that present, which were all of the same mind." His 
countryman, Montaigne, in his essays, is of the same opinion, and so are many 
others; out of whose assertions thus much in brief we may conclude, that 
beauty is more beholden to art than nature, and stronger provocations pro- 
ceed from outward ornaments, than such as nature hath provided. It is true 
that those fair sparkling eyes, white neck, coral lips, turgent paps, rose- 
coloured cheeks, &c._, of themselves are potent enticers ; but when a comely, 
artificial, well-composed look, pleasing gesture, an affected carriage shall be 
added, it must needs be far more forcible than it was, when those curious 
needleworks, variety of colours, purest dyes, jewels, spangles, pendants, lawn, 
lace, tiffanies, fair and fine linen, embroideries, calaaiistratious, ointments, &c. 
shall be added, they will make the veriest dowdy otherwise, a goddess, when 
nature shall be furthered by art. For it is not the eye of itself that enticeth 
to lust, but an '"'adulterous eye," as Peter terms it, 2. ii. 14. a wanton, a 
rolling, lascivious eye: a wandering eye, which Isaiah taxeth, iii. 16. Christ 
himself, and the Virgin Mary, had most beautiful eyes, as amiable eyes as 
any persons, saith ^ Baradius, that ever lived, but withal so modest, so chaste, 
that whosoever looked on them was freed from that passion of burning lust, 
if we may believe ^Gerson and ^ Bonaventure : there was no such antidote 
against it, as the Virgin Mary's face ; 'tis not the eye, but carriage of it, as 
they useth it, that causeth such effects. When Pallas, Juno, Venus, were to 
win Paris' flivour for the golden apple, as it is elegantly described in that 
pleasant interlude of ^Apuleius, Juno came with majesty upon the stage, 
Minerva gravity, but Venus dulce suhridens, constitit amcene ; et gratissimce 
Gratice deam propUiantes, &c. came in smiling with her gracious graces and 
exquisite music, as if she had danced, et nonnunquam saltare soils oculis, and 
which was the main matter of all, she danced with her rolling eyes : they 
were the brokers and harbingers of her suite. So she makes her brags in a 
modern poet, 

" d Soon could I make my brow to tyrannise, 
And force the world do homage to mine eyes." 

The eye is a secret orator, the first bawd, Amoris porta, and with private 
looks, winking, glances and smiles, as so many dialogues they make up the 
match many times, and understand one another's meanings, before they come 
to speak a word. ^Eurialus and Lucretia were so mutually enamoured by 
the eye, aud prepared to give each other entertainment, before ever they had 
conference : he asked her good will with his eyes ; she did suffragari, and 
gave consent with a pleasant look. That ^ Thracian Hodolphe was so excellent 
at this dumb rhetoric, "that if she had but looked upon any one almost (saith 
Calsiris) she would have bewitched him, and he could not possibly escape it." 
For as ^Salvianus observes, " the eyes are the windows of our souls, by which 
as so many channels, all dishonest concupiscence gets into our hearts." They 
reveal our thoughts, and as they say, frons animi index, but the eye of the 
countenance, ^Quid procacibus intuere ocellis ?, &c. I may say the same of 
smiling, gait, nakedness of parts, plausible gestures, &c. To laugh is the 

2 Harmo. evangel, lib. 6. cap. 6. * Serm. de concep. virg. Physiognomia virginis omnes movet ad casti- 

tatem. b3. sent. d. 3. q. 3. minim, virgo fonnosissiraa, sed a nemine concupita. *^ Met. 10. 

d R, samond's complaint, by Sam. DanieL e^^eas Silv. f Heliodor. 1. 2. Rodolphe Thracia tarn 

inevitabili fascino instructa, tam exacte oculis intnens attraxit, ut si in illam quis incidlsset, fieri non posset 
quin caperetur. « Lib. 3. de providentia : Animi fenestrse oculi, et omnis improba cupiditas per ocellos 

tanquam canales introit. b Buchanan. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Artificial Allurements. 523 

proper passion of a man, an ordinary tiling to smile; but those counterfeit, 
composed, aftected, artificial and reciprocal, those coanter-s miles are the dumb 
shows and prognostics of greater matters, which they most part use, to in- 
veigle and deceive; though many fond lovers again are so frequently mis- 
taken, and led into a fool's paradise. For if they see but a fair maid laugh, 
or show a pleasant countenance, use some gracious words or gestures, they 
apply it all to themselves, as done in their favour; sure she loves them, she 
is willing, coming, tfec. 

" Stultus quando videt quod pulchra puellala ridet, I " When a fool sees a fair maid for to smile, 
Turn fatuus credit se quod araare velit; " | He thiuks she loves Mm, 'tis but to beguile." 

They make an art of it, as the poet telleth us, 

"i Quis credat? discunt etiam ridere puell^e, I " Who 

Quffiritui" atque illis hac quoque parte decor." | And s 

And 'tis as great an enticement as any of the rest, 



Quis credat? discunt etiam ridere puell^e, I " Who can believe? to lau^h maids make an art, 

Quffiritui" atque ilUs hac quoque parte decor." | And seek a pleasant grace to that same part." 



• k subrisit moUe puella. 



Cor tibi rite salit. 

" She makes thine heart leap with ^a pleasing gentle smile of hers." 

" ™ Duke ridentem Lalagen amabo, 
Dulce loquentem," 

" I love Lalage as much for smiling, as for discoursing," delectata ilia visit 
tarn hlandum, as he said in Petronius of his mistress, being well pleased, she 
gave so sweet a smile. It won Ismenius, as he ^ confesseth, Ismene subrisit 
amatorium, Ismene smiled so lovingly the second time I saw her, that I could 
not choose but admire her : and Galla's sweet smile quite overcame ^ Faustus 
the shepherd. Me aspiciens 7notis hlande subrisit ocellis. All other gestures of 
the body will enforce as much. Daphnis in "^Lucian was a poor tattered wench 
when I knew her first, said Covhile, 2?an7iosa et lacera, but now she is a stately 
piece indeed, hath her maids to attend her, brave attires, money in her purse, 
&c., and will you know how this came to pass? "by setting out herself after 
the best fashion, by her pleasant carriage, afiability, sweet smiling upon all," 
&c. Many women dote upon a man for his compliment only, and good be- 
haviour, they are won in an instant; too credulous to believe that every light 
wanton suitor, who sees or makes love to them, is instantly enamoured, he 
certainly dotes on, admires them, will surely marry, when as he means nothing 
less, 'tis his ordinary carriage in all such companies. So both delude each 
other by such outward shows ; and amongst the rest, an upright, a comely 
grace, courtesies, gentle salutations, cringes, a mincing gait, a decent and an 
affected pace, are most powerful enticers, and which the prophet Isaiah, a 
courtier himself, and a great observer, objected to the daughters of Zion, iii. 
16. "they minced as they went, and made a tinkling with their feet." To 
say the truth, what can they not effect by such means 1 

"Whilst nature decks them in their best attires 
Of youth and beauty wliich the world admires." 

"^ Urit voce, manu, gressu, pectore, fronte, oculis.'^ When art shall be 

annexed to beauty, when wiles and guiles shall concur; for to speak as it is, 
love is a kind of legerdemain; mere juggling, a fascination. When they show 
their fair hand, fine foot and leg withal, Tiiagnum sui desiderium nobis relinquunt, 
saith ^ Balthasar Castillo, lib. 1. they set us a longing, "and so when they 
pull up their petticoats and outward garments," as usually they do to show 
their fine stockings, and those of purest silken dye, gold fringes, laces, em- 
broiderings (it shall go hard but when they go to church, or to any other 
place, all shall be seen), 'tis but a springe to catch woodcocks ; and as ^ Chry- 

i Ovid de arte amandi. k Pers. 3. Sat. 1 Vel centum Charltes ridere putaret, Museus of Hero. 

™ Hor, Od. 22. lib. 1. » Eustathius, 1. 5, <> Mantuan. P Tom. 4. merit dial. Exomando seipsam 

eieganter, facilem et hilarem se gerendo erga cunctos, ridendo suave ac blandum quid, &c. 1 Angerianus. 
'^Vel si forte vestimentum de iudustria elevetur, ut pedum ac tibiarum pars aliqua conspiciatur, dum tem- 
plum aut locum aliquem adierit. ^Sermone, quod non foeminje viris cohabitent. Non loquuta es lingua, 

sed loquuta es gressu: npn loquuta es voce, sed oculis loquuta cs ciarius quam voce. 



524 Love-Melancholy. [Part 3. Sec. 2. 

sostom telletli tliem downright, " thongli tliej say notliing with their mouths, 
they speak in their gait, they speak with their eyes, they speak in the car- 
riage of their bodies." And what shall we say otherwise of that baring of 
their necks, shoulders, naked breasts, arms and wrists, to what end are they 
but only to tempt men to lust ! 

" t Nam quid lacteolns sinus, et ipsas 
Prge te fers sine linteo papillas ? 
Hoc e8t dicere, posce, posce, trado ; 
Hoc est ad Venerem vocare amantes." 

There needs no more, as ^Fredericus Matenesius well observes, but a crier to 
go before them so dressed, to bid us look out, a trumpet to sound, or for de- 
fect a sow-gelder to blow. 



^ Look out, look out and see 
What object this may be 
That doth perstringe mine eye ; 
A gallant lady goes 



In rich and gaudy clothes, 
But whither away God knows, 
——look out, &c., ut quce sequuntur." 



or to what end and purpose? But to leave all these fantastical raptures, I'll 
prosecute my intended theme. Nakedness, as I have said, is an odious thing 
of itself, remedium amoris; yet it may be so used, in part, and at set times, 
that there can be no such enticement as it is ; 

" y Nee mihi cincta Diana placet, nee nuda Cythere, 
lUa voluptaris nil hahet, hsec nimium." 

David so espied Bathsheba, the elders Susanna: ^Apelles was enamoured 
with Cainpaspe, when he was to paint her naked. Tiberius m /S'we^. cap. 42. 
supped with Sestius G alius an old lecher, libidinoso sene, ed lege ut nudcepuellce 
administrarent : some say as much of Nero, and Pontus Huter of Carolus 
Pugnax. Amongst the Babylonians it was the custom of some lascivious queans 
to dance frisking in that fashion, saith Curtius, lib. 5. and Sardus demor. gent, 
lib. 1, writes of others to that effect. The ^Tuscans at some set banquets had 
naked women to attend upon them, which Leonicus de Varia hist. lib. 3. cap. 
96. confirms of such other bawdy nations. Nero would have filthy pictures 
still hanging in his chamber, which is too commonly used in our times, and 
Heliogabalus, etiam coram agentes, ut ad venerem incitarent: So things may 
be abused. A servant maid in Aristsenetus spied her master and mistress 
through the key-hole ^ merrily disposed ; upon the sight she fell in love with 
her master. ^Antoninus Caracalla observed his mother-in-law with her 
breasts amorously laid open, he was so much moved, that he said Ah si liceret,. 
O that I might; which she by chance overhearing, replied as impudently, 
^ Quicquid libet licet, thou mayest do what thou wilt : and upon that tempta- 
tion he married her: this object was not in cause, not the thing itself, but 
that unseemly, indecent carriage of it. 

When you have all done, veniunt a veste sagittce, the greatest provocations 
of lust are from our apparel; God makes, they say, man shapes, and there is 
no motive like unto it ; 

u e ^hich doth even beauty beautify, 
And most bewitch a wretched eye." 

a filthy knave, a deformed quean, a crooked carcass, a maukin, a witch, a 
rotten post, a hedgestake may be so set out and tricked up, that it shall 
make as fair a show, as much enamour as the rest : many a silly fellow is so 
taken. Primum luxurice aucupium, one calls it, the first snare of lust; 



t Jovianus Pontanus Baiar. lib. 1. ad Hermionem. " For why do you exhibit your ' milky way,* your, 
uncovered bosoms? What else is it but to say plainly, Ask me, ask me, I will surrender; and what is that 
but love's call ? " ^ De luxu vestium discurs. 6. Nihil aliud deest nisi ut prseco vos prsecedat, <fec. 

^ If you can tell how, you may sing this to the tune a sow-gelder blows. y Au&on. epig. 28. " Neither 

dra]ied Diana nor naked Venus pleases me. One has too much voluptuousness about her, the other none." 
zpiin. lib. 33. cap. 10. Gampaspen nudam picturas ApeUes, amove ejus illaqueatus est. ^In Tyrrhenis 

conviviis nudse mulieres ministrabant. b Amatoria miscentes vidit, et in ipsis complexibus audit, &c. 

emersit inde cupido in pectus virginis. *Epist, 7. lib. 2. d Spartian. ^ Sidney's Arcadia; 



Mem. 2. Sabs. 3.] Artificial AllureMcnts. 525 

^ Bossiis, aucupium animarmn, lethalem arundinem, a fatal reed, the greatest 
bx\Ydi, forte leiiociniu/n, sanguiaeis lachrymis deploixondum, saith ^ Matenesius, 
and with tears of blood to be deplored. Not that comeliness of clothes is 
therefore to be condemned, and those usual ornaments : there is a decency 
and decorum in this as well as in other things, fit to be used becoming several 
persons, and befitting their estates j he is only fantastical that is not in fashion, 
and like an old image in arras hangings, when a manner of attire is generally 
received ; but when they are so new-fangled, so unstaid, so prodigious in their 
attires, beyond their means and fortunes, unbefitting their age, place, quality, 
condition, what shoidd we otherwise think of them 1 Why do they adorn 
themselves with so many colours of herbs, fictitious flowers, curious needle- 
works, quaint devices, sweet smelling odours, with those inestimable riches of 
precious stones, pearls, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, &c. 1 Why do they crown 
themselves with gold and silver, use coronets and tires of several fashions, 
deck themselves with pendants, bracelets, ear-rings, chains, girdles, rings, pins, 
spangles, embroideries, shadows, rebatoes, versicolour ribands 1 why do they 
make such glorious shows, with their scarfs, feathers, fans, masks, furs, laces, 
tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, damasks, velvets, tinsels, cloth of gold, silver 
tissue 1 with colours of heavens, stars, planets : the strength of metals, stones, 
odours, flowers, birds, beasts, fishes, and whatsoever Africa, Asia, America, 
sea, land, art and industry of man can afford ? Why do they use and covet 
such novelty of inventions ; such new-fangled tires, and spend such inesti- 
mable sums on them 1 " To what end are those crisped, false hairs, painted 
faces," as ^the satirist observes, " such a composed gait, not a step awry]" 
Why are they like so many Sybarites, or Nero's Poppse, Ahasuerus ' concu- 
bines, so costly, so long a dressing, as Caesar was marshalKng his army, or a 
hawk in pruning ? ^ Dam moliuntur, dam comuntur, annus est : sl ^ gardener 
takes not so much delight or pains in his garden, a horseman to dress his 
horse, scour his armour, a mariner about his ship, a merchant his shop and 
shop-book, as they do about their faces, and all those other parts : such set- 
ting up with corks, straightening with whalebones ; why is it, but as a day net 
catcheth larks, to make young men stoop unto them 1 Philocarus, a gallant 
in Aristsenetus, advised his friend Polisenus to take heed of such enticements, 
"^for it was the sweet sound and motion of his mistress's sjDangies and brace- 
lets, the smell of her ointments, that captivated him first. Ilia fiiit mentis prima 
ruina niece. Quid sihi vidt pixidum turha, saith ^Lucian, "to what use are 
pins, pots, glasses, ointments, irons, combs, bodkins, setting-sticks ? why 
bestow they all their patrimonies and husbands' yearly revenues on such 
fooleries 1" ^bina patrimonia singulis aurihus; " why use they dragons, wasps, 
snakes, for chains, enamelled jewels on their necks, ears?" dignum potius 
foret ferro manus istas religari^ atque utinam monilia vere dracones essent : t\\Qj 
had more need some of them be tied in bedlam with iron chains, have a whip 
for a fan, and hair-cloths next to their skins, and instead of wrought smocks, 
have their cheeks stigmatised with a hot-iron ; I say, some of our Jezebels, 
instead of painting, if they were well served. But why is all this labour, all 
this cost, preparation, riding, running, far-fetched, and dear bought stuff? 
" ^^ Because forsooth they would be fair and fine, and where nature is defec- 
tive, supply it by art." ^Sanguine qum vero non ruhet, arte ruhet, (Ovid) ; and 

fDe immod. mulier. cultu. SDiscurs. 6. de luxu vestium. h Petronius, fol. 95. quo spectaiit flexse 

comse? quo facies medicamine attrita et oculorum mollis petulantia? quo incessus tarn conipositus, &c. 
iTer. " They take a year to deck and comb themselves." kp. Aretine. Hortulanus non ita exercetur 

visendis hortis, eques equis, armis, nauta navibus, &c lEpist. 4. Sonus armillarum bene sonantium, 

odor unguentorum, &c. °^Tom. 4. dial. Amor. A^ascula plena mullse infelicitatis omnem maritorum 
cpulentiam in hajc impendunt, dracones, pro monilibus habent, qui utinam veretlracones essent. Lucian. 
^ Seneca. ° Castillo, de aulic. hb. 1. Mulieribus omnibus hoc imprimis in votis est, ut fonnossB sint, ant 
si reipsa non sint, videautur tamen esse ; et si qua parte natura defuit, artis suppetias adjungunt : unde illse 
faciei unctiones, dolor et cruciatus in arctandis corporibus, &c. P Ovid, epist. Med. Jasoui. 



52(y Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

to that purpose they anoint and paint their faces, to make Helen of Hecuba 

parvmnque exortamque puellam — Eur open.* To this intent they crush in 

their feet and bodies, hurt and crucify themselves, sometimes in lax clothes, a 
hundred yards I think in a gown, a sleeve, and sometimes again so close, ut 
nudos exprimant artus. *^Kow long tails and trains, and then short, up, 
down, high, low, thick, thin, &c. ; now little or no bands, then as big as cart 
wheels ; now loose bodies, then great fardingales and close girt, &c. Why is 
all this, but with the whore in the Proverbs, to intoxicate some or other ? 
oculorum decipulam, ^one therefore calls it, et indicem libidinis, the trap of 
just, and sure token, as an ivy-bush is to a tavern. 



" Qubd pulcliros Glycere sumas de pixirle vultus, 

Quod tibi compositse nee sine lege comse : 

Qubd niteat digitis adamas, BeryUas in aure, 

Non sum divinus, sed scio quid cupias." 



Glycere, in that you paint so much, 
Your hair is so bedeckt in order such. 
With rin'j;s ou fingers, bracelets in your ear, 
Although no prophet, tell I can, I fear." 



*• " Auferiraur cultu et gemmis, auroque teguntur 
Omnia ; pars minima est ipsa puella sui." 



To be admired, to be gazed on, to circumvent some novice ; as many times 
they do, that instead of a lady he loves a cap and a feather, instead of a maid 
that should have verum colorem, corpus solidum et sued plenum (as Chaerea 
describes his mistress in the ^poet), a painted face, a ruff-band, fair and fine 
linen, a coronet, a flower (* Naturceque putat quod fait arti/ieis), a wrought 
waistcoat he dotes on, or a pied petticoat, a pure dye instead of a proper 
woman. For generally, as with rich-furred conies, their cases are far better 
than their bodies, and like the bark of a cinnamon tree, which is deare rthan 
the whole bulk, their outward accoutrements are far more precious than their 
inward endowments. 'Tis too commonly so. 

" With gold and jewels all is covered, 
And with a strange tire we are won, 
(WhUe she's the least part of herself) 
And with such baubles quite undone." 

Why do they keep in so long together, a whole winter sometimes, and will 
not be seen but by torch or candlelight, and come abroad with all the pre- 
paration may be, when they have no business, but only to show themselves 1 
Spectatuin veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsce. 

" ^ For Avhat is beauty if it be not seen, 
Or what is't to be seen, if not adndr'd, 
And though admir'd, unless in love desir'd ? " 

why do they go with such counterfeit gait, which ^Philo Judseus reprehends 
them for, and use (I say it again) such gestures, apish, ridiculous, indecent 
attires, sybaritical tricks, fucos genis, purpurissam venis, cerussam fronti, leges 
oculis, &c., use those sweet perfumes, powders, and ointments in public, flock 
to hear sermons so frequent, is it for devotion ? or rather, as ^ Basil tells them, 
to meet their sweethearts, and see fashions ; for as he saith, commonly they 
come so provided to that place, with such curious compliments, with such 
gestures and tires, as if they should go to a dancing-school, a stage-play, or 
bawdy-house, fitter than a church. 

'* NVhen such a she-priest comes her mass to say. 
Twenty to one they all forget to pray." 

** They make those holy temples, consecrated to godly martyrs and religious 
uses, the shops of impudence, dens of whores and thieves, and little better 
than brothel houses." When we shall see these things daily done, their hus- 
bands bankrupts, if not cornutos, their wives light housewives, daughters dis- 
honest j and hear of such dissolute acts, as daily we do, how should we think 
otherwise ? what is their end, but to deceive and inveigle young men ? As 

«"A distorted dwarf, an Europa." <lModo caudatus tunicas, &c. Bossus. J" Scribanius, philos. 
Christ, cap. 6. » xer. j:unuc. Act. 2. seen. 3. t Stroza fil. ^ Ovid. ^ S. Daniel. y Lib. de 

victimis. Fracto incessu, obtuitu lascivo, calamistrata, cincinnata, fucata, recens lota, purpurissata, pre- 
tiosoque amieta palliolo, spirans unguenta, ut juvenum animos circumveniat. ^Orat. in ebrios. Impu- 

denter se masculorum aspectibus exponunt, insolenter comas jactantes, trahunt tunicas pedibus coUidentes, 
oculoque petulanti, risu effuso, ad tripudium insanientes, omnem adolescentum intemperantiam in se provo- 
cantes, idque in templis memorias martyrum consecratis ; pomcerium civitatis officinam feceruntimpudentise. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Artificial Allurements. 527 

tow takes fire, such enticing objects produce tbeir efiect, how can it be altered ? 
When Yenus stood before Anchises (as ^ Homer feigns in one of his hymns) 
in her costly robes, he was instantly taken, 



• Cum ante ipsum staret Jovis filia, videns earn 
Anchises, admirabatur formarn, et stupendas vestes ; 
Erat enim induta peplo, igneis radiis splendidiore ; 
Habebat quoque torques fulgidos, flexiles htelices, 
Tenei'um collum ambiebant monilia pulchra, 
Aurea, variegata." 



' When Venus stood before Anchises first, 
He was amazed to see her in her tires ; 
For she had on a hood as red as fire, 
And glittering chains, and ivy-twisted spirea, 
About her tender neck were costly brooches, 
And necklaces of gold, enamell'd ouches." 



So when Medea came in presence of Jason first, attended by her nymphs and 
ladies, as she is described by ^Apollonius, 

" Cunctas verb ignis instar sequebatur splendor, j " A lustre followed them like flaming fire, 

Tantiim ab aureis fimbriis resplendebat jubar, And from their golden borders came such beams, 

Accenditque in oculis dulce desiderium." 1 Which in his eyes provok'd a sweet desire." 

Such a relation we have in '^ Plutarch, when the queens came and ofiered them- 
selves to Antony, " ^ with diverse presents, and enticing ornaments, Asiatic 
allurements with such wonderful joy and festivity, they did so inveigle the 
Komans, that no man could contain himself, all was turned to delight and 
pleasure. The women transformed themselves to Bacchus shapes, the men- 
children to Satyrs and Pans ; but Antony himself was quite besotted with 
Cleopatra's sweet speeches, philters, beauty, pleasing tires : for when she sailed 
along the river Cydnus, with such incredible pomp in a gilded ship, herself 
dressed Hke Yenus, her maids like the Graces, her pages like so many Cupids, 
Anthony was amazed, and rapt beyond himself" Heliodorus, lib. 1. brings in 
Dameneta, stepmother to Cnemon, "whom she ® saw in his scarfs, rings, robes, 
and coronet, quite mad for the love of him." It was Judith's pantofles that 
ravished the eyes of Holofernes. And ^Cardan is not ashamed to confess, 
that seeing his wife the first time all in white, he did admire and instantly 
love her. If these outward ornaments were not of such force, why doth ^ Naomi 
give Ruth counsel how to please Boaz? and ^Judith, seeking to captivate 
Holofernes, washed and anointed herself with sweet ointments, dressed her 
hair, and put on costly attires. The riot in this kind hath been excessive in 
times past ; no man almost came abroad, but curled and anointed, 

" i Et matutino sudans Crispinus amomo. 
Quantum vix redolent duo funera," 

" one spent as much as two funerals at once, and with perfumed hairs," ^e^rc>*« 
canos odorati capillos Assyriaque narclo. What strange things doth ^Sueton. 
relate in this matter of Caligula's riot 1 And PKny, lib. 12. & 13. Head more 
in Dioscorides, Ulmus, Arnoldus, Bandoletius defuco el decor atione ; for it is 
now an art, as it was of old (so ™ Seneca records), officince sunt adores coquen- 
tium. Women are bad and men worse, no difference at all between their and 
our times j "^good manners (as Seneca complains) are extinct with wanton- 
ness, in tricking up themselves men go beyond women, they wear harlots' 
colours, and do not walk, but jet and dance," hie mulier, hcec vir^ more like 
players, butterflies, baboons, apes, antics, than men. So ridiculous, moreover, 
we are in our attires, and for cost so excessive, that as Hierome said of old, 
Uno jilio villarum insunt pretia, uno lino decies sestertium inseritur; 'tis an 
ordinary thing to put a thousand oaks and a hundred oxen into a suit of apparel, 
to wear a whole manor on his back. What with shoe-ties, hangers, points, 
caps and feathers, scarfs, bands, cuffs, &c., in a short space their whole patri- 
monies are consumed. Heliogabalus is taxed by Lampridius, and admired in 

^ Hymno Veneri dicato. b Argonaut. 1.4.. ^ Vlt. Anton, d Regia domo omatuque certantes, sese ac 
formam suam Antonio offerentes, &c. Cum ornatu et incredibili pompa per Cydnum fluvium navit^arent 
aurata puppi, ipsa ad similitudinem Veneris ornata, puellse Gratiis similes, pueri Cupidinibus, Antonuis ad 
visum stupefactus. ^ Amictum Chlamyde et coronis quum primum aspexit Cnemonem, ex potestate 

mentis excidit. f Lit), de lib. prop. SKuth. iii.3. hCap.ix.5, iJuv. Sat. 6. kHor. lib. 2. Od.ll. 
ICap. 27. ^ Epist. 90. ^^Quicquid est boiii moris levitate extinguitur, et politura corporis muliebres 

munditias antecessimus, colores mei-etricios viri sumimus, tenero et mclli gradu suspendimus gradum, noa 
ambulamus, nat. qujestlib. 7. cap. 31. 



528 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

his age for wearing jewels in liis shoes, a common thing in our times, not for 
emperors and princes, but almost for serving men and tailors ; all the flowers, 
stars, constellations, gold and precious stones do condescend to set out their 
shoes. To repress the luxury of those Roman matrons, there was °Lex Valeria 
and Oppia, and a Cato to contradict ; but no laws will serve to repress the pride 
and insolency of our days, the prodigious riot in this kind. Lucullus's ward- 
robe is put down by our ordinary citizens; and a cobbler's wife in Yenice, a 
courtesan in Florence, is no whit inferior to a queen, if our geographers say 
true : and why is all this 1 "Why do they glory in their jewels (as ^ he saith) 
or exult and triumph in the beauty of clothes ? why is all this cost? to incite 
men the sooner to burning lust. They pretend decency and ornament ; but 
let them take heed, that while they set out their bodies they do not damn their 
souls;" 'tis "^Bernard's counsel: "shine in jewels, stink in conditions ; have 
purple robes, and a torn conscience." Let them take heed of Isaiah's pro- 
phecy, that their slippers and attires be not taken from them, sweet balls, 
bracelets, ear-rings, veils, wimples, crisping-pins, glasses, fine linen, hoods, 
lawns, and sweet savours, they become not bald, burned, and stink upon a 
sudden. And let maids beware, as ^Cyprian adviseth, "that while they 
wander too loosely abroad, they lose not their virginities:" and like Egyptian 
temples, seem fair without, but prove rotten carcases within. How much 
better were it for them to follow that good counsel of Tertullian? " ^To have 
their eyes painted with chastity, the Woid of God inserted into their ears, 
Christ's yoke tied to the hair, to subject themselves to their husbands. If 
they would do so, they should be comely enough, clothe themselves with the 
silk of sanctity, damask of devotion, purple of piety and chastity, and so painted, 
they shall have God himself to be a suitor :" "let whores and queans prank up 
themselves, ^let them paint their faces with minion and ceruse, they are but 
fuels of lust, and signs of a corrupt soul : if ye be good, honest, virtuous, and 
religious matrons, let sobriety, modesty and chastity be your honour, and God 
himself your love and desire." Mulier recte olet, uhi 7iihil olet, then a woman 
smells best, when she hath no perfume at all; no crown, chain, or jewel 
(Guivarra adds) is such an ornament to a virgin, or virtuous woman, quam 
virgini pudor, as chastity is : more credit in a wise man's eye and judgment 
they get by their plainness, and seem fairer than they that are set out with 
baubles, as a butcher's meat is with pricks, puffed up, and adorned like so 
many jays with variety of colours. It is reported of Cornelia, that virtuous 
Koman lady, great Scipio's daughter, Titus Sempronius' wife and the mother 
of the Gracchi, that being by chance in company with a companion, a strange 
gentlewoman (some light housewife belike, that was dressed like a May lady, 
and, as most ofour gentlewomen are, "was "more solicitous of her head-tire than 
of her health, that spent her time between a comb and a glass, and had rather 
be fair than honest (as Cato said), and have the commonwealth turned topsy- 
turvy than her tires marred) ;" and she did nought but brag of her fine robes 
and jewels, and provoked the Roman matron to show hers: Cornelia kept her 
in talk till her children came from school, and these, said she, are my jewels, 
and so deluded and put off a proud, vain, fantastical, housewife. How much 

o Liv. lib. 4. dec. 4. P Quid exaltas in pulchritudine panni ? Quid gloriaris in gemmis ut facilius invites 
ad lilaidinosum ineendium ? Mat. Bossus de immoder. mulier. cultu. ^ Epist. 1 1 3. fulgent monilibus, 

moribus sordent, purpura! a vestis, conscientia pannosa, cap. 3. 17. ^ De virginali habitu ; dum ornari 

cultius, dum evagari vlrgines volunt, desinunt esse virgines. Clemens Alexandrinus, lib. de pulchr. animas, 
ibid, s Lib.2. de cultu mulierum, oculos depletes verecundia, inferentes in aures sermonem dei, annectentes 
crinibus jugum Ciiristi, caput maritis subjicientes, sic facile et satis eritis ornatse: vestite yos serico pro- 
bitatis, byssino sanctitatis, pui-pura pudicitia? ; taliter pigmentatse deum habebitis amatorem. tSuas 

habeant Romanae lascivias ; purpurissa, ac cerussa ora perungant, fomenta libidinum, et corrupta3_ mentis 
indicia; ves^rum ornamentum deus sit, pudicitia, virtutis studimn. Bossus Flautus. ^ Sollicitiores 

de capitis sui decore quam rie salute, inter pectinem et speculum diem perdunt, concinniores esse malunt 
quam lionestiores, et rempub. minus turbari cuvant quam comam. Seneca. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Artificial Allurements. 529 

better were it for our matrons to do as she did, to go civilly and decently, 
^ HonestcE mulieris instar qucB utitur auro pro eo quod est, adea tantum quibus 
opus est, to use gold as it is gold, and for that use it serves, and when they 
need it, than to consume it in riot, beggar their husbands, prostitute them- 
selves, inveigle others, and perad venture damn their own souls 1 How much 
more would it be to their honour and credit ? Thus doing, as Hierom said 
of Blesilla, " ^ Furius did not so triumph over the Gauls, Papyrius of the Sam- 
nites, Scipio of Numantia, as she did by her temperance;" pulla semper veste, 
&LC., they should insult and domineer over lust, folly, vain-glory, all such in- 
ordinate, furious and unruly passions. 

But I am over tedious,! confess, and whilst I stand gaping after fine clothes, 
there is another great allurement (in the world's eye at least), which had like 
to have stolen out of sight, and that is money, veniunt h dote sagittce, money 
makes the match; '^Movh apyvpov ^XsTrovffivi 'tis like sauce to their meat, cum 
came condimenium, a good dowry with a wife. Many men if they do hear but 
of a great portion, a rich heir, are more mad than if they had all the beauteous 
ornaments, and those good parts art and nature can afford, they ^care not 
for honesty, bringing up, birth, beauty, person, but for money. 



b Canes et eqiios (6 Cyrne) quserimus 
Nobiles, et a bona progenie ; 
Malam vero uxorem, nialique patris filiam 
Ducere non curat vir bonus, 
Modo ei magnam dotem aft'erat." 



■Our dogs and horses still from tlie best breed 
We carefully seek, and well may they speed : 
But for our wives, so they prove wealthy, 
Fair or foul, we care not what they be." 



If she be rich, then she is fair, fine, absolute and perfect, then they burn like 
fire, they love her dearly, like pig and pie, and are ready to hang themselves 
if they may not have her. Nothing so familiar in these days, as for a young 
man to marry an old wife, as they say, for a piece of gold; asi?ium auro onus- 
turn; and though she be an old crone, and have never a tooth in her head, 
neither good conditions, nor a good face, a natural fool, "but only rich, she shall 
have twenty young gallants to be suitors in an instant. As she said in Sue- 
tonius, non me, sed mea ambiunt, 'tis not for her sake, but for her lands or 
money ; and an excellent match it were (as he added) if she were away. So 
on the other side, many a young lovely maid will cast away herself upon an 
old, doting, decrepit dizzard, 

" ° Bis puer effoeto quamvis balbutiat ore, 
Prima legit rarse tam culta roseta puellse," 

that is rheumatic and gouty, hath some twenty diseases, perhaps but one eye, 
one leg, never a nose, no hair on his head, wit in his brains, nor honesty, if 
he have land or *^ money, she will have him before all other suitors, ^ Dummodo 
sit dives barbarus ille placet. " If he be rich, he is the man," a fine man, and 
a proper man, she will go to Jacaktres or Tidore with him; Galesimus de 
monte aureo. Sir Giles Goosecap, Sir Amorous La-Fool, shall have her. 
And as Philemasium in ^Aristsenetus told Emmusus, absque argento omnia 
vana, hang him that hath no money, "'tis to no purpose to talk of marriage 
without means," ^trouble me not with such motions; let others do as they 
will, " I'll be sure to have one shall maintain me fine and brave." Most are 
of her mind, ^De moribus ultima fiet questio, for his conditions, she shall 
inquire after them another time, or when all is done, the match made, and 
every body gone home. ^Lucian's Lycia was a proper young maid, and had 
many fine gentlemen to her suitors ; Ethecles, a senator's son, Melissus, a 
merchant, &c. ; but she forsook them all for one Passius, a base, hirsute, bald- 

^ Lucian. y Non sic Furius de Gallis, non PapjTius de Samnitibus, Scipio de Numantia triumphavit, 

ac illase vincendo in hac parte. ^ Anacreon. 4. solum intuemur aurum. ^ Asses tecum si vis vi,vere 
mecum. bTheognis. '^ Chaloner. 1. 9. de Repub. Ang. d Uxorem ducat Danaen, &c. ® Ovid, 
ftpist. 14. formam spectant alii per gratias, ego pecuniam, &c. ne mihi negotiura facesse. ^ Qui 

caret argento, frustra utitur argumento. h Juvenalis. i Tom. 4. merit, dial, multos amatores rejecu, 
quia pater ejus nuper mortuus, ac dominus ipse factus bonorum omnium. 

2 M 



530 Love-Melayicholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

pated knave; but why wtis it? "His father lately died and left him sole 
heir of his goods and lands." This is not amongst your dust worms alone, 
poor snakes that will prostitute their souls for money, but with this bait you 
may catch our most potent, puissant, and illustrious princes. That proud 
upstart domineering Bishop of Ely, in the time of Richard the First, viceroy 
in his absence, as ^ IS ubrigensis relates it, to fortify himself, and maintain his 
greatness, propinquarum suarum connubiis, plurimos sibi potentes et nobiles 
devincire curavit, married his poor kinswomen (which came forth of Normandy 
by droves) to the chiefest nobles of the land, and they were glad to accept 
of such matches, fair or foul, for themselves, their sons, nephews, &c. Et 
quis tarn pr cedar am affiniiaiem sub sjje magncB promotionls non optaret'^ Who 
would not have done as much for money and preferment? as mine author %dds. 
Yortiger, King of Britain, married Howena the daughter of Hengist the Saxon 
prince, his mortal enemy; but wherefore? she had Kent for her dowry, 
lagello, the great Duke of Lithuania, 1386, was mightily enamoured on 
Hedenga, insomuch that he turned Christian from a Pagan, and was baptized 
himself by the name of XJladislaus, and all his subjects for her sake : but why 
was it ? she was daughter and heir of Poland, and his desire was to have both 
kingdoms incorporated into one. Charles the G-reat was an earnest suitor to 
Irene the Empress, but, saith ^Zonarus, ob regnum, to annex the empire of 
the East to that of the West. Yet what is the event of all such matches, that 
are so made for money, goods, by deceit, or for burning lust, quos fceda libido 
cortjunxit, what follows ? they are almost mad at first, but 'tis a mere flash; 
as chaff and straw soon fired, burn vehemently for a while, yet out in a 
moment ; so are all such matches made by those allurements of burning lust ; 
where there is no respect of honesty, parentage, virtue, religion, education, 
and the like, they are extinguished in an instant, and instead of love comes 
hate; for joy, repentance and desperation itself Franciscus Barbaras in his 
fi.rst book de re uxorid, c, 5, hath a story of one Philip of Padua that fell in 
love with a common whore, and was now ready to run mad for her; his father 
having no more sons let him enjoy her; "^but after a few days, the young 
man began to loath, could not so much as endure the sight of her, and from one 
madness fell into another." Such event commonly have all these lovers; and 
he that so marries, or for such respects, let them look for no better success 
than Menelaus had with Helen, Yulcan with Yenus, Theseus with Phaedra, 
Minos with Pasiphae, and Claudius with M essalina ; shame, sorrow, misery, 
melancholy, discontent. 

SuBSECT. TV. — Importunity and Opportunity of Time, Place, Conference, 
Discourse, Singiyig, Dancing, Music, Amorous Tales, Objects, Kissing, Fa- 
miliarity, Tokens, Presents, Bribes, Promises, Protestations, Tears, S^c. 

All these allurements hitherto are afar off, and at a distance ; I will come 
nearer to those other degrees of love, v/hich are coniei^ence, kissing, dalliance, 
discourse, singing, dancing, amorous tales, objects, presents, &c., which as so 
many Syrens steal away the hearts of men and women. For, as Tacitus 
observes, /. 2, " ° It is no sufficient trial of a maid's affection by her eyes 
alone, but you must say something that shall be more available, and use such 
other forcible engines; therefore take her by the hand, wring her fingers 

kLib. 3. cap. 14. quisnoMlium eo tempore, sibi aut filio aut nepoti uxorem accipere cupiens, oblatam sibi 
aliquam propinquarum ejus non acciperet obviis manibus? Quarum turbam acciverat e Normannia in 
Angiiam ejus rei gratia. 1 Alexander Gaguinus Sarmat. Europ. descript. i" Tom. 3. Annal. _ »i Libido 
statim deferbuit, fastidium csepit, et quod in eatantopereadamavit aspernatur, et ab segritudine liberatus in 
angorern incidit. ^ De puellte voluntate periculum facere solis oculis non est satis, sed efficacius aliquid 
agere oportet, ibique etiam machinam alteram adhibere : itaque manus tange, digitus constringe, atque 
inter stringendum suspira; si hsec agentem gequo se animo feret, neque facta hujusmodi aspernabitur, turn 
Yero dominam appella, ej usque coUum suaviare. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4.] Artificial Allurements, 531 

hard, and sigli withal; if she accept this in good part, and seem not to be 
much averse, then call her mistress, take her about the neck and kiss her," 
&c. But this cannot be done except they first get opportunity of living, or 
coming together, ingress, egress, and regress; letters and commendations 
may do much, outward gestures and actions : but when they come to live 
near one another, in the same street, village, or together in a house, love is 
kindled on a sudden. Many a serving-man by reason of this opportunity and 
importunity inveigles his master's daughter, many a gallant loves a dowdy, 
many a gentleman runs upon his wife's maids; many ladies dote upon their 
men, as the queen in A.riosto did upon the dwarf, many matches are so made 
in haste, and they are compelled as it were by ^necessity so to love, which had 
they been free, come in company of others, seen that variety which many 
places afford, or compared them to a third, would never have looked one upon 
another. Or had not that opportunity of discourse and familiarity been offered, 
they would have loathed and contemned those whom, for want of better choice 
and other objects, they are fatally driven on, and by reason of their hot blood, 
idle life, full diet, &c., are forced to dote upon them that come next. And 
many times those which at the first sight cannot fancy or affect each other, 
but are harsh and ready to disagree, offended with each other's carriage, like 
Benedict and Beatrice in the ^comedy, and in whom they find many faults, 
by this living together in a house, conference, kissing, colling, and such like 
allurements, begin at last to dote insensibly one upon another. 

It was the greatest motive that Potiphar's wife had to dote upon Joseph, 
and ^ Clitiphon upon Leucippe his uncle's daughter, because the plague being 
at Bizance, it was his fortune for a time to sojourn with her, to sit next her at 
the table, as he tells the tale himself in Tatius, lib. 2. (which, though it be but 
a fiction, is grounded u^Don good observation, and doth well express the passions 
of lovers,) he had opportunity to take her by the hand, and after a while to 
kiss, and handle her paps, &c., ^ which made him almost mad. Ismenius the 
orator makes the like confession in Eustathius, lib. 1, when he came first to 
Sosthene's house, and sat at table with Cratistes his friend, Ismene, Sosthene's 
daughter, Avaiting on them " with her breasts open, arms half bare," Nuda 
pederti, discincta sinum, s2?oliata lacertos: after the Greek fashion in those 
times, — ^^nudos media plus parte lacertos, as Daphne was when she fled from 
Phoebus (which moved him much), was ever ready to give attendance on him, 
to fill him drink, lier eyes were never off' him, rogabundi oculi, those speaking 
eye-, courting eyes, enchanting eyes; but she was still smiling on him, and 
when they were risen, that she had got a little opportunity, " ^ she came 
and drank to him, and withal trod upon his toes, and would come and go, and 
when she could not speak for the company, she would wring his hand," and 
blush when she met him : and by this means first she overcame him {bibens 
amorem hauriebam simul), she would kiss the cup and drink to him, and 
smile, " and drink where he drank on that side of the cup," by which mutual 
compressions, kissings, wringing of hands, treading of feet, &c. Ipsam mihi 
videbar sorbillare virginem, I sipped and sipped so long, till at length I was 
drunk in love upon a sudden. Philocharinus, in ^Aristsenetus, met a fair 
maid by chance, a mere stranger to him, he looked back at her, she looked 
back at him again, and smiled withal. 

" ^ lUe dies lethi primus, primusque malorum 
Causa fuit" 

P Hungry dogs will eat dirty puddings. 1 Shakspeare. ^Tatius, lib. 1. ^ jq juammanim attractu, 
Eon aspernandainest jucundilas, et attrectatus, &c. tJlantuan. ^Ovid. 1. Met. ^Manusad 

cubitura nuda, coram astaiis, fortius intuita, tenuem de pectore spiritum ducens, digitum meum pressit, 
et bibens pedem pressit ; mutujB compressiones corporum, labiorum commixtiones, pedum connexiones, <fcc. 
Et bibit eodem loco, &e. y Epist. 4. Respexi, respexit et ilia subriaens, &c. ^ Yir. Mn, 4. "That was 

the first hour of destruction, and the first beginning of my miseries." 



532 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

It was the sole cause of his farther acquaintance, and love that undid him. 
*0 nullis tutu7n credere hlanditiis. 

This opportunity of time and place, with their circumstances, are so forcible 
motives, that it is impossible almost for two young folks equal in years to live 
together, and not be in love, especially in great houses, princes' courts, where 
they are idle in summo gradu, fare well, live at ease, and cannot tell other- 
wise how to spend their time. ^ Illic Hippolitum pone, Priapus erit. Achilles 
was sent by his mother Thetis to the island of Scyros in the ^gean sea (where 
Lycomedes then reigned) in his nonage to be brought up ; to avoid that hard 
destiny of the oracle (he should be slain at the siege of Troy) : and for that 
cause was nurtured in Geneseo, amongst the king's children in a woman's 
habit : but see the event : he compressed Deidamia, the king's fair daughter, 
and had a fine son, called Pyrrhus, by her. Peter Abelard the philosopher, 
as he tells the tale himself, being set by Pulbertus her uncle to teach Heloise 
his lovely niece, and to that purpose sojourned in his house, and had committed 
agnamtenellamfamelico lupo, I use his own words, he soon got her good will, 
flura erant oscula quani senteatice, and he read more of love than any other 
lecture ; such pretty feats can opportunity plea ; primum domo conjuncti, hide 
animis, &c. But when as I say, nox, vinum, et adolescentia, youth, wine, and 
night, shall concur, nox amoris et quietis conscia, 'tis a wonder they be not all 
plunged over head and ears in love ; for youth is henigna in a'inorem, et prona 
materies, a very combustible matter, naptha itself, the fuel of love's fire, and 
most apt to kindle it. If there be seven servants in an ordinary house, you 
shall have three couple in some good liking at least, and amongst idle persons 
how should it be otherwise? " Living at '^ Pome, saith Are tine's Lucretia, in 
the flower of my fortunes, rich, fair, young, and so well brought up, my con- 
versation, age, beauty, fortune, made all the world admire and love me." 
Night alone, that one occasion, is enough to set all on fire, and they are so 
cunning in great houses, that they make their best advantage of it : Many a 
gentlewoman, that is guilty to herself of her imperfections, paintings, impos- 
tures, will not willingly be seen by day, but as ^ Castillo noteth, in the night, 
Diem ut glis odit, tcedarum lucem super omnia mavvM, she hateth the day like 
a dormouse, and above all things loves torches and candlelight, and if she 
must come abroad in the day, she covets, as ^ in a mercer's shop, a very 
obfuscate and obscure sight. And good reason she hath for it : Nocte latent 
onendce, and many an amorous gull is fetched over by that means. Gomesius 
lib. 3. de sale gen. c. 22. gives instance in a Florentine gentleman, that was so 
deceived with a wife, she was so radiantly set out with rings and jewels, lawns, 
scarfs, laces, gold, spangles, and gaudy devices, that the young man took her 
to be a goddess (for he never saw her but by torchlight) ; but after the wedding 
solemnities, when as he viewed her the next morning without her tires, and in 
a clear day, she was so deformed, a lean, yellow, shrivelled, &c., such a beastly 
creature in his eyes, that he could not endure to look upon her. Such 
matches are frequently made in Italy, where they have no other opportunity to 
woo but when they go to church, or, as ^'in Turkey, see them at a distance, they 
must interchange few or no words, till such time they come to be married, 
and then as Sardus, lib. 1. cap. 3. de morb. gent, and ^ Bohemus relate of those 
old Lacedemonians, " the bride is brought into the chamber, with her hair 
girt about her, the bridegroom comes in and unties the knot, and must not see 
her at all by daylight till such time as he is made a father by her." In those 

a Propertius. bQvid. amor. lib. 2. eleg. 2. " Place modesty itself in such a situation, desire will intrude. " 
o Komse vivens flore fortune, et opulenti£B mtse, astas, forma, gratia conversationis, maxime me fecerunt 
expetibilem, &c. dne Aulic. 1. 1. fol. 03. ^ Ut adulterini mercatorum panni. f Busbeq. epist. 

f Paranympha in cubiculum adducta capUlos ad cutira referebat; sponsus inde ad earn ingressus cingulura 
solvebat, nee prius sponsam aspexit interdiu quam ex ilia factua essct pater. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4.] Artificial Allurements. 533 

hotter countries these are ordinary practices at this day ; but in our northern 
parts, amongst Germans, Danes, French, and Britons, the continent of Scandia 
and the rest, we assume more liberty in such cases ; we allow them, as Bo- 
hemus saith, to kiss coming and going, et modo ahsit lascivia, in cauponem 
ducere, to talk merrily, sport, play, sing, and dance, so that it be modestly 
done, go to the alehouse and tavern together. And 'tis not amiss, though 
^ Clirysostom, Cyprian, Hierome, and some other of the fathers speak bitterly 
against it ; but that is the abuse which is commonly seen at some drunken 
matches, dissolute meetings, or great unruly feasts. " ^ A young, pittivanted, 
trim-bearded fellow " saith Hierome, " will come with a company of compliments, 
and hold you up by the arm as you go, and wringing your fingers, will so be 
enticed, or entice : one drinks to you, another embraceth, a third kisseth, and 
all this while the fiddler plays or sings a lascivious song; a fourth singles you 
out to dance, ^one speaks by beck and signs, and that which he dares not say, 
signifies by passions; amongst so many and so great provocations of pleasure, 
lust conquers the most hard and crabbed minds, and scarce can a man live 
honest amongst feastings, and sports, or at such great meetings." For as he 
goes on, " ^ she walks along, and with the ruffling of her clothes, makes men 
look at her, her shoes creak, her paps tied up, her waist pulled in to make her 
look small, she is straight girded, her hairs hang loose about her ears, her 
upper garment sometimes falls, and sometimes tarries to show her naked 
shoulders, and as if she would not be seen, she covers that in all haste, which 
voluntarily she showed. " And not at feasts, plays, pageants, and such 
assemblies, ^but as Chrysostom objects, these tricks are put in practice "at 
service time in churches, and at the communion itself" If such dumb shows, 
signs, and more obscure significations of love can so move, what shall they do 
that have full liberty to sing, dance, kiss, coll, to use all manner of discourse 
and dalliance! What shall he do that is beleasfuered on all sides ? 



' Quem tot, tam rosese petunt puell^, 
Quem cultie cupiunt nurus, amorque 
Omnis undique et undecunque et usqne, 
Omnis ambit Amor, Venusque Hymenque.' 



' After whom so many rosy maids inquire, 
Wliom dainty dames and loving wight-s desire. 
In every place, still, and at all times sue, 
Whom gods and gentle goddesses do woo." 



How shall he contain ? The very tone of some of their voices, a pretty pleasing 
speech, an affected tone they use, is able of itself to captivate a young man ; 
but when a good wit shall concur, art and eloquence, fascinating speech, 
pleasant discourse, sweet gestures, the Syrens themselves cannot so enchant. 
P P. Jovius commends his Italian countrywomen, to have an excellent faculty 
in this kind, above all other nations, and amongst them the Florentine ladies : 
some prefer Roman and Venetian courtesans, they have such pleasing tongTies, 
and such ^ elegancy of speech, that they are able to overcome a saint. Pro 
facie multis vox sua lenafuit. Tantd gratid vocis famam conciliabat, saith 
Petronius ^in his fragment of pure impurities, I mean his Satyricon, tam didcis 
sonus permulcebat aera, ut putares inter auras cantare Syrenum concordiam; 
she sang so sweetly that she charmed the air, and thou wouldst have thought 
thou hadst heard a concert of Syrens. " O good God, when Lais speaks, how 
sweet it is ! " Philocolus exclaims in Aristsenetus, to hear a fair young gentle- 
woman play upon the virginals, lute, viol, and sing to it, which as Gelliua 
observes, lib. 1. cap. 11. are lascivientium delicice, the chief delight of lovers- 



i Serm. cont. concub. kLib. 2. epist. ad filium, et virginem et matrem viduam epist. 10. dabit tibj 

barbatulus quispiam mantim, sustentabit lassam, et pressis digitis aut tentabitur aut tentabit, &c. 1 Loque- 
tnr alius nutibus, et qulcquid metuit dicere, significabit affectibus. Inter has tantas voluptatum illecebras 
etiam ferreas mentes libido domat. Difficile inter epulas servatur pudicitia. ^ Clamore vestimn ad 

se juvenes vocat; capilli faciolis comprimuntur crispati, cingulo pectus arctatur, capilli vel in frontem, vel in 
aures defluunt: palliolum interdum cadit, ut nudet humeros, et quasi videri noluerit, festinans celat, quud 
volens detexerit. "^ Sevm. cont. concub. in sancto et reverendo sacramentorum tempore multas 

occasioues, ut illisplaceantqui easvident, prffibent. opont. Baia. 1. 1. P Descr. Biit. "iKea 

est blanda canor, discunt cantare puellse profacie, &c. Ovid. 3. de art. amandL ^ Kpist. I. 1. Cum 

loquitur Lais, quanta, O dii boni, vocis ejus dulcedo ! 



534 Love-Melancholy. ' [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

must needs be a great enticement. Partlienis was so taken. ^ Mi vox ista 
avidd hau7'it ah aure animam; O sister Harpedona (she laments) I am undone, 
"• ^ how sweetly he sings, I'll speak a bold word, he is the properest man that 
ever I saw in my life : O how sweetly he sings, I die for his sake, O that he 
would love me again!" If thou didst but hear her sing, saith " Lucian, 
" thou wouldst forget father and mother, forsake all thy friends, and follow 
her." Helena is highly commended by ^Theocritus the poet for her sweet 
voice and music; none could play so well as she, and Daphnis in the same 
Edyllion, 

"Quamlibi os dulce est, et vox amaMlis, 6 Daphni, j "How sweet a face hatli Daphne, how lovely a voice I 
Jucundius est audire te canentem, quam mel lingere !" | Honey itself is not so pleasant in my choice." 

A sweet voice and music are powerful enticers. Those Samian singing 
wenches, Aristonica, Onanthe and Agathocleiaj^-e^m diadematihus insuUcirunt, 
insulted over kings themselves, as ^ Plutarch contends. Centum luminibus 
cinctum cai^ut Argus hahebat, Argus had a hundred eyes, all so charmed by one 
silly pipe, that he lost his head. Clitiphon complains in ^ Tatius of Leucippe's 
sweet tunes, " he heard her play by chance upon the lute, and sing a pretty 
song to it in commendations of a rose, out of old Anacreon belike; 



' Eosa honor decusqne tiorum, 
Rosa ties odorque divum, 
Hominum rosa est voluptas, 
Decus ilia Gratiaram, 
riorente am oris hora, 
Eosa suavium Diones," &c. 



" Eose the faii-est of till flowers, 
Eose delight of higher powers, 
]Eose the joy of mortal men, 
Eose the pleasure of fine women, 
Eose the Grace's ornament, 
Eose Dione's sweet content." 



To this effect the lovely virgin with a melodious air upon her golden wired harp 
or lute, I know not well whether, played and sang, and that transported him 
beyond himself, "and that ravished his heart." It was Jason's discourse as 
much as his beauty, or any other of his good parts, which delighted Medea 
so much. 



' ^ Delectabatur enira 



Animus simul forma dulcibusque verbis." 

It was Cleopatra's sweet voice and pleasant speech which inveigled Antony, 
above the rest of her enticements. Verba ligant hominem, ut taurorum cornua 
Junes, " as bulls' horns are bound with ropes, so are men's hearts with pleasant 
words." "Her words burn as fire," Eccles. ix. 10. Roxalana bewitched 
Solyman the Magnificent, and Shore's wife by this engine overcame Edward 
the Fourth, ^ Omnibus una omnes sui^rii^uit Veneres. The wife of Bath in 
Chaucer confesseth all this out of her experience. 

Some folk desire us for riches, 
Borne for shape, some for fairness, 
Some for that she can sing or dance, 
Some for gentleness, or for dalliance. 

° Peter Aretine's Lucretia telleth as much and more of herself, " I counter- 
feited honesty, as if I had been virgo virginissima, more than a vestal virgin, I 
looked like a wife, I was so demure and chaste, I did add such gestures, tunes, 
speeches, signs and motions upon all occasions, that my spectators and auditors 
were stupified, enchanted, fastened all to their places, like so many stocks and 
stones." Many silly gentlewomen are fetched over in like sort, by a company 
of gulls and swaggering companions, that frequently belie noblemen's favours, 
rhyming Coribantiasmi,ThrasoneanIlhadomantes or Bombomachides, that have 
nothing in them but a few player's ends and compliments, vain braggadocians, 
impudent intruders, that can discourse at table of knights and lords' combats, like 

8 "The sweet sound of his voice reanimates my soul through my covetous ears." t Aristsenrtus, 

lib. 2. epist. 5. Quam suavfe canit ! verbum audax dixi, omnium quos vidi formosissimus ; ntinam amare me 
dignetm- ! ^ Imagines ; si cantantem audieris, ita demulcebere, ut parentum et patrise statim obliviscaris. 
^ Edyll. 18. neque sane ulla sic Cytharam pulsare novit. y Amatorio Dialogo. ^ Puellam Cythara 

canentem vidimus. ^ ApoUonius, Argonaut. 1 . .3, " The mind is delighted as much by eloquence as beauty." 
b Catullus. <* Pamodidascalo dial. Ital. Latin, interp. Jasper. Barthio, Germ. Fjngebauj lionestatem 

plus^^^^ virginis vestalis, intuebar oculis uxoris, addebam gestiis, &c. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4.] Artificial Allurements. 535 

^Lucian'sLeontiscLis,of other men's travels, brave adventures, and snob com- 
mon trivial news, ride, dance, sing old ballad tunes, and wear tbeir clothes in 
fashion, with a good grace; a fine sweet gentleman, a proper man, who could 
not love him ! She will have him though all her friends say no, though she 
beg with him. Some again are incensed by reading amorous toys, Amadis de 
Gaul, Palmerin de Oliva, the Knight of the Sun, &c., or hearing such tales of 
® lovers, descriptions of their persons, lascivious discourses, such as Astyanassa, 
Helen's waiting- woman, by the report of Suidas, writ of old, de variis concuhitus 
modis, and after her Philenis and Elephantine; or those light tracts of 
^Aristides Milesius (mentioned by Plutarch) and found by the Persians in 
Crassus' army amongst the spoils, A-retine's dialogues, with ditties, love-songs, 
&c., must needs set them on fire, with such like pictures, as those of Aretine, 
or wanton objects of wliat kind soever; "no stronger engine than to hear or 
read of love toys, fables and discourses (^one saith), and many by this means 
are quite mad." At Abdera in Thrace (Andromeda one of Euripides' trage- 
dies being played) the spectators were so much moved with the object, and 
those pathetical love speeches of Perseus, amongst the rest, " Cupid, Prince 
of Gods and men," (fee, that every man almost a good while after spake pure 
iambics, and raved still on Perseus' speech, " O Cupid, Prince of Gods and 
men." As carmen, boys and apprentices, when a new song is published with 
us, go singing that new tune still in the streets, they continually acted that 
tragical part of Perseus, and in every man's mouth was " Cupid," in every 
street, " O CujDid," in every house almost, " O Cupid Prince of Gods and 
men," pronouncing still like stage-players, "O Cupid;" they were so 
possessed all with that rapture, and thought of that pathetical love speech, 
they could not a long time after forget, or drive it out of their minds, but "O 
Cupid, Prince of Gods and men," was ever in their mouths. This belike made 
Aristotle, Folit. lib. 7. cap. 18. forbid young men to see comedies, or to hear 
amorous tales. 

"bHsec igitur juyenes neqiiam facilesque pticllse 
Inspiciant " 

" let not young folks meddle at all with such matters." And this made the 
Komans, as ^ Vitruvius relates, put Venus' temple in the suburbs, ea:;/'/^<2 murum, 
ne adohscentes venereis insuescant, to avoid all occasions and objects. For 
what will not such an object do? Ismenius, as he walked in Sosthene's garden, 
being now in love, when he saw so many ^lascivious pictures, Thetis' marriage, 
and I know not what, was almost beside himself. And to say truth, with a 
lascivious object who is not moved, to see others dally, kiss, dance 1 And 
much more when he shall come to be an actor himself. 

To kiss and be kissed, which, amongst other lascivious provocations, is as a 
burden in a song, and a most forcible battery, as infectious, ^Xenoplion thinks, 
as the poison of a spider; a great allurement, a fire itself, procemium aut 
anticceniiim, the prologue of burning lust (as Apuleius adds), lust itseitj 
^ Venus quintet parte sui nectaris imhuit^ a strong assault, that conquers cap- 
tains, and those all commanding forces (^ Doynasque Ferro sed domaris osculd). 
°Aretine's Lucretia, when she would in kindness overcome a suitor of hers, 
and have her desire of him, "took him about the neck, and kissed him again 
and again," and to that, which she could not otherwise effect, she made him 
so speedily and wilhngly condescend. And 'tis a continual assault, ^V^oc 

dTom. 4. dial, merit. ^Amatorius sermo vehemens veliementis cupiditatis incitatio est, Tatius, 1. 1. 

f De luxuria et deliciis compositi. g Jilneas Sylvius. Nulla machina validior quam lectio lascivffi liistorite: 
S£epe etiam hujusmodi fabulis ad furorem incenduntur. h Martial. 1. 4. ILib. 1. c. 7. kEusta- 

tliius, 1. 1. Picturte parant animum ad Venerem, etc. Horatius ad res venereas intemperantiov traditur : 
nam cubic-ulo suo sic specula dicitur habuisse disposita, ut quocunque respexisset iniaginem coitus referrent. 
Suetonius vit. ejus. 1 Osculum nt pliylaugium inficit. ™ Hoi". " Venus iiath imbued with tlie 

quintessence of her nectar." ^ Heinsius. " You may conquer with the sword, but you are conquered by 
a kiss." '^ Applico me illi proximus et spisse deosculata sayum peto PPctronius catalect. 



536 Love-MelancTioly. [Part. 3. Sec. 2". 

no7i deficit incipitque semper, always fresh, and ready to '^ begin as at first, 
basium nullo fine terminatur, sed semper recens est, and hath a fiery touch 
with itr 



-"^Tenta modo tangere coi-pns, 



Jam tuo mellitluo membra calore fluent." 

Especially when they shall be lasciviously given, as he feelingly said, ^et me 
prcessulum deosculata Fotis, Catenatis lacertis, * Ohtorto valgiter labello. 

" ^ Valgiis suaviis, I ' Anima tunc «gra et saucia 

Dum semiulco suavio Concurrit ad labia mibL" 

Meam puellam suavior, I 

The sonl and all is moved j ^ Jam pluribus osculis lahra crepitabant, animarum 
quoque mixturam fijbcientes, inter mutiios complexus animas anhelantes, 

"yilassimus calentes 

Et transfadimus hinc et hinc labellis 
Eri'antes animas, valete cura." 

" They breathe out their souls and spirits together with their kisses," saith 
^ Balthasar Castilio, " change hearts and spirits, and mingle affections as they 
do kisses, and it is rather a connection of the mind than of the body." And 
although these kisses be delightsome and pleasant, Ambrosial kisses, ^iS'MttVi- 
olum dulci dulcius Ambrosia, such as ^ Ganymede gave Jupiter, Nectare sua- 
vius, sweeter than ^nectar, balsam, honey, ^ Oscula merum amor em stillantia.^ 
love-dropping kisses; for 

" The gilliflower, the rose is not so sweet, 
As sugared kisses be when lovers meet: " 

Yet they leave an irksome impression, like that of aloes or gall, 

" ^ Ut mi ex Ambrosia mutatum jam foret illud I " At first Ambrose itself was not sweeter, 

Suaviolum tristi tristius helleboro." | At last black hellebore was not, so bitter." 

They are deceitful kisses, 

"f Quid me mollibus implicas lacertis? I "Why dost within thine arms me lap, 

Quid fallacibus osculis inescas ? " &c. | And with false kisses me entrap ? " 

They are destructive, and the more the worse : ^Et quce me perdunt, oscula 
mille dab at, they are the bane of these miserable lovers. There be honest 
kisses, I deny not, osculum charitatis, friendly kisses, modest kisses, vestal- 
virgin kisses, officious and ceremonial kisses, &c. Osculi sensus, brachiort/m 
amplexus, kissing and embracing are proper gifts of Nature to a man; but 
these are too lascivious kisses, ^ Implicuitque sues circum mea colla lacertos,&LG. 
too continuate and too violent, ^Brachia non hederce, nan vincunt oscula 
conchce; they cling like ivy, close as an oyster, bill as doves, meretricious 
kisses, biting of lips, cum additamento : Tarn impresso ore (saith ^Lucian ut 
vix labia detrahant, inter deosculandum mordicantes, turn et os aperientes quo- 
que et mammas attrectantes, &c. such kisses as she gave to Gyton, innumera 
oscula dedit non repugnanti puero, cervicem invadens, innumerable kisses, &c. 
More than kisses, or too homely kisses: as those that %e spa'ke oi,Accepturus 
ab ipsa venere 7 suavia, &c. with such other obscenities that vain lovers use, 
which are abominable and pernicious. If, as Peter de Ledesmo cas. cons, holds, 
every kiss a man gives his wife after marriage, be m or tale peccatum, a mortal 
sin, or that of ^^Hierome, Adulter est quisquis in uxorem suam ardeniior 
est amator; or that of Thomas Secund. qucRst. 154. artic. 4. contactas et 

^Catullus ad Lesbiam : da mihi basia mille, deinde centum, &c. ^Petronius. " Only attempt to 

touch her person, and immediately your members wiU be filled with a glow of delicious warmth." ^ Apu- 
leius, 1. 10. et Catalect. tPetronius. ^Apuleius. ^ Petronius Proselios ad Circen. yPetronius. 

^Animus conjungitur, et spiritus etiam noster per osculum effluit; alternatim se in utriusque coi-pus infun- 
denies commiscent; animse potius quam corporis connectio. ^CatuUus. bLucian. Tom. 4. 

<^Non dat basia, dat Nera nectar, dat tores animse suaveolentes, dat nardum, thymumque, cinnamuraque et 
mel, &c. Secundus has. 4. dEustathius, lib. 4. « Catullus. f Buchanan. ^Ovid. artam. 

Eleg. 18. h Ovid. " She folded her arms around my neck." i Cum capita hment solitis morsiunculis, 

et cum mammillarum pressiunculis. Lip. od. ant. lee. lib. 3. k Tom. 4. dial, meretr. 1 Apuleius 

Miles 6. Etimum blandientis lingu«e admulsum longe mellitum: et post lib. 11. Aixtius earn complexus 
c^pi suaviari jamque paritex patentfc oris inhalitu cinnameo et occursantis linguae illisu nectareo, &.c. 
*^Lib. 1. advers. Jovin. cap. 30. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4.] 



A rtificial A lluremen ts. 



537 



osculum sit mortcde 'peccatum, or tliat of Diirand. Rational, lib. 1. cap. 10. 
ahstinere debent conjuges a complexu, toto tempore quo solennitas nuptiarum 
inter dicitur, what shall become of all such ^immodest kisses and obscene 
actions, the forerunners of brutish lust, if not lust itself! What shall become 
of them that often abuse their own wives? But what have I to do with 
this? 

That which I aim at, is to show you the progress of this burning lust ; to 
epitomize therefore all this which I have hitherto said, with a familiar example 
out of that elegant Musneus, observe but with me those amorous proceedings 
of Leander and Hero : they began first to look one on another with a lascivious 
look, 



" With becks and nocls he first began 

To try the wench's mind, 
With becks and nods and smiles again 

An answer he did tind. 
And in the dark he took her by the hand, 
And wrung it hard, and sighed grievdusly, 
And kiss'd her too, and woo'd her as he might," 
With pity me, sweetheart, or else I die, 
And witli such words and gestures as there past, 
He won his mistress' favour at the last." 



" Obliqu^ intuens inde nutibus, • 

Nutibusmutuisinducens in errorera mentem puellas. 
Et ilia e contra nutibus mutuis juvenis 
Leandri quod amorera non renuit, &c. Tnde 
Adibat in tenebris tacite quidem stringens 
Roseos puelkij digitos, ex imo suspirabat 
Vehementer Inde 

Virginis autem bene olens coUum osculatus, 

Tale verbum ait amoris ictus stimulo, 

Preces audit et amoris miserere mei, &c. 

Sic fatus recusantis persuasit mentem puellce." 

The same proceeding is elegantly described by Apollonius in his Argonautics, 
between Jason and Medea, by Eustathius in the ten books of the loves of 
Ismenius and Ismene, Achilles Tatius between his Clitophon and Leucippe, 
Chaucer's neat poem of Troilus and Cresseide ; and in that notable tale in 
Petronius of a soldier and a gentlewoman of Ephesus, that was so famous all 
over Asia for her chastity, and that mourned for her husband : the soldier 

wooed her with such rhetoric as lovers use to do, placitone etiam pugnabis 

amori? &c. at last, /ircngi per tiaaciain passa est, he got her good will, not 
only to satisfy his lust, ^but to hang her dead husband's body on the cross 
(which he watched instead of the thief's that was newly stolen away), whilst 
he wooed her in her cabin. These are tales, you will say, but they have most 
significant morals, and do well express those ordinary proceedings of doting 
lovers. 

Many such allurements there are, nods, jests, winks, smiles, wrestlings, 
tokens, favours, symbols, letters, valentines, &c. For which cause belike. 
Godfridus, lib. 2. de amor, would not have women learn to write. Many such 
provocations are used when they come in presence, ^they will, and will not. 



'Malo me Galatea petit lasciva puella, 
Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri." 



' My mistress with an apple woos me, 

And hastily to covert goes 
To hide herself, but would be seen 

With all her heart before, God knows." 



Hero so tripped away from Leander as one displeased, 



■ ^ Yet as she went full often look'd behind, 
And many poor excuses did she find 
To linger by the way," 



but if he chance to overtake her, she is most averse, nice and coy, 



*' Denegat et pugnat, sed vult super omnia vinci." 



" She seems not won, but won she is at length, 
In such wars women use but half their strength.' 



Sometimes they lie opon and are most tractable and coming, apt, yielding, and 
willing to embrace, to take a green gown, with that shepherdess in Theocritus, 
Edyl. 27. to let their coats, &c., to play and dally, at such seasons, and to 
some, as they spy their advantage; and then coy, close again, so nice, so 
surly, so demure, you had much better tame a colt, catch or ride a wild horse, 
than get her favour, or win her love, not a look, not a smile, not a kiss for a 



i^Oscula qui sumpsit, si non et cetera sumpsit, <tc. o Corpus placuit mariti sui tolli ex area, atqno 
illi quas vacabat cruci adfigi. P > ovi ingenium mulierum, nolunt ubi veils, nbi nolis cupiunt ultro. Ter. 
Euuuc. act. 4. sc. 7. 1 Marlowe. 



538 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

kingdom. ^ Aretlne's Lucretia was an excellent artisan in this kind, as she 
tells her own tale, " Though I was by nature and art most beautiful and fair, 
yet by these tricks I seemed to be far more amiable than I was, for that which 
men earnestly seek and cannot attain, draws on their affection with a most 
furious desire. I had a suitor loved me dearly (said she), and the ^ more he 
gave me, the more eagerly he wooed me, the more I seemed to neglect, to 
scorn him, and which I commonly gave others, I would not let him see me, 
converse with me, no, not have a kiss. To gull him the more, and fetch him 
over (for him only I aimed at) I personated my own servant to bring in a 
present from a Spanish count, whilst he was in my company, as if he had been 
the count's servant, which he did excellently well perform : ^ Coines de monte 
Turco, ' my lord and master hath sent your ladyship a small present, and part 
of his hunting, a piece of venison, a pheasant, a few partridges, (fee' (all which 
she bought with her own money), ' commends his love and service to you, 
desiring you to accept of it in good part, and he means very shortly to come 
and see you.'" Withal she showed him rings, gloves, scarfs, coronets which 
others had sent her, when there was no such matter, but only to circumvent 
him. " By these means (as she concludes) " I made the poor gentleman^so mad, 
that he was ready to spend himself, and venture his dearest blood for my 
sake." Philinna, in ^Lucian, practised all this long before, as it shall appear 
unto you by her discourse ; for when Diphilus her sweetheart came to see her 
(as his daily custom was) she frowned upon him, would not vouchsafe him her 
company, but kissed Lamprius his co-rival, at the same time -^before his face : 
but why was it ? To make him (as she telleth her mother that chid her for it) 
more jealous; to whet his love, to come with a greater appetite, and to 
know that her favour was not so easy to be had. Many other tricks she used 
besides this (as she there confesseth), for she would fall out with, and anger 
him of set purpose, pick quarrels upon no occasion, because she would be 
reconciled to him again. Amantium tree amorts redintegratio, as the old 
saying is, the falling out of lovers is the renewing of lovej and according to 
that of Aristsenetus, jucundiores amorum post injurias delicice, love is increased 
by injuries, as the sunbeams are more gracious after a cloud. And surely this 
aphorism is most true; for as Ampelis informs Crisis in the said Lucian, "^If 
a lover be not jealous, angry, waspish, apt to fall out, sigh and swear, he is no 
true lover." To kiss and coll, hang about her neck, protest, swear and wish, 
are but ordinary symptoms, incipientis adhuc et crescentis amoris signa; but 
if he be jealous, angry, apt to mistake, &c., he7ie speres licet, sweet sister he 
is thine own; yet if you let him alone, humour him, please him, &c., and 
that he perceive once he hath you sure, without any co-rival, liis love will 
languish, and he will not care so much for you. Hitherto (saith she) can I 
speak out of experience; Demophantus a rich fellow was a suitor of mine, I 
seemed to neglect him, and gave better entertainment to Calliades the painter 
before his face, principio oMit, verbis me insectatus at first he went away all 
in a chafe, cursing and swearing, but at last he came submitting himself, vow- 
ing and protesting he loved me most dearly, I should have all he had, and that 
he would kill himself for my sake. Therefore I advise thee (dear sister Crisis) 
and all maids, not to use your suitors over kindly; insolentes enim sunt hoc 
cum sentiunt, 'twill make them proud and insolent; but now and then reject 

r pornodidascolo dial. Ital. Latin. Donat. h. Gasp. Bartliio Germatio Quanquam nahira, et arte eram 
formosissiraa, isto tamen astu tanto speciosior videbar, quod enim oculis cupitum segre pr«betur, mtilto 
raagis affectus humanos iiicendit. ^ Quo majonbus me donis propitiabat, eo pejoribiis ilium modis 

tractabam, ne basium impetravit, &c. t Comes de monte Turco Hispanus has de venatione sua partes 

misLtJussitque peramanter orare, ut hoc qualecunque donum suo nomine accipias. ^ His artibus hominem 
ita excantabam, ut pro me ille ad omnia paratus, &c. ^ Tom. 4.. dial, meret. y Kelicto illo, a^gre ipsi 
interim faciens, et omnino difficilis. ^ Si quis enim nee Zelotypuis, irascitur, necpu,2nat aliquando amator, 
. nee perjurat, non est habendus amator, &c. Totus hie ignis Zelotypia constat, &c. maximi amores inde 
hascuntur. Sed si persuasum illi fuerit te solum habere,, elanguescit illico amor suus. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4. 



Artljicial Allurements. 



539 



tliem, estrange tliyself, el si me aucUes semel atque iferum exclude, slant him 
out of doors once or twice, let him dance attendance; follow my counsel, and 
by tliis means ^you shall make him mad, come off roundly, stand to any con- 
ditions, and do whatsoever you will have him. These are the ordinary prac- 
tices ; yet in the said Lucian, Melissa methinks had a trick beyond all this ; 
for when Jier suitor came coldly on, to stir him up, she writ one of his co- 
rivals' names and her own in a paper, Melissa amat Herniotimum Herinotimus 
Melissam, causing it to be stuck upon a post, for all gazers to behold, and lost 
it in the way where he used to walk; Avhicli when the silly novice perceived, 
statim ut legit credidlt, instantly apprehended it was so, came raving to me, 
&c., " ^and so when I v/as in despair of his love, four months after I recovered 
him again." Eugenia drew Timocles for her valentine, and wore his name a 
long time after in her bosom : Cam?3na singled out Pamphilus to dance, at 
Myson's wedding (some say), for there she saw him first ; Frelicianus over- 
took Ceelia by the highway side, ofiered his service, thence came further ac- 
quaintance, and thence came love. But who can repeat half their devices 1 
"What Aretine experienced, what conceited Lucian, or wanton Aristsenetus ? 
They will deny and take, stiffly refuse, and yet earnestly seek the same, repel 
to make them come with more eagerness, fly from if you follow, but if averse, 
as a shadow they will follow you Siga.ui,/ugienteni sequitur, sequentem fugit ; 
^Yith. a regaining retreat, a gentle reluctancy, a smiling threat, a pretty 
pleasant peevishness they will put you off, and have a thousand such several 
enticements. For as he saith. 



° Kon est fonna satis, nee qu£e vult bella videri, 
Debet vulgrari more placere suis, 
Dicta, sales, lusus, sermones, gratia, risus, 
Vincunt nature candidioris <;pus." 



' 'Tis not enough though she he fair of hue, 
For her to use this vulgar compliment : 
1 ut pretty toys and jests, and saws and smiles, 
As fur beyond what beauty can attempt." 



^ For this cause belike Philostratus, in his images, makes diverse loves, " some 
young, some of one age, some of another, some winged, some of one sex, some 
of another, some with torches, some with golden apples, some with darts, gins, 
snares, and other engines in their hands," as Propertius hath prettily painted 
them out, lib. 2. et 29. and which some interpret, diverse enticements, or 
diverse affections of lovers, which if not alone, yet jointly may batter and 
overcome the strongest constitutions. 

It is reported of Decius and Yalerianus, those two notorious persecutors of 
the church, that when they could enforce a young Christian by no means (as 
® Hierome records) to sacrifice to theu^ idols, by no torments or promises, they 
took another course to tempt him : they put him into a fail- garden, and set a 
young courtezan to dally with him, " ^she took him about the neck and kissed 
him, and that which is not to be named," manibusque attrectare, &c., and all 
those enticements which might be used, that whom torments could not, love 
might batter and beleaguer. But such was his constancy, she could not over- 
come, and when this last engine would take no place, they left him to his own 
ways. At ^ Berkley in Gloucestershire, there was in times past a nunnery 
(saith Gualterus Mapes, an old historiographer, that lived 400 years since), 
" of which there was a noble and a fair lady abbess : Godwin, that subtile 
Earl of Kent, travelling that way (seeking not her but hers), leaves a nephew 
of his, a proper young gallant (as if he had been sick) with her, till he came 
back again, and gives the young man charge so long to counterfeit, till he had 



^ Veiiientem videbis ipsum denuo inflammatum et prorsus insanientem. bEt siccum fere de illo despe- 
rassem, post menses quatuor ad me rediit. ° Petronius, Catal. d Imagines decrum. fol. 327. varies 

amores facit, quos aliqui interpretantur multiplices atfectus et illecebras, alios puellos, puellas, alatos, alios 
poma aurea, alios sagittas, alios laqueos, &c. e Epist. lib. 3. vita Pauli EremitjB. f Meretrix 

speciosa cepit delicatius stringere colla coraplexibus, et corpore in libidinem concitato, <fec. S Camden 

in Gloucestershire, huic prjefuit nobilis et formosa abbatissa, Godwinus comes indole subtilis, non ipsam, 
sed sua cupieus, reliquit uepotem suum forma elegantissimum, tanquam infirmum donee reverteretur ; 
iastruit, &c. 



540 Love-Mdanclwly. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

deflowered the abbess, and as many besides of the nuns as lie could, and leaves 
liim withal, rings, jewels, girdles, and such toys to give them still, when they 
came to visit him. The young man, willing to undergo such a business, played 
his part so well, that in short space he got up most of their bellies, and when 
he had done, told his lord how he had sped ; ^^ his lord made instantly to the 
court, tells the king how such a nunnery was become a bawdy-house, procures 
a visitation, gets them to be turned out^ and begs the lands to his own use." 
This story I do therefore repeat, that you may see of what force these entice- 
ments are, if they be opportunely used, and how hard it is even for the most 
averse and sanctified souls to resist such allurements. John Major in the 
life of John the monk, that lived in the days of Theodosius, commends the 
hermit to have been a man of singular continency, and of a most austere life ; 
but one night by chance the devil came to his cell in the habit of a young 
market wench that had lost her way, and desired for God's sake some lodging 
with him. "^ The old man let her in^ and after some common conference of 
her mishap, she began to inveigle him with lascivious talk and jests, to play 
with his beard, to kiss him, and do worse, till at last she overcame him. As 
he went to address himself to that business, she vanished on a sudden, and the 
devils in the air laughed him to scorn." Whether this be a true story, or a 
tale, I will not much contend, it serves to illustrate this which I have said. 
Yet were it so, that these of which I have hitherto spoken, and such like 
enticing baits, be not sufficient, there be many others, which will of themselves 
intend this passion of burning lust, amongst which, dancing is none of the least j 
and it is an engine of such force, I may not omit it. Incitamentum libidinis, 
Petrarch calls it, the spur of lust. " A ^ circle of which the devil himself is 
the centre. ^ Many women that use it, have come dishonest home, most indif- 
ferent, none better." ^ Another terms it, " the companion of all filthy delights 
and enticements, and 'tis not easily told what inconveniences come by it, what 
scurriletalk, obscene actions," and many times such monstrous gestures, such las- 
civious motions, such wanton tunes, meretricious kisses, homely embracings, 

"^(ut Gaditana canoro 

Incipiat prurire clioro, plausuque probatse 
Ad terrain tremula descendant clune puellse, 
Irritamentum Veneris languentis)" 

that it will make the spectators mad. When that epitomizer of ° Trogus had 
to the full described and set out King Ptolemy's riot as a chief engine and 
instrument of his overthrow, he adds, tymioanum et tripudium, fiddling and 
dancing : " the king was not a spectator only, but a principal actor himself." 
A thing nevertheless frequently used, and part of a gentlewoman's bringing 
up, to sing, dance, and j)lay on the lute, or some such instrument, before she 
can say her paternoster, or ten commandments. 'Tis the next way their 
parents think to get them husbands, they are compelled to learn, and by that 
means, ^ Incestos amoves de tenero meditantur ungue; 'tis a great allurement 
as it is often used, and many are undone by it. Thais, in Lucian, inveigled 
Lamprias in a dance, Herodias so far pleased Herod, that she made him sweai 
to give her what she would ask, John Baptist's head in a platter. ^ Robert 
Duke of JSTormandy, riding by Palais, spied Arietta, a fair maid, as she danced 



h Tile irapiger regem adit, abbatissam et suas prsegnantes edocet, exploratoribus missis probat, et iis 
ejectis, a domino suo manerium accepit. iPost sermones de casu slio suavitate sermonis conciliat ani- 

mum hominis, manumque inter eolloquia et risus ad barbam protendit et palpare coepit cervicem suara 
et osculari; quid multa? Captivum ducit militem Christi. Complexura evanescit, demones in aere mona- 
cbum riserunt. k Chorsea circulus, cujus centrum diab. 1 MulttE inde impudicag domum rediere, plures 
ambiguse, melior nulla. '^Turpium deliciarum comes est externa saltatio; neque certe facile dictu quaa 
malahinc visus hauriat, et quae pariat, eolloquia, monstrosos, inconditos gestiis, &:c. ^ Juv. Sat. 11. 

" i'erhaps you may expect that u Gaditanian with a tuneful company may begin to wanton, and girls 
approved with applause lower themselves to the ground in a lascivious manner, a provocative of languishing 
desire. o Justin. 1. 10. Adduntur instrumenta luxurise, tympana et tripudia; nee tam spectator rex, 

sed nequitiaB magister, &c. P Hor. I. 5. Od. 6. ^ Havarde vita ejus. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4.] Artificial Allurements. 541 

on a green, and was so miicL enamoured with the object, that ^he must needs 
lie with her that night. Owen Tudor won Queen Catherine's affection in a 
dance, falling by chance with his head in her lap. Who cannot parallel these 
stories out of his experience? >Speusippas a noble gallant in ^that Greek 
Aristsenetus, seeing Panareta a fair young gentlewoman dancing by accident, 
was so far in love with her, that for a long time after he could think of nothing 
but Panareta : he came raving home full of Panareta : " Who would not 
admire her, who would not love her, that should but see her dance as I did ] 
O admirable, O divine Panareta ! I have seen old and new Rome, many fair 
cities, many proper women, but never any like to Panareta, they are dross, 
dowdies all to Panareta ! O how she danced, how she tripped, how she turned, 
with what a grace ! happy is that man that shall enjoy her. most incom- 
parable, only, Panareta!" When Xenophon, in Symposio, or Banquet, had 
discoursed of love, and used all the engines that might be devised, to move 
Socrates, amongst the rest, to stii' liim the more, he shuts up all with a plea- 
sant interlude or dance of Dionysius and Ariadne. " * First Ariadne dressed 
like a bride came in and took her place; by and by Dionysius entered, dancing 
to the music. The spectators did all admire the young man's carriage; and 
Ariadne herself was so much affected with the sight, that she could scarce sit. 
After a while Dionysius beholding Ariadne, and incensed with love, bowing to 
her knees, embraced her first, and kissed her with a grace ; she embraced him 
again, and kissed him with like affection, &c., as the dance required; but they 
that stood by, and saw tliis, did much applaud and commend them both for it. 
And when Dionysius rose up, he raised her up with him, and many pretty ges- 
tures, embraces, kisses, and love compliments passed between them : which 
when they saw fair Bacchus and beautiful Ariadne so sweetly and so unfeign- 
edly kissing each other, so really embracing, they swore they loved indeed, and 
Avere so inflamed with the object, that they began to rouse up themselves, as if 
they would have flown. At the last when they saw them still, so willingly 
embracing, and now ready to go to the bride-chamber, they were so ravished 
with it, that they that were unmarried, swore they would forth with marry, and 
those that were married called instantly for their horses, and galloped home 
to their wives." What greater motive can there be than this burning lust? 
what so violent an oppugner % Not without good cause therefore so many 
general councils condemn it, so many fathers abhor it, so many grave men 
speak against it ; " Use not the company of a woman," saith Syracides, 8. 4. 
"that is a singer, or a dancer; neither hear, lest thou be taken in her 
craftiness." In circo non tarn cerniiur quam discUur libido. "Hcedus holds, 
lust in theatres is not seen, but learned. Gregory Nazianzen that eloquent 
divine (^as he relates the story himself), when a noble friend of his solemnly 
invited him with other bishops, to his daughter Olympia's wedding, refused to 
come: "^For it is absurd to see an old gouty bishop sit amongst dancers;" 
he held it unfit to be a spectator, much less an actor. Nemo saltat sobrius, 
Tully writes, he is not a sober man that danceth ; for some such reason 
(belike) Domitian forbade the Roman senators to dance, and for that fact 
removed many of them from the senate. But these, you will say, are lascivious 



!■ Of whom he begat William the Conqueror; by the same token she tore her smock dow-n, saying, &c. 
8 Epist. 26. Quis non miratus est saltantem ? Quis non vldit et amavit ? veterem et novam vidi Ko'mam, sed 
tibi similem non vidi Panareta ; felix qui Panareta fruitur, &c. t Piincipio Ariadne velut sponsa prodit, ac 
sola recedit; pvodiens illico Dionysius ad numeros cantante tibia saltabat; admirati sunt omnes saltantem 
juvenem, ipsaque Ariadne, ut vix potuerit conquiescere; postea vero cum Dionysius earn aspexit, &c. Ut 
autera surrexit Dionysius, erexit simul Ariadnem, licebatque spectare gestiis osculantium, et inter se com- 
plectentium ; quiautemspectabant, &c. Ad extremum videnteseosmutuis amplexibus implicatos et jamjam 
ad thalaramn ituros ; qui non duxerant uxores jurabant uxores se ducturos ; qui autem duxerant conscensis 
equis et incitatis, ut iisdem fruerentui-, domum festinarunt. ^ Lib. 4. de contemnend. amoribus. ^ Ad 
Aiiysium epist. 57. y Intempestivum enim est, et a nuptiis abhorrens, inter saltantes podagricum videre 
scnem, et episcopum. 



542 Love-Melancholy, [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

and Pagan dances, 'tis tlie abuse that causeth such inconvenience, and I do 
not well therefore to condemn, speak against, or " innocently to accuse the 
best and pleasantest thing (so ^Lncian calls it) that belongs to mortal men." 
You misinterpret, I condemn it not; I hold it notwithstanding an honest dis- 
port, a lawful recreation, if it be opportune, modera,tely and soberly used : I 
am of Plutarch's mind, " ^ that which respects pleasure alone, honest recrea- 
tion, or bodily exercise, ought not to be rejected and contemned :" I subscribe 
to ^Lucian, " 'tis an elegant thing, which cheereth up the mind, exerciseth the 
body, delights the spectators, which teacheth many comely gestures, equally 
affecting the ears, eyes, and soul itself." Sallust discommends singing and 
dancing in Sempronia, not that she did sing or dance, but that she did it in 
excess, 'tis the abuse of it; and Gregory's refusal doth not simply condemn it, 
but in some folks. Many will not allow men and women to dance together, be- 
cause it is a provocation to lust : they may as well, with Lycurgus and Mahomet, 
cut down all vines, forbid the drinking of wine, for that it makes some men 
drunk. 

" ° Nihil prodest quod non laedere posset idem; 
Igne quid utilius ? " 

I say of this as of all other honest recreations, they are like fire, good and 
bad, and I see no such inconvenience, but that they may so dance, if it be 
done at due times, and by fit persons : and conclude with Wolfongus "^Hider, 
and most of our modern divines : Si decorcE, graves, verecundce, plena luce 
bonorum virorum et matronarum honestarum,tempestiveJiant,prohari possunt, 
et dehent. " There is a time to mourn, a time to dance," Eccles. iii. 4. Let 
them take their pleasures then, and as ®he said of old, " young men and 
maids flourishing in their age, fair and lovely to behold, well attired, and of 
comely carriage, dancing a Greek galliard, and as their dance required, kept 
their time, now turning now tracing, now apart now altogether, now a courtesy 
then a caper," &c., and it was a pleasant sight to see those pretty knots, and 
swimming figures. The sun and moon (some say) dance about the earth, the 
three upper planets about the sun as their centre, now stationary, now direct, 
now retrograde, now m apogee, then i?i perigee, now swift then slow, occiden- 
tal, oriental, they turn round, jump and trace, ? and ^ about the sun with 
those thirty- three Maculae or Bourbonian ]A3iU.et,circa Solemsaltantes Cythare- 
dum, saith Fromundus. Four Medicean stars dance about Jupiter, two Aus- 
trian about Saturn, &c., and all (belike) to the music of the spheres. Our 
greatest counsellors, and staid senators, at some times dance, as David before 
the ark, 2 Sam. vi. 14. Miiiam, Exod. xv. 20. Judith, xv. 13. (though the 
devil hence perhaps hath brought in those bawdy bacchanals), and well may 
they do it. The greatest soldiers, as ^Quintilianus, ^^milius Probus, ^Coelius 
Rhodiginus, have proved at large, still use it in Greece, Rome, and the most 
worthy senators, cantare, saltare, Lucian, Macrobius, Libanus, Plutarch, 
Julius, Pollux, Athenseus, have wiitten just tracts in commendation of it. 
In this our age it is in much request in those countries, as in all civil com- 
monwealths, as Alexander ab Alexai;idro, lib. 4. cap. 10. et lib. 2. cap. 25. 
hath proved at large, ^amongst the barbarians themselves none so precious ; 
all the world allows it. 

"kDi^itias contemno tuas, rex Crsese, tuamque 
Vendo Asiam, unguentis, flore, mero, ciioreis." 

^ Rem omnium in mortalium vita optimam innocenter accusare. * Quse honestam voluptatem respicit, 
aut corporis exercitium, contemni non debet. b Elegantissima res est, quis et mentem acuit, corpus 

exeiceat, et spectantes oblectet, multos gestus decoros docens, oculos, aures, animum ex a^quo demulcens. 
•'Ovid. d System, moralis philosophise. ^ Apuleius. 10. Puelli, puell^que virenti florentes aetatula, 

forma conspicui, veste nitidi, incessu gratiosi, Grsecanicam saltantes Pyrrhicam, dispositis ordinationibus, 
decoros ambitus inenabant, nunc in orbem flexi, nunc in obliquam seriem connexi, nunc ta quadrum cuneati, 
nunc inde separati, &c. fLib. 1. cap. 11. svit. Epaminondaj. hLib. 5. i Bead l*. Mai'tyr 

Ocean Decad. Benzo, Lerius Hacluit, &c. kAngerianus Erotopaidium. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4.] Artificial Allurements. 543 

iPlatOjin his Common wealth, will have dancing-schools to be maintained, "that 
young folks might meet, be acquainted, see one another, and be seen;" nay 
more, he would have them dance naked ; and scoffs at them that laugh at 
it. But Eusebias, prcepar. Evangel, lib. 1. ca}?. 11. and Theodoret, lib. 9. 
curat, grcec. affect, worthily lash him for it ; and well they might : for as one 
saith, " °^ the very sight of naked parts causeth enormous, exceeding concu- 
piscences, and stirs up both men and women to burning lust." There is a 
mean in all things : this is my censure in brief; dancing is a pleasant recre- 
ation of body and mind, if sober and modest (such as our Christian dances 
are), if tempestively used ; a furious motive to burning lust, if as by Pagans 
heretofore, unchastely abused. But I proceed. 

If these, allurements do not take place, for ^^ Simierus, that gTeat master of 
dalliance, shall not behave himself better, the more effectually to move others, 
and satisfy their lust, they will swear and lie, promise, protest, forge, coun- 
terfeit, brag, bribe, flatter and dissemble of all sides. 'Twas Lucretia's coun- 
sel in Aretine, Si vis arnica frui, promitte, finge, jura, perjura, jacta, Simula, 
mentire; and they put it well in practice, as Apollo to Daphne, 

" ° mihi Delphica tellus I " Delphos, Claros, and Tenedos serve me, 

Et Claros el Tenedos, patareaque regia servit, And Jupiter is known my sire to be." 

Jupiter est genitor" | 

^ The poorest swains will do as much, ^Mille pecus nivei sunt et mihi vallibus 
agni; "I have a thousand sheep, good store of cattle, and they are all at her 
command," 

" ^ Tibi nos, tibi nostra supellex, 

Ruraqae servierint " 

"house, land, goods, are at her service," as he is himself. Dinomachus, a 
senator's son in ^ Lucian, in love with a wench inferior to hiai in birth and 
fortunes, the sooner to accomplish his desire, wept unto her, and swore he 
loved her with all his heart, and her alone, and that as soon as ever his 
father died (a very rich man and almost decrepid) he would make her his wife. 
The maid by chance made her mother acquainted with the business, who being 
an old fox, well experienced in such matters, told her daughter, now ready to 
yield to his desire, that he meant nothing less, for dost thou think he will ever 
care for thee, being a poor wench, ^ that may have his choice of all the beau- 
ties in the city, one noble by birth, with so many talents, as young, better 
qualified, and fairer than thyself? daughter, believe him not : the maid was 
abashed, and so the matter broke off". When Jupiter wooed Juno first (Lilius 
Giraldus relates it out of an old comment on Theocritus), the better to effect 
his suit, he turned himself into a cuckoo, and spying her one day walking 
along, separated from the other goddesses, caused a tempest suddenly to arise, 
for fear of which she fled to shelter : Jupiter to avoid the storm likewise flew 
into her lap, in virginis Junonis gremiwni devolavit, whom Juno for pity 
covered in her ^ apron. But he turned himself forthwith into his own shape, 
began to embrace and offer violence unto her, sed ilia matris metu abnuebat, 
but she by no means would yield, donee pollicitus connubium obtinuit, till he 
vowed and swore to marry her, and then she gave consent. This fact was 
done at Thornax hill, which ever after was called Cuckoo hill, and in perpetual 
remembrance there was a temple erected to Telia Jmio in the same place. So 
powerful are fair promises, vows, oaths, and protestations. It is an ordinary 

1 10 Leg. Tnr 'ihp Totai'Tri? o-Tre^^is' evsKa, &c. hujus cansa oportuit disciplinam constitni, ut tam pueri qnam 
puellse choreas celebrent, spectentnrque ac spectent, &.c. ^ Aspectus enim nudorum corporum tam marcs 
quam feminas imtaresolet ad enormes lascivias appetitus. ^ Camden Annal. anno 1578, fol. 27G. Ama- 

toriis facetiis et illecebris exqiiisitissimus. ^ IMet. 1. Ovid. P Erasmus egl. mille mei Siculis errant in 
montibus agni. l Virg. ^Logcheus. sq-Qm. 4. meret. dial, amare se jurat et lachrimatar dicitque 
Tixorem me ducere velie, quum pater oculos clausisset. t Quum dotera alibi multo majorem aspiciet, &.c. 
'^ Or upi er garment. Quem Juno miserata veste contexit. 



544 Ltyoe-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

thing too. in this case to belie tlieir age, which widows usually do, that mean 
to many again, and bachelors too sometimes, 

" ^ Cujus octaviim trepidavit Betas 
cernere lustrum ; " 

to say they are younger than they are. Carmides in the said Lucian loved 
Philematium, an old maid of forty-five years; ' she swore to him she was but 
thirty-two next December. But to dissemble in this kind, is familiar of all 
sides, and often it takes. ^Fallere credentem res est operosa puellam 'tis soon 

done, no such great mastery, Egregiam verb laudem, et spoUa ampla, - 

and nothing so frequent as to belie their estates, to prefer their suits, and to 
advance themselves, Many men to fetch over a young woman, widows, or 
whom they love, will not stick to crack, forge and feign any thing comes next, 
bid his boy fetch his cloak, rapier, gloves, jewels, &c., in such a chest, scarlet- 
golden-tissue breeches, &c., when there is no such matter; or make any scruple 
to give out, as he did in Petronius, that he was master of a ship, kept so many 
servants, and to personate their part the better, take upon them to be gentle- 
men of good houses, well descended and allied, hire apparel at brokers', some 
scavenger or prick-louse tailors to attend upon them for the time, swear they 
have great possessions, "bribe, lie, cog, and foist how dearly they love, how 
bravely they will maintain her, like any lady, countess, duchess, or queen; 
they shall have gowns, tiers, jewels, coaches, and caroches, choice diet, 

" The heads of parrots, tongues of nightingales, [ Spirit of roses and of violets, 

The brains of peacocks, and of ostriches, The milk of unicorns," &c. 

Their bath shall be the juice of gilliflowers, | 

as old Yolpone courted Ccelia in the '^ comedy, when as they are no such men, 
not worth a groat, but mere sharkers, to make a fortune, to get their desire, 
or else pretend love to spend their idle hours, to be more welcome, and for 
better entertainment. The conclusion is, they mean nothing less, 

"yNil metuunt jurare, nihil promittere curant : I "Oaths, vows, promises, are much protested; 

Sed simul ac cupidai mentis satiata libido est, But when their mind and lust is satisfied. 

Dicta nihil metuere, nihil perjuria curant;" J Oaths, vows, promises, are quite neglected ;" 

though he solemnly swear by the genias of Csesar, by Venus' shrine. Hymen's 
deity, by Jupiter, and all the other gods, give no credit to his words. For 
when lovers swear, Yenus laughs, Venus hmc perjuria ridet, '"■ Jupiter himself 
smiles, and pardons it withal, as grave * Plato gives out; of all perjury, that 
alone for love matters is forgiven by the gods. If promises, lies, oaths, and 
protestations, will not avail, they fall to bribes, tokens, gifts, and such like 
feats. ^Plurimus auro conciliatur amor: as Jupiter corrupted Danae with a 
golden shower, and Liber Ariadne with a lovely crown (which was afterwards 
translated into the heavens, and there for ever shines) ; they will rain chickens, 
florins, crowns, angels, all manner of coins and stamps in her lap. And so 
must he certainly do that will speed, make many feasts, banquets, invitations, 
send her some present or other every foot. Summo studio parentur epuloe 
(saith *^Hoedus) et crebrce Jiant largitiones, he must be very bountiful and 
liberal, seek and sue, not to her only, but to all her followers, friends, familiars, 
fiddlers, panders, parasites, and household servants; he must insinuate him- 
self, and surely will, to all, of all sorts, messengers, porters, carriers, no man 
must be unrewarded, or unrespected. I had a suitor (saith ^ Aretine's Lucre- 
tia) that when he came to my house, flung gold and silver about, as if it had 
been chaff. Another suitor I had was a very choleric fellow ; but I so handled 

^ Hor. ^Dejeravit ilia secundum supra trigesimum ad proximum Dccembrem completuram se esse. 

t Ovid. '"Nam donis vincitur omnis amor. Catullus 1. el. 5. ^ Fox, act- 3. sc. 3. _ y Catullus. 

^ Perjuria ridet amantum Jupiter, et ventos irrita ferre jubet, Tibul. lib. 3. et 6. ^ In Philebo. pejeran- 

tibus his dii soli ignoscunt. b CatuL ^ Lib. 1. de contemnendis amoribus. d Dial. Ital. argentum 

ut paleas projiciebat. Biliosum habui amatorem qui supplex flexis genibus, &c. NuUus recens allatus 
terrse fructus, nullum cupediarum genus tam carum erat, nullum vinum Cieticum pretiosum, quin ad m6 
ferret Ulico; credo alteram oculum pignori daturas, <&c. 



Mem, 2. Subs. 4.] Artificial Allurements. 5io 

him, that for all liis fuming, I brought him upon his knee:^. If there had been 
ian excellent bit in the market, any novelty, fish, fruit, or fowl, muscadel, or 
malmsey, or a cup of neat wine in all the city, it was presented presently to 
me; though never so dear, hard to come by, yet I had it : the poor fellow was 
so fond at last, that I think if I would I might have had one of his eyes out of 
his head. A third suitor was a merchant of Rome, and his manner of wooing 
was with ® exquisite music, costly banquets, poems, &c. I held him off till at 
length he protested, promised and swore ^;ro virginitate regno me donaturum, 
I should have all he had, house, goods, and lands, pro coiicubitu solo; ^neither 
was there ever any conjuror, I think, to charm his spirits that used such atten- 
tion, or mighty words, as he did exquisite phrases, or general of any army so 
many stratagems to win a city, as he did tricks and devices to get the love of 
me. Thus men are active and passive, and women not far behind them in 
this kind : Auclax ad omnia foemina, quae vel amat, vel odit. 

SFor half so boldly there can nan 
Swear and lye as women can." 

^ They will crack, counterfeit, and collogue as well as the best, with handker- 
chiefs, and wrought nightcaps, purses, posies, and such toys: as he justly 
complained, 



Cur mittis violas ? nempe ut violentius uret ; 
Quid violas violis me violenta mis?" &c. 



Why dost thou send me violets, my dear? 
To make me burn more violent, I fear, 
With violets too violent thou art, 
To violate and woimd my gentle heart." 



"When nothing else will serve, the last refuge is their tears. Hcec scripsi (tes- 
tor amorem) mixta lachrymis et suspiriis, 'twixt tears and sighs, I write this 
(I take love to witness), saith ^ Chelidonia to Philonius. Lumina quce modd 
fuhnina, jam flumina laclirymarum, those burning torches are now turned 
to floods of tears. Aretine's Lucretia, when her sweetheart came to town, 
^ wept in his bosom, ''that he might be persuaded those tears were shed for 
joy of his return." Quartilla in Petronius, when nought would move, fell a 
weeping, and as Balthasar Castillo paints them out, '''^To these crocodile's 
tears they will add sobs, fiery sighs, and sorrowful countenance, pale colour, 
leanness, and if you do but stir abroad, these fiends are ready to meet you at 
every turn, with such a sluttish neglected habit, dejected look, as if they were 
now ready to die for your sake ; and how, saith he, shall a young novice thus 
beset, escape?" But believe them not. 

-"i^animam ne crede piiellis, 

Isamque est foeminea tutiorunda fide." 

Thou thinkest, peradventure, because of her vows, tears, smiles, and protesta- 
tions, she is solely thine, thou hast her heart, hand, and affection, when as 
indeed there is no such matter, as the ° Spanish bawd said, gaudet ilia habere 
unum in lecto, alterum in portd, tertium qui domi suspiret, she will have one 
sweetheart in bed, another in the gate, a third sighing at home, a fourth, &c. 
Every young man she sees and likes hath as much interest, and shall as soon 
enjoy her as thyself. On the other side, which I have said, men are as false, 
let them swear, protest, and lie ; ^ Quod vobis dicunt, dixeruni mille puellis. 
They love some of them those eleven thousand virgins at once, and make them 
believe, each particular, he is besotted on her, or love one till they see another, 

®Post musicam opiperas epulas, et tantis juramentis, donis, &c. f Nunquam aliquis umbranim 

conjurator tanta attentione, tamque potentihus verbis usus est, quam ille exquisitis mihi dictis, &c. 
S Chaucer. li Ah crudele genus nee tutum foemina nomen ! TibuL 1. 3. eleg. 4. i Jo^'lanus Pon. 

k Aristsenetus, lib. 2. epist. 13. 1 Suaviter fiebam, ut persuasum habeat lachrj-mas prae gaudio illius reditus 
milii emanare. ^ Lib. 3. his accedunt. \'ultus subtristis, color pallidus, gemebunda vox, ignita suspiria, 

lachrymjB prope innumerabiles. Istse se statim umbrse offerunt tanto squalore et in omni fere diverticulo 
tanta macie, ut illas jamjam moribundas putes. ^ Petronius. "Trust not your heart to women, for the 

wave is less treacherous than their fidelity." ° Coelestina, act 7. Barthio interpret, omnibus arridet, et h 

singulis amari se solam dicit. P Ovid. " They have made tie same promises to a thousand gii'ls that 

they make to you." 

2n 



546 Love- Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

and then her alone ; like Milo's wife in Apuleius, lib. 2. Si quern conspexerit 
speciosce /ormce juveneni, venustate ejus sumitur, et in eum animuj/i intorquet. 
'Tis their common compliment in that case, they care not what they swear, 
say, or do : One while they slight them, care not for them, rail downright and 
scoS" at them, and then again they will run mad, hang themselves, stab and 

kill, if they may not enjoy them. Henceforth, therefore, nulla vivo 

juranti fmmina credat, let not maids believe them. These tricks and counter- 
feit passions are more familiar with women, ^finem hie dolori faciei aut vitce 
dies, miserere aiaantis, quoth Phaedra to Hippolitus. Joessa, in ^"Lucian, told 
Pythias, a young man, to move him the more, that if he would not have her, 
she was resolved to make away herself. " There is a Nemesis, and it cannot 
choose but grieve and trouble thee, to hear that I have either strangled or 
drowned myself for thy sake." Nothing so common to this sex as oaths, 
vows, and protestations, and as I have already said, tears, which they have at 
command, for they can so weep, that one would think their very hearts were 
dissolved within them, and would come out in tears; their eyes are like rocks, 
which still drop water, diarice laclirymce et sudoris in modum turgeri proniptce, 
saith ^ Aristsenetus, they v/ipe away their tears like sweat, weep with one eye^ 
laugh with the other; or as children *weep and cry, they can both together 

" ^ Neve puellarum lachrymis moveare memento, I " Care not for women's tears, I counsel thee, 
Ut tlerent oculos erudiere suos." | They teach their eyes as much to weep as see." 

And as much pity is to be taken of a woman weeping, as of a goose going bare- 
foot. When Venus lost her son Cupid, she sent a crier about, to bid every 
one that met him take heed. 



' ^ Si fientem aspicias, ne mox fallare caveto ; 
Sin arridebit, magis effuge; et oscula si fors 
Ferre volet, fugito ; sunt oscula noxia, in ipsis 
Suntque venena labris," &c. 



" Take heed of Cupid's tears, if cautelous, 
And of his smiles and kisses I thee tell, 
If that he offer't, for they be noxious, 
And very poison in his lips dotli dwell." 



^ A thousand years, as Castilio conceives, " will scarce serve to reckon up those 
allurements and guiles, that men and women use to deceive one another with.' 

SuBSECT. V. — Bawds, Philters, Causes. 

When all other engines fail, that they can proceed no farther of themselves, 
their last refuge is to fly to bawds, panders, magical philters, and receipts; 
rather than fail, to the devil himself Flecteresi nequeunt superos, Acheronta 
movebunt. And by those indirect means many a man is overcome, and pre- 
cipitated into this malady, if he take not good heed. For these bawds, first, 
they are everywhere so common, and so many, that, as he said of old Croton, 
^omnes hie aut captantur aut captant, either inveigle or be inveigled, we may 
say of most of our cities, there be so many professed, cunning bawds in them. 
Besides, bawdry is become an art, or a liberal science, as Lucian calls it ; and 
there be such tricks and subtleties, so many nurses, old women, panders, letter 
carriers, beggars, physicians, friars, confessors, employed about it, that iiullus 
trader e stilus sujiciat, one saith, 



a trecentis versibus 



Suas inipuritias traloqui nemo potest." 

Such occult notes, stenography, polygraphy, Nuntius animatus, or magnetical 
telling of their minds, which ^Cabeus the Jesuit, by the way, counts fabulous 
and false; cunning conveyances in this kind, that neither Juno's jealousy, nor 
Danae's custody, nor Argus' vigilancy can keep them safe. 'Tis the last and 

« Seneca HippoL ' Tom. 4. dial, merit, tu vero aliquando moerore afficieris ubi audieris me h. meipsa 

laqueo tui causa suffocatam aut in puteum prsecipitatam. s £pist. 20. 1.2. t Matrons flent duobus 

oculis, moniales quatuor, virgines uno, meretrices nuUo. ^ Ovid. ^ Imagmes deorum, tol. 332. e 

M-jschi amore fugitivo, quem Politianus Latinum fecit. ^ Lib. 3. mille vix anni safficerent ad omnes illas 

machinationes, dolosque commemorandos, qaos viri et mulieres ut se invicem circumvemanr, excogitare 
Bolent. JPetronius. * Plautus Tritemius. " Three hundred verses would not comprise their 

indecencies." bDe Magnet. Philos. lib. 4. cap. 10. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 5.] Artificial Allurements. 547 

common refuge to use an assistant, such as thatCatanean Philippa was to Joan 
Queen of Naples, a ^bawd's help, an old woman in the business, as ^Myrrha did 
when she doated on Cyniras, and could not compass her desire, the old jade her 

nurse was ready at a pinch, die inquit, opemque me sineferre tihi et in hdc 

'niea [pone timorem) Sedulitas erit apta tibi, fear it not, if it be possible to be 
done, I will effect it : non est mulieri mulier insuperabilis, ^Caelestina said, let 
him or her be never so honest, watched and reserved, 'tis hard but one of these 
old women will get access : and scarce shall you find, as ^Austin observes, in 
a nunnery a maid alone, " if she cannot have egress, before her window you 
sliall have an old woman, or some prating gossip, tell her some tales of this 
clerk, and that monk, describing or commending some young gentleman or 
other unto her." "As I was walking in the street (saith a good fellow in 
Petronius) to see the town served one evening, ^I spied an old woman in a 
corner selling of cabbages and roots (as our hucksters do plums, apples, and 
such Hke fruits); mother (quoth he) can you tell me where I can dwell? she, being 
well pleased with my foolish urbanity, replied, and why, sir, should I not tell 1 
With that she rose up and went before me. I took her for a wise woman, and 
by-and-by she led me into a by-lane, and told me there I should dwell. I 
replied again, I knew not the house ; but I perceived, on a sudden, by the 
naked queans, that I was now come into a bawdy-house, and then too late I 
began to curse the treachery of this old jade." Such tricks you shall have in 
many places, and amongst the rest it is ordinary in Venice, and in the island 
of Zante, for a man to be bawd to his own wife. No sooner shall you land or 
come on shore, but, as the Comical Poet hath it, 

"hMorem hunc meretrices habent, I Eogant cujatis sit, quod ei nomen siet, 

Ad portum mittimt seiTulos, ancillulas, I Post illas extemplo sese adplicent." 

Si qua peregrina navis in poitam aderit, | 

These white devils have their panders, bawds, and factors in every place to 
seek about, and bring in customers, to tempt and way-lay novices, and silly 
travellers. And when they have them once within their clutches, as -^gidius 
Maserius in his comment upon Valerius Flaccus describes them, " ^ with pro- 
mises and pleasant discourse, with gifts, tokens, and taking their opportunities, 
they lay nets which Lucre tia cannot avoid, and baits that Hippo] itus himself 
would swallow ; they make such strong assaults and batteries, that the goddess 
of virginity cannot withstand them: give gifts and bribes to move Penelope, 
and with threats able to terrify Susanna. How many Proserpinas, with those 
catchpoles, doth Pluto take? These are the sleepy rods with which their souls 
touched descend to hell; this the glue or lime with which the wings of the 
mind once taken cannot fly away; the devil's ministers to allure, entice," &g. 
Many young men and maids, without all question, are inveigled by these 
Eumenides and their associates. But these are trivial and well known. The 
most sly, dangerous, and cunningbawds, are your knavish physicians, empyrics, 
mass-priests, monks, ^Jesuits, and friars. Though it be against Hippocrates* 
oath, some of them will give a dram, promise to restore maidenheads, and do 
it without danger, make an abortion if need be, keep down their paps, hinder 
conception, procure lust, make them able with Satyrions, and now and then 

^Catul. eleg. 5. lib. 1. Venit in exitium callida lena meum. dOvid. 10. met. ®Parabosc. Earthii. 

fDe vit, Erini. c. 3. ad sororem vix aliquam reclusarum hujus temporis solam invenies, ante cujus fenestiam 
non anus gaiTula, vel nugigerula mulier sedet, qu« earn fabulis occupet, rumoribus pascat, hujus vel illius 
monat-hi, &c. SAgieste olus anus vendebat, et rogo inquam, mater, nunquid scis ubi ego habitem? delec- 
tata ilia urbanitate tarn stulta, et quid nesciam inquit ? consurrexitque et cepit me preecedere ; divinam ego 
putabam, <fcc , nudas video meretrices et in lupanar me adductum, sero execratus anicul£e insidias. h Plautus 
Alenech. "These harldts send little maidens down to the quays to ascertain the name and nation of every 
ship that arrives, after which they themselves hasten to address the new-comers." iPromissis everberant, 
molliunt dulciloquiis, et opportuaium tempus aucupaistes laqueos ingerunt quos vix Lucretia vitare; escam 
parant quam vel satur iiippo'itus sumeret, (fee. Hse sane sunt virgge soporiferse quibus coutactae animae 
ad Orcum descendunt ; hoc gluten quo compactae mentium alas evolare nequeunt, dsemonis ancillae, qusa 
Bollicitaut. &c, kSee the practices of the Jesuits, Anglice, edit. 1630. 



548 Lovc-Melanchohj. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

step in themselves. Y\o monastery so close, house so private, or prison so well 
kept, but these honest men are admitted to censure and ask questions, to feel 
their pulse beat at their bedside, and all under pretence of giving physic. 
Now as for monks, confessors, and friars, as he said, 

"INon audet Stysius Pluto tentare quod atidet I " That Stygian Pluto dares not tempt or do, 

Effrenis monaclius, plenaque fraudis anus; " | What an old hag or monk will undergo ; " 

either for himself to satisfy his ov/n lust, for another if he be hired thereto, or 
both at once, having such excellent means. For under colour of visitation, 
auricular confession, comfort and penance, they have free egress and regress, 
and corruj)t, God knows, how many. They can such trades, some of them, 
practise physic, use exorcisms, &c. 

'^ That whereas was wont to loalk and Elf, 
There now walks the Limiter himself, 
Jn every bush and under every tree. 
There needs no other Incubus but he 

^In the mountains between Dauphine and Savoy, the friars persuaded the good 
wives to counterfeit themselves possessed, that their husbands might give them 
free access, and were so familiar in those days with some of them, that, as one 
*^ observes, "wenches could not sleep in their beds for necromantic friars : and 
the good abbess in Bocaccio may in some sort witness, that rising betimes, 
mistook and put on the friar's breeches instead of her veil or hat." Yoii have 
heard the story, I presume, of ^Paulina, a chaste matron in ^gesippus, whom 
one of Isis' priests did prostitute to Mundus, a young knight, and made her 
believe it was their god Anubis. Many such pranks are played by our Jesuits, 
sometimes in their own habits, sometimes in others, like soldiers, courtiers, 
citizens, scholars, gallants, and women themselves. Proteus-like, in all forms 
and disguises, that go abroad in the night, to inescate and beguile young 
women, or to have their pleasure of other men's wives ; and, if we may believe 
^some relations, they have wardrobes of several suits in the colleges for that 
purpose. Howsoever in public they pretend much zeal, seem to be very holy 
men, and bitterly preach against adultery, fornication, there are no verier 
bawds or whoremasters in a country; "^' whose soul they should gain to God, 
they sacrifice to the devil." But I spare these men for the present. 

The last battering engines are philters, amulets, spells, charms, images, and 
such unlawful means: if they cannot prevail of themselves by the help of 
bawds, panders, and their adherents, they will fly for succour to the devil him- 
self. I know there be those that deny the devil can do any such thing (Crato 
epist. 2. lib. med.), and many divines, there is no other fascination than that 
which comes by the eyes, of which I have formerly spoken ; and if you desire 
to be better informed, read Camerarius, oper. suhcis. cent. 2. c. 5. It was given 
out of old, that a Thessalian wench had bewitched King Philip to dote upon 
her, and by philters enforced his love ; but when Oiympia, the Queen, saw the 
maid of an excellent beauty, well brought up, and qualified — these, quoth she, 
were the philters which inveigled King Philip ; those the tx'ue charms, as 
Henry to Rosamond, 

" s One accent from thy lips the blood more wai-ms 
Ihan all their philters, exorcisms, and charms." 

With this alone Lucretia brags in ^Aretine, she could do more than all philo- 
sophers, astrologers, alchymists, necromancers, witches, and the rest of the 
crew. As for herbs and philters, I could never skill of them, " The sole 

liEn. Sylv. «i Chaucer, in the Wife of Bath's tale. niT. Stephanus, Apol. Herod, lib. 1. cap. 21. 

OBale. Puellse in lectis dormire non poterant. PJdem Josephus, lib. 18. cap. 4. ^Liber edit. 

Augustus Vindelicorum, An. 1608. ^Quarum animas lucrari debent Deo, sacrificant diabolo. ^M. Dray- 
ton, Her. epist. t Pornodidascalo dial. Itnl. Latin, fact, a (jiasp. Barthio. Plus possum qnam omms 
philosophi, astrologi, necromantici, &c., sola saliva inungens, 1. ampltxu et basils tarn fivriose fui'ere, tam bcs- 
tiuiiter obstupefieri coegi, ut instar idoli me ttdoiarint. 



Mer3. 2. Subs. 5.] Artificial Allurements. 549 

philter that ever I used was kissing and embracing, by which alone I made 
men rave like beasts stupified, and compelled them to worship me like an idol." 
In our times it is a common thing, saith Erastus, in his book de Lamiis, for 
witches to take upon them the making of these philters, " ^to force men and 
women to love and hate whom they will, to cause tempests, diseases," &c. 

by charms, spells, characters, knots. ^hic Thessala venclit Philtra. St. 

Hierome proves that they can do it (as in Hilarius' life, epist. lib. 3) ; he hath 
a story of a young man, that with a philter made a maid mad for the love of 
him, which maid was after cured by Hilarian. Such instances I find in John 
Nider, Formicar. lib. 5. cap. 5. Plutarch records of Lucullus that he died of a 
philter ; and that Cleopatra used philters to inveigle Antony, amongst other 
allurements. Eusebius reports as much of Lucretius the poet. Panormitan. 
lib. 4. degest. AliyJionsi, hath a story of one Stephan, a Neapolitan knight, that 
by a philter was forced to run mad for love. But of all others, that which 
^Petrarch, epist. famil. lib. 1. ep. 5, relates of Charles the Great (Charlemagne), 
is most memorable. He foolishly doted upon a woman of mean favour and 
condition, many years together, wholly delighting in her company, to the great 
grief and indignation of his friends and followers. When she was dead, he did 
embrace her corpse, as Apollo did the bay-tree for his Daphne, and caused her 
coffin (richly embalmed and decked with jewels) to be carried about with him 
over which he still lamented. At last a venerable bishop, that followed his 
court, prayed earnestly to God (commiserating his lord and master's case) to 
know the true cause of this mad passion, and whence it proceeded ; it was 
revealed to him, in fine, " that the cause of the emperor's mad love lay under 
the dead woman's tongue." The bishop went hastily to the carcass, and took 
a small ring thence ; u|)on the removal the emperor abhorred the corpse, and, 
instead ^of it fell as furiously in love with the bishop, he Avould not sufier him 
to be out of his presence ; which when the bishop perceiverl, he flimg the ring 
into the midst of a great lake, where the king then was. From that hour the 
emperor neglected all his other houses, dwelt at '^Ache, built a fair house in 
the midst of the marsh, to his infinite expense, and a ^temple by it, where 
after he was buried, and in which city all his posterity ever since used to be 
croAvned. Marcus the heretic is accused by IrenEeus to have inveigled a young 
maid by this means ; and some writers speak hardly of the Lady Katherine 
Cobham, that by the same ai-t she circumvented Humphrey Duke of Gloucester 
to be her husband. Sycinius -^milianus summoned ^ Apuleius to come before 
Cneius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, that he being a poor fellow, " had 
bewitched by philters Pudentilla, an ancient rich matron to love him," and, 
being worth so many thousand sesterces, to be his wife. Agrippa, lib. I. 
ca]}. 48. occult. philos. attributes much in this kind to philters, amulets, images: 
and Salmutz, com. in Pancirol. Tit. 10. de Horol. Leo Afer. lib. 3. saith, 'tis an 
ordinary practice at Eez in Africa, Prcestigiatores ibip lures, qui coguntamores et 
co7icubitus : as skilftil all out as that Hyperborean magician, of whom Cleodemus, 
in ^Lucian, tells so many fine feats performed in this kind. But Erastus, 
Wierus, and others are against it ; they grant indeed such things may be done, 
but (as AYierus discourseth, lib. 3. de Lamiis, cap, 37.) not by charms, incan- 
tations, philters, but the devil himself; lib. 5. cap). 2. he contends as much ; 
so doth Ereitagius, noc. med. cap. 74. Andreas Cisalpinus, cap. 5 ; and so 
much Sigismundus Schereczius, cap. 9, de hirco noctarno, proves at large. 

'^Sagae omnes sibi an-ogant notitiam, et facultatem in amorem alliciendl quos velint; odia inter conjuges 
serendi, tempestates excitandi, morbos infligendi, &c. ^ Juvenalis Sat. yidem refert Hen. Konnanmis 
de mir. mort. lib. 1. cap. 14. Perdite amavit mulievculam quandam, illius amplexibus acquiesc^/s, samma cirni 
indignatione suomm et dolore. ^ Et inde totiis in Episcopum farere, ilium coleve. ^ Aquisgranum, 

vulgo Aixe. b immenso sumptn templum et iBdes, &e. '^ Apolog. quod Pudentillaru \iduam ditem et 
provectioris aetatis foemlaam cantaminibus in amorem sui pellexisset. d Fhilopseude, torn. 3. 



650 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

" ® Uncliaste women by the help of these witches, the devil's kitchen maids, 
have their loves brought to them in the night, and carried back again by a 
phantasm flying in the air in the likeness of a goat. I have heard (saith he) 
divers confess, that they have been so carried on a goat's back to their sweet- 
hearts, many miles in a night," Others are of opinion that these feats, which 
most suppose to be done by charms and philters, are merely effected by natural 
causes, as by man's blood chemically prepared, which much avails, saith 
Ernestus Burgranius, in Lucerna vitce et mortis Indice, ad amorem concilian- 
duin et odium (so huntsmen make their dogs love them, and farmers their 
pullen), 'tis an excellent philter, as he holds, sed vulgo iwodere grande nefts, 
but not fit to be made common : and so be Mala insana, mandrake roots, man- 
drake ^apples, precious stones, dead men's clothes, candles, mala, BacclUca, 
pa?iis porcinus, Hyppomanes, a certain hair in a ^wolf's tail, &c., of which 
E-hasis, Dioscorides, Porta, Wecker, Rubeus, Mizaldus, Albertus, treat : a 
swallow's heart, dust of a dove's heart, multum valent linguce viperarum, cere- 
hella asinoram, tela equina, palliola quibas infantes obvoluti nascuntur, funis 
strangulati hominis, lapis de iddo Aquilce, &c. See more in Sckeukius 
ohservat. medicinal, lib. 4. &c., which are as forcible, and of as much virtue as 
that fountain Salmacis in ^ Vitru vius, Ovid, Strabo, that made all such mad for 
love that drank of it, or that hot bath at ^ Aix in Germany, wherein Cupid once 
dipt his arrows, which ever since hath a peculiar virtue to make them lovers all 
that wash in it. But hear the poet's own description of it, 

" k Unde hie fervor aquis ten-a erumpentibus uda ? I Inquit, et hsec pharetrae sint monumenta meae. 

Tela olim Mc ludens ignea tiiixit araor; Ex illo fervet, rariis(iiie hie mergitur hospes, 

Et gaudens stridore novo, fei-vete peiennes, [ Cui non ticillet pe.m.i )iindiis amor." 

These above-named remedies have happily as much power as that bath of Aix, 
or Venus' enchanted girdle, in which, saith Natales Comes, " Love toys and 
dalliance, pleasantness, sweetness, persuasions, subtleties, gentle speeches, and 
all witchcraft to enforce love was contained." Bead more of these in Agrippa 
de occult. Fhilos. lib. 1. cap. 50. et 45. Malleus, malefic, part. 1. qucest. 7. 
Delrio, tarn. 2. qu^st. 3. lib. 3. Wierus, Pomponatius, cap. 8. deincantat. FiamMS, 
lib. 13. Tkeol. Flat. Calcagninus, &c. 



MEMB. III. 

Symptoms or signs of Love-Melancholy, in Body, Mind, good, had, &g. 

Symptoms are either of body or mind ; of body, paleness, leanness, dryness? 
&c. ^ Fallidus omnis amans, color hie est aptus amanti, as the poet describes 
lovers: facit amor maciem, love cause th leanness. ^Avicenna de Ilishi, c. 33. 
" makes hollow eyes, dryness, symptoms of this disease, to go smiling to them- 
selves, or acting as if they saw or heard some delectable object." Yalleriola, 
lib. 3. observat. cap. 7. Laurentius, cap. 10. ^lianus Montaltus de. Her. amore. 
Langius, epist. 24. lib. 1. epist. med. deliver as much, corpus exangue pallet, 

corpus gracile, oculi cavi, lean, pale ut nudis qui pressit calcibus anguem, 

*' as one who trod with naked foot upon a snake," hollow-eyed, their eyes are 

« ImpudicaB mulieres opera veneficarum, dial)oli coquarnm, amatores suos ad se nocta ducuiit et reducunt, 
ministerio Wrci in aere volantis ; mullos novi qui hoc fassi sunt, &c. f Mandrake apples, Lemnius, lib. lierb. 
bib. c. 2. 8 Of which read Plin. lib. 8. cap. 22. et lib. 13. c. 25. et Quintilianum, lib. 7. h Lib. 1 1. c. 8. Venere 
implicat eos, qui ex eo bibunt Idem Ov. Met. 4. Strabo. Geog. 1. 14. Lod. Guicciardine's descript. 

Aqaisgrani in Ger. k Baltheus Veneris, in quo suavitas, et dulcia colloquia, benevolently, et blauditias, 

suasiones, fraudes et veneficia includebantur. " Wlience that heat to waters bubbling from the cold moist 
earth? Cupid, once upon a time playfully dipt herein his aiTOws of steel, and delighted with the hissmg 
somid, he said, boil on for ever, and retain the memoiy of my quiver. From that time it is a thermal spring, 
in which few venture to bathe, but whosoever does his heart is instantly touched with love." lOvid. 
Facit hunc amor ipse colorem. Met. 4. ™Signa ejus profunditas oculorum, privatio lachrymarum, sus- 
piria, ssepe rident sibi, ac si quod delectabile viderent, aut audirent. 



Mem. 3.] 



Symptoms of Lo\ 



551 



hidden in their heads, ^Tenerque niticU corporis cecidit decor, they pine 

away, and look ill with waking, cares, sighs. 

" Et qui tenebant signa PhoebeJE facis 
Ociili, lahil gentile nee patrium micant." 

"And eyes that once rivcilled the locks of Phoebus, lose the patrial and 
paternal lustre." V/ith groans, griefs, sadness, dulness, 

o Nulla jam Cereris subit 



" '^istnis distillat in undas, 

Testis erit largus qui rigat ora liquor,' 



Cura aut salutis ' 

want of appetite, &c. A reason of all this, ^ Jason Pratensis gives, " because 
of the distraction of the spirits the liver doth not perform his part, nor turns 
the aliment into blood as it ought, and for that cause the members are weak 
lor want of sustenance, they are lean and pine, as the herbs of my garden do 
this month of May, for want of rain." The green sickness therefore often 
happeneth to young women, a cachexia or an evil habit to men, besides their 
ordinary sighs, complaints, and lamentations, which are too frequent. As 
drops from a still, ut occluso stillat ab igne liquor, doth Cupid's fire pro- 
voke tears from a true lover's eyes, 

" <lThe mighty Mars did oft for Venus shriek, 
Privily moistenina; his horrid cheek 
"With womanish tears, " • 

with many such like passions. When Ohariclia was enamoured of Theagines? 
as ^Heliodorus sets her out, "she was half distracted, and spake she knew 
not what, sighed to herself, lay much awake, and was lean upon a sudden :" 
and whea she was besotted on her son-in-law, ^ pobllor deformis, marcentes 
oculi, &o., she had ugly paleness, hollow eyes, restless thoughts, short wind, &c. 
Eurialis, in an epistle sent to Lucretia, his mistress, complains amongst other 
grievances, tu mihi et somni et cibi usum abstulisti, thou has taken my stomach 
and my sleep from me. So he describes it aright : 

His sleep, his meat, his drink, in him berefty 

Thai lean he tvaxeth, and dry as a shafts 

His eyes hollow and grisly to behold, 

His hew pale and ashen to unfold. 

And solitary he icas ever alone, 

And waking all the night making mone ^ 

Theocritus Edyl. 2. makes a fair maid of Delphos, in love with a young man 
of Minda, confess as much. 



ut vidi ut in?anii, ut animus mihi male afiectris est, 
Miserse mihi forma tabescebat, neque aniplius pompam 
Ullum curabam, aut quando domum redierani 
Novi, sed me ardens quidam morbus consumebat, 
Decubui in lecto dies decern, et noctes decern, 
Detiuebant capita capilli, ipsaque sola reliqua 
Ossa et cutis" 



'No sooner seen T had, than mad T was, 
My beauty fa I'd, and I no more did care 
For any pomp, I knew not where I was, 
But sick I was, and evil I did fare ; 
I lay upon my bed ten days and niglits, 
A skeleton I was in all men's sights." 



All these passions are well expressed by ^ that heroical poet in the j^erson of 
Dido: 



' At non infselix animi PhiBnissa, nee unquam 
Solvitur in somnos, ocuUsque ac pectore amores 
Accipit ; ingeminant curffi, rursusque resurgens 
Ssevit amor," &c. 



'Unhappy Dido could not sleep at all, 
But lies awake, and tal^es no rest : 
And up she gets ag tin, whilst care and grief, 
And raging love torment her breast." 



Accius Sanazarius, Egloga 2. de Galatea, in the same manner feigns his 
Lychoris -^'tormenting herself for want of sleep, sighing, sobbing, and lament- 
ing; and Eustathius in his Ismenius much troubled, and "^panting at heart, 
at the sight of his mistress," he could not sleep, his bed was thorns. '^ All 



° Seneca Hip. o Seneca Hip. P Demorbis cerebri de erot. amore. Ob spiritnum distractionem 

hepar officio suo non fungitur, nee vertit alimentum in sanguinera, ut debeat. Ergo membra debilia, et 
penuria alibilis succi marcescunt, squalentque ut herbpe in horto meo hoc mense Maio Zeriscas, ob imbriuni 
defectum. <1 Faerie Queene, 1. 3. cant. 11. r Amator Emblem. 3. » Lib. 4. Aninio errat, et quidvis 
obvium loquitur, vigilias absque causa sustinet, et succum corporis subito amisit. t Apuleius. " Chaucei-, 
in the Knight's Tale. ^ Virg. JEn. 4. y Dum vaga passim sidera fulgent, numerat longas tetricus 

horas, et soUicito nixus cubito suspirando viscera rumpit. ^ Saliebat crebro tep.dum cor ad aspeciUiU 

Ismenes. * Gordonius, c. 20. amittunt ssepe cibma, potuni, et macerator inde totum corpus. 



552 Love-3Ie!ancholy, [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

make leanness, want of appetite, want of sleep ordinary symptoms, and by 
that means they are brought often so low, so much altered and changed, that 
as ^ he jested in the comedy, " one scarce knows them to be the same men." 

"Attenuant juvenum vigilatse corpora noctes, 
Curaque et immense qui fit amore dolor." 

Many such symptoms there are of the body to discern lovers by, quis enim 

bene celet amioi^em? Can a man, saith Solomon, Prov. vi. 27, carry fire in his 
bosom and not burn? it will hardly be hid ; though they do al] they can to hide 

it, it must out, plus quam mille notis 'it may be described, ^quoque magis 

tegitur, tectus magis cestuat ignis, 'Twas Antiphanes the comedian's observa- 
tion of old, Love and drunkenness cannot be concealed, Gelare alia possis, hceo 
prceter duo, vini potum, &c. words, looks, gestures, all will betray them ; but 
two of the most notable signs are observed by the pulse and countenance. 
When Antiochus, the son of Seleucus, was sick for Stratonice, his mother-in- 
law, and would not confess his grief, or the cause of his disease, Erasistratus, 
the physician, found him by his pulse and countenance to be in love with her, 
"^because that when she came in presence, or was named, his pulse varie^i, 
and he blushed besides." In this very sort was the love of Callicles, the son 
of Polycles, discovered by Panacseas the physician, as you may read the story 
at large in ^ Aristsenetus. By the same signs Galen brags that he found out 
Justa, Boethius the consul's wife, to dote on Pylades the player, because at his 
name still she both altered pulse and countenance, as ^Polyarchus did at the 
name of Argenis. Franciscus Yalesius, I. 3. controv. 13. med. contr. denies 
there is any 'a\ig}i pulsus amatorius, or that love may be so discerned; but 
Avicenna confirms this of Galen out of his experience, lib. 3, Fen. 1. and 
Gordonius, cap. 20. "^ Their pulse, he saith, is inordinate and swift, if she go 
by whom he loves," Langius, epist. 24. lib. 1. med. e2nst. Neviscanus, lib. 4. 
numer. QQ. syl. nuptialis, Yalescus de Taranta, Guianerius, Tract. 15. Yale- 
riola sets down this for a symptom, " ^ Difference of pulse, neglect of business, 
want of sleep, often sighs, blushings, when there is any speech of their mistress, 
are manifest signs." But amongst the rest, Josephus Struthius, that Polonian, 
in the fifth book, cap. 17. of his Doctrine of Pulses, holds that this and all 
other passions of the mind may be discovered by the pulse. " ^ And if you 
will know, saith he, whether the men suspected be such or such, touch their 
arteries," &c. And in his fourth book, fourteenth chapter, he speaks of this 
particular pulse, "^Love makes an unequal pulse," &c., he gives instance of 
a gentlewoman, ^a patient of his, whom by this means he found to be much 
enamoured, and with whom : he named many persons, but at the last when his 
name came whom he suspected, " ^ her pulse began to vary, and to beat 
swifter, and so by often feeling her pulse, he perceived what the matter was." 
Apollonius, Argonaut, lib. 4. poetically setting down the meeting of Jason 
and Medea, makes them both to blush at one another's sight, and at the first 
they were not able to speak. 



^ totus Parmeno 



Tremo, horreoque postquam aspexl banc." 

Phsedria tremblled at the sight of Thais, others sweat, blow short, Crura trer 

m^unt ac poplites, are troubled with palpitation of heart upon the like 

occasion, cor proximum ori, saith ^Aristsenetus, their heart is at their mouth, 

l> Ter. Eunuch. Dii- boni, quid hoc est, adeone homines mutari ex amore, ut non cognoscas eundem 
esse ! <= Ovid. Met. 4. " The more it is concealed the more it struggles to break through its conceal- 

ment." d Ad ejus noraen rubehat, et ad aspectum pulsus variebatur. Plutar. ® Epist. 13. f Barck. 

lib. 1. Oculi medico tremore errabant. 8 Pulsus eorum velox et inordinatus, si mulier quam amat fortb 

transeat. h Signa sunt cessatio ab omni opere insueto, privatio somni, suspiria crebra, rubor cum sit 

sermo de re amata, et commotio pulsiis. i Si noscere vis an homines suspecti tales sint, tangito eorum 

arteria-=. k Amor facit inasquales, Inordinatos. 1 In nobilis cujusdam uxore quum subolfacerem 

adulter! amore fuisse correptara et quam maritus, &c. ^ Coepit illico pulsus variari et feiTi celerius et sic 

inverii. n Eunuch, act. 2. seen. 2. ^ Epist. 7. lib. 2. Tener sudor et creber anhelitus, paipitatio 

cordis, &c. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love. 553 

leaps, these burn and freeze (for love is fire, ice, hot, cold, itch, fever, frenzy, 
pleurisy, what not), they look pale, red, and commonly blush at theii* first con- 
gress; and sometimes through violent agitation of spirits bleed at nose, or 
when she is talked of; which very sign ^^Eustathius makes an argument of 
Ismene's afiection, that when she met her sweetheart by chance, she changed 
her countenance to a maiden-blush. 'Tis a common thing amongst lovers, as 
^Arnulphus, that merry-conceited bishop, hath well expressed in a facetious 
epigram of his, 

"Alterno facies sibi dat responsa rubore, I "Their foces answer, and by bkishino; say, 

Et tener affectum prodit utri(iue pudor," &c. | How both atfcctcd are, they do betray." 

But the best conjectures are taken from such symptoms as appear when they 
are both present; all their speeches, amorous glances, actions, lascivious ges- 
tures will betray them ; they cannot contain themselves, but that they will be 
still kissing. ^ Stratocles, the physician, upon his wedding-day, when he was 
at dinner. Nihil j^rius sorhillavit quatn tria basia puellce jjangereb, could not eat 
his meat for kissing the bride, &c. First a word, and then a kiss, then some 
other compliment, and then a kiss, then an idle question, then a kiss, and when 
he had pumped his wits dry, can say no more, kissing and colling are never 
out of season, ^Hoc non deficit incijntque semper, 'th never at an end, ^another 
kiss, and then another, another, and another, &c. — Ituc ades Thelayra — 
Come kiss me Corinna 1 



"Centum basia centies, 
Centum basia millies, 
IMille bas-ia railhes, 
Et tot mlllia millies, 
Quot guttas Siculo mari, 

Quot sunt sidera coelo, 
Istis purpureis jienis, 
Istis turgidulls labris, 
Ocellisque loquaculis, 
Figam continuo impetu ; 

forraosa Neasva. (As Catullus to Lesbia.) 
Da mihi basia uiille, delude centum, 
Dein mille altera, da secunda centum, 
Dein usque altera millia, deinde centum." 



" X first give a hundred, 

Then a thousand, then another 
Hundred, then unto the other 
Add a thousand, and so more," &c. 



Till you equal with the store, all the grass, &c. So Venus did by her Adonis 
the moon with Endymion, they are still dallying and colling, as so many doves 
Columbatimqae labra conserentes labiis, and that with alacrity and courage, 



" y Affligunt avide coi-pus, iunguntque salivas 
Oris, et inspirant prensaates dentibus ora." 

^Tam impresso ore %it vix inde labra detrahant, cervice reclinata, " as Lamprias 
in Lucian kissed Thais, Philippus her ^in Aristsenetus," amore lymphato tarn 
furiose adhcesit, ut vix labra solvere esset^totumque os mihi conto'ivit /^Aratines 
Lucretia, by a suitor of hers was so saluted, and 'tis their ordinary fashion. 

" dentes illudunt s^pe labelhs, 

Atque premunt arete adiigentes oscula" ■ 

They cannot, I say, contain themselves, they will be still not only joining 
hands, kissing, but embracing, treading on their toes, &c., diving into their 
bosoms, and that libeider, etcum delectatione, as ^Philostratusconfesseth to his 
mistress; and Lamprias in Lucian, Mamillas premens, per siiium clam 
dextrd, &c., feeling their paps, and that scarce honestly sometimes; as the old 
man in the ^Comedy well observed of his son, Non ego te videbam manuiii 
huic puellce in sinum inserere .? Did not I see thee put thy hand into her 
bosom? go to, with many such love tricks. ^Juno in Lucian deorum, tom. 3. 

P Lib. 1. ILexoviensis episcopus. ^Therdorusprodromus Amaranto dial. Gaulimo interpret. 

^Petron. Catal. t Sed unum ego usque et unum Petam h, ;uis labellis, postque unum et unum et ununi, 

dari rogabo. Loecheus Anacreon. " Jo. Secundus, bas. 7. ^Translated or imitated by M. B. Johnson, 
our arch poet, in his 119ep. ^Lucret. 1. 4. ^ Lucian. dial. Tom. 4. Merit, sed et aperiente^, &c. 

* Epist. 16. b Deducto ore longo me basio demulcet. °In dcliciis mammas tuas tango, &c. d Tereut. 

* Tom. 4. merit. diaL 



554 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

dial 3. complains to Jupiter of Ixion, "^lie looked so attentively on her, and 
sometimes would sigh and weep in her company, and when I drank by chance, 
and gave Ganymede the cup, he would desire to drink still in the very cup that 
I drank of, and in the same place where I drank, and would kiss the cup, and 
then look steadily on me, and sometimes sigh, and then again smile." If it 
be so they cannot come near to dally, have not that opportunity, familiarity, or 
acquaintance to confer and talk together; yet if they be in presence, their eye 
will betray them : Ubi amor ibi oculus, as the common saying is, " where I 
look I like, and where I like I love;" but they will lose themselves in her looks 

" Alter in alterius jactantes lumina vultus, 
Qua;rebant taciti noster ubiesset amoi"." 

" They cannot look off whom they love," they will impregnare earn ipsis ooulis, 
deii(jwer her with their eyes, be still gazing, staring, stealing faces, smiling, 
glancing at her, as ^Apollo on Leucothoe, the moon on her ^Endymion, when 
she stood still in Caria, and at Latmos caused her chariot to be stayed. They 
must all stand and admire, or if she go by, look after her as long as they can 
see her, she is animm auriga, as Anacreon calls her, they cannot go by her 
door or window, but, as an adamant, she draws their eyes to it ; though she be 
not there present, they must needs glance that way, and look back to it. 
Aristsenetus of iExithemus, Lucian, in his Imagin. of himsell^ and Tatius of 
Clitophon, say as much, Ille oculos de Leucippe ^nunquam dejiciebat, and 
many lovers confess when they came in their mistress' presence, they could not 
hold off their eyes, but looked wistfully and steadily on her, inconnivo aspectu, 
with much eagerness and greediness, as if they would look through, or should 
"never have enough sight of her. Fixis ardens ohtutibus hcEvet; so she will do 
by him, drink to him with her eyes, nay, drink him up, devour him, swallow 
him, as Martial's Mamurra is remembered to have done : Inspexit molles pueros, 
ocidisque comedit, &c. There is a pleasant story to this purpose in Navigat. Ver- 
tom. lib. 3. cap. 5. The sultan of Sana's wife in Arabia, because Yertomannus 
was fair and white, could not look off him, from sunrising to sunsetting; she 
could not desist; she made him one day come into her chamber, et geminoi 
horce spatio intuebatur, nan a me unquam aciem oculorum avertebat, me obser- 
vans veluti Cupidinem quendam, for two hours' space she still gazed on him. 
A young man in ^Lucian fell in love with Yenus' picture; he came every morn- 
ing to her temple, and there continued all day long ™from sunrising to sunset, 
unwilling to go home at night, sitting over against the goddess's picture, he did 
continually look upon her, and mutter to himself I know not what. If so be they 
cannot see them whom they love, they will still be walking and waiting about 
their mistresses' doors, taking all opportunity to see them, as in "Longus 
Sophista, Daphnis and Chloe, two lovers, were still hovering at one another's 
gates, lie sought all occasions to be in her company, to hunt in summer, and 
catch birds in the frost about her father's house in the winter, that she might 
see him, and he her. "°A king's palace was not so diligently attended," 
saith Aretine's Lucretia, "as my house was when I lay in Rome ; the porch 
and street was ever full of some, walking or riding, on set purpose to see me ; 
their eye was stiU upon my window; as they passed by, they could not choose 
but look back to my house when they were past, and sometimes hem or cough, 
or take some impertinent occasion to speak aloud, that I might look out and 
observe them." 'Tis so in other places, 'tis common to every lover, 'tis all his 

fAttentb adeo in nrie aspexit, et interdum in^emiscebat, et laclirymabatur. Et si quando bibens, &c. 
^ Quii^ue omnia cernsre debes Leucothoen sppctas, et vivgine figis in una (luos mtindo debes oculos, Ovid. 
Met. 4. h Lucian. torn. 3. quoties ad Cariara venis cuvrura sistis, et desuper aspectas. i Ex quo 

te primum vidi Pythia alio oculos veitere non fuit. k Lib. 4. 1 Dial Amorum. ™ Ad occasum 

solis segrfe domurn rediens, atque totum diem ex adverso dese sedens recta, in ipsain perpetuo oculorum ictus 
direxit, &c. ^ Lib. 3. ^ Kegum palatium non tarn diligent! custodia septum fuit, ac sedes meas 

Btipabant, &c 



Mem 3.] Symptoms of Love. 555 

felicity to be with her, to talk with her ; he is never well but in her company, 
and will walk " ^ seven or eight times a-day through the street where she 
dwells, and make sleeveless errands to see her;" plotting still where, when 
and how to visit her, 

"ILevesqae sub nocte susurri, 
Composita repetuntar bora." 

And when he is gone, he thinks every minute an hour, every hour as long as a 
day, ten days a whole year, till he see her again. ^ Tempora si numeres bene 
qucG numeramus amantes. And if thou be in love, thou wilt say so too, Et 
longum, formosa, vale, farewell sweetheart, vale, ckarissima Argenis, &c. Fare- 
well my dear Argenis, once more farewell, farewell. And though he is to meet 
her by compact, and that very shortly, perchance to-morrow, yet loth to 
depart, he'll take his leave again and again, and then come back again, look 
after, and shake his hand, wave his hat afar off. Now gone, he thinks it long 
till he see her again, and she him, the clocks are surely set back, the hour's 
past, 

" s Hospita Demoplioon tua te Rodopheia Phillis, 
Ultra promissum tempus abesse queror." 

She looks out at window still to see whether he come, * and by report Phillis 
went nine times to the sea-side that day, to see if her Demophoon were approach- 
ing, and ^ Troilus to the city gates to look for his Cresseide, She is ill at ease, 
and sick till she see him again, peevish in the meantime ; discontent, heavy, 
sad, and why comes he not 1 where is he 1 why breaks he promise 1 why tar- 
ries he so long 1 sure he is not well ; sure he hath some mischance ; sure he 
forgets himself and me ; with infinite such. And then confident again, up she 
gets, out she looks, listens and inquires, hearkens, kens ; every man afar off is 
sure he, every stirring in the street, now he is there, that's he, )nale aicrorce, 
male soli dicit juratque, &c., the longest day that ever was, so she raves, rest- 
less and impatient ; for Amor non patitur Tiioras, love brooks no delays : the 
time's quickly gone that's spent in her company, the miles short, the way 
pleasant; all weather is good whilst he goes to her house, heat or cold j though 
his teeth chatter in his head, he moves not ; wet or dry, 'tis all one; wet to the 
skin, he feels it not, cares not at least for it, but will easily endure it and much 
more, because it is done with alacrity, and for his mistress's sweet sake ; let the 
burden be never so heavy, love makes it light. ^ Jacob served seven years 
for Rachel, and it was quickly gone because he loved her. None so merry ; 
if he may happily enjoy her company, he is in heaven for a time; and if he 
may not, dejected in an instant, solitary, silent, he departs weeping, lamenting, 
sighing, complaining. 

But the symptoms of the mind in lovers are almost infinite, and so diverse, 
that no art can comprehend them ; though they be merry sometimes, and rapt 
beyond themselves for joy : yet most part love is a plague, a torture, a hell, 
a bitter sweet passion at last ; ^ Amor melle etfelle est fcecundissimus, gustum 
dat dulcem et amarum. 'Tis suavis amaricies, dolentia delectabilis, hilare 
tormentum ; 

" ^ Et me melle beant snaviora, 
Et me telle necant amariora." 

Like a summer fly or sphine's wings, or a rainbow of all colours, 

" Quse ad soils radios conversse aureee erant, 
Adversus nubes ceralese, quale jubar iridis," 

fair, foul, and full of variation, though most part irksome and bad. For in a 
word, the Spanish Inquisition is not comparable to it; "a torment" and "'^exe- 

P Udo et eodem die sexties vel septies ambulant per eandem plateam, ut vel unico amicas suae fruantur 
aspectu, lib. 3. Tlieat MundL <1 Hor. ^ Ovid. • ^ Qvid. t Hyginus, fab. 69. Eo die 

dicitur nonies ad littus currisse. " Chaucer. ^ Gen. xxix. 20. y Plautus, Cistel. ^ Stobseus fe Grffico. 

" Sweeter tban boney it pleases me, more bitter than ^all it teases me." ^Plautus: Credo ego ad bominia 
camificinam amorem inventum esse. 



" ® rnsomnia, perumna, error, terror, et fuga, 
Excogitaiitia, excors ini'iiodestia, 
Petulaiitia, ciipiditas, et malevolentia ; 
lahteret etiaiii aviditas, desLdia, injuria, 
Inopia, contujielia et dispeudiuin," &c. 



556 Love- Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

cution" as it is, as lie calls it in. the poet, an unquencliable fire, and what not ? 
•^From it, saith Austin, arise "biting cares, perturbations, passions, sorrows, 
fears, suspicions, discontents, contentions, discords, wars, treacheries, enmities, 
flattery, cozening, riot, impudence, cruelty, knavery," &c. 

" ^ dolor, querelas, J Aut si triste magls potest quid esse, 

Lamentatio, lachrymse perennes, Hos tu das comites Neaera vitae." 

Languor, anxietas, amaritudo; j 

These be the companions of lovers, and the ordinary symptoms, as the poet 
repeats them. 

" d In amore haec insunt vitia, 

Suspiciones, inimicitije, audacias, 

Belkim, pax rursum," <fcc 

In love tliese vices are ; suspicions. 
Peace, war, and impudence, detractions, 
Dreams, cares, and errors, terrors and affrights, 
Immodest pranks, devices, sleights and tliglits. 
Heart-burnings, wants, neglects, dosire of wrong, 
Loss continual, expense, and hurt a;iiong." 

Everypoet is full of such catalogues of love symptoms; but fear and sorrow 
may justly challenge the chief place. Though Hercules de Saxonia, cap. 3. 
Tract, de melancK will exclude fear from love-melancholy, yet I am otherwise 
persuaded. ^Res est soUiciti plena timoris amor. 'Tis fall of fear, anxiety, 
doubt, care, peevishness, suspicion ; it turns a man into a woman, which made 
Hesiod belike put Fear and Paleness Yenus' daughters, 

" Marti clypeos atque arma secanti 

Alma Venus peperit Pallorem, unaque Timoi'em : " 

because fear and love are still linked together. Moreover they are apt to mis- 
take, amplify, too credulous sometimes, too full of hope and confidence, and 
then again very jealous, unapt to believe or entertain any good news. The 
comical poet hath prettily painted out this passage amongst the rest in a ^ dia- 
logue betwixt Mitio and ^schines, a gentle father and a lovesick son. " Be 
of good cheer, my son, thou shalt have her to wife. ^. Ah father, do yon 
mock me now 1 M. I mock thee, why 1 JE. That which I so earnestly desire, 
I more suspect and fear. M. Get you home, and send for her to be your wile. 
^. What now a wife, now father," &c. These doubts, anxieties, suspicions, 
are the least part of their torments; they break many times from passions to 
actions, speak fair, and flatter, now most obsequious and willing, by and by 
they are averse, wrangle, fight, swear, quarrel, laugh, weep, and he that doth 
not so by fits, ^Lucian holds, is not thoroughly touched with this loadstone of 
love. So their actions and passions are intermixed, but of all other passions, 
sorrow hath the greatest share; 4ove to many is bitterness itself; rem amaram 
Plato calls it, a bitter potion, an agony, a plague. 

" Eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi ; I " take away this plague, this mischief from me, 

Qu£e mihi suhrepens imos ut tori)or lu artus, Which as a numbne-:s over all my bo^ly, 

Expulit ex omni pectore lEetitias." | Expels my joys, and makes my soul so heavy." 

Phsedria had a true touch of this, when he cried out, 

" k Thais, utinam esset mihi i " O Thais, would thou hadst of these my pains a part. 

Pars £equa amoris tecum, ac pariter fieret ut Or as it doth me now, so it Avould make thee smart." 

Aut hoc tibi doleret itidem, ut milii dolet." | 

So had that young man, when he roared again for discontent, 

" 1 Jactor, crucior, agitor, stimulor, " I am vext and toss'd, and rack'd on love's wheel; 

Versor in amoris rota miser Where not, I am ; but where am, do not feel." 

Exanimor, feroi-, distratior, deripior, [animus." 
Ubi sum, ibi non sum ; ubi non sum, ibi e.4 

The moon in ™Lucian made her moan to Yenus, that she was almost dead for 

b De civitat. lib. 22. cap. 20. Ex eo oriuntur mordaces cun-e, perturbationes, moerores, formidines, insana 
gaudia, discordise, lites bella, insidias, iracundice, inhnicitite, tdUacise, adulatio, fraus, furtum, nequitia, nn- 
pudentia. c jyianiUus, 1. 1. d Ter. Eunuch. epi^^tus, Mercat. fOvul. 8 Adelphi, Act. 4. 

seen. 5. M. Bono animo es, duces uxorem hanc, .^Eschines. M. Hem, pater, num tu ludis me nunc' M.Ego:ie 
te, quamobrem? .E. Quod tam misere cupio, &c. hTom 4. dial, amorum. i Aristotle 2. Rhet. puts 
■jove therefore in the irascible part. Ovid. k Ter. Eunuch. Act. 1. so. 2. IPlautus. »» lorn. 3. 



Mem. 3.] SymptomB of Love. 557 

love, pereo equiclem amove, and after a long tale, she broke off abruptly and 
wept, " ^ O Yenus, thou knowest my poor heart." Charmides, in '^Lucian, 
was so impatient, that he sobbed and sighed, and tore his hair, and said he would 
hang himself. '■' I am undone, O sister Tryphena, I cannot endure these love 
pangs; what shall I do?" Vos dii Averrunci solvite me his cutis, O ye 
gods, free me from these cares and miseries, out of the anguish of his soul, 
^Theocles prays. Shall I say, most part of a lover's life is full of agony, 
anxiety, fear and grief, complaints, sighs, suspicions, and cares (heigh-ho my 
heart is wo), full of silence and irksome solitariness 1 

•' Frequenting shady bowers in discontent, 
To the air his fruitless clamours he will vent," 

except at such times that he hath lucida intervalla, pleasant gales, or sudden 
alterations, as if his mistress smile upon him, give him a good look, a kiss, or 
that some comfortable message be brought him, his service is accepted, &c. 

He is then too confident and rapt beyond himself, as if he had heard the 
nightingale in the spring before the cuckoo, or as ^ Calisto was at Melebseas' 
presence, Quis unquam, hac mortali vita tarn gloriosu^n corpus vidit ? humani- 
tatem transcendere videor, &c. who ever saw so glorious a sight, what man ever 
enjoyed such delight? More content cannot be given of the gods, wished, had 
or hoped of any mortal man. There is no happiness in the world comparable 
to his, no content, no joy to this, no life to love, he is in paradise. 

" 'Quis me uno vivit fcelicior ? aut magis hac est I " Who lives so happy as myself? what hliss 

Optandum vita dicere quis poterit ? | In this our life may he compai-ed to this ? " 

He will not change fortune in tliat case with a prince, 

" s Donee gratus eram tihi, 
Persarum vigui rege heatior." 

The Persian kings are not so jovial as he is, festus dies Jiominis, O happy 
day ; so Chssrea exclaims when he came from Pamphila his sweetheart well 
pleased, 

"Nunc est profectb interfici cum pevpeti me possem, 
Ne hoc gaudium contaminet vita aliqua tegritudine." 

" He could find in his heart to be killed instantly, lest if he live longer, some 
sorrow or sickness should contaminate his joys." A little after, he was so 
merrily set upon the same occasion, that he could not contain himself. 

" '^ O populares, ecquis me vivit liodife fortunatior ? 

Nemo hercule quisquam ; nam in me dii planb potestatem 
Suam omnem ostendere ;" 

" Is't possible (O my countrymen) for any living to be so happy as myself? 
No sure it cannot be, for the gods have shown all their power, all then* good- 
ness in me." Yet by and by when this young gallant was crossed in his 

wench, he laments, and cries, and roars down-right : Occidi 1 am 

undone, 

" Neque vlrgo est usquam, neque ego, qui b conspectu 111am amisi meo, 
Ubi quEeram, ubi investigem, quem percuncter, quam insistam viam ? " 

" The virgin's gone, and I am gone, she's gone, she's gone, and what shall I do ? 
where shall I seek her, where shall I find her, whom shall I ask ? what way, 

what course shall I take? what will become of me" ^ vitales auras invitus 

agebat, he was weary of his life, sick, mad, and desperate, ^utinam mihi esset 
aliquid hie, quo nunc me prcecipitem darem. 'Tis not Chserea s case this alone, 
but his, and his, and every lover's in the like state. If he hear ill news, have 
bad success in his suit, she frown upon him, or that his mistress in his presence 

^ Scis quod posthac dicturus fuerim. o Tom. 4. diaL merit. Tryphena, amor me perdit, neque malum 

hoe amplius sustinere possum. P Aristsenetus, lib. 2. epist. 8. *1 CcElestinse, act. 1. Sancti niajore 

Iffititia non fruuntur. Si mihi Deus omnium votorum mortalium simimam concedat, non magis, &c. 

^ Catullus de Lesbia. sjjor. ode 9. lib. 3. t Act 3. seen. 5. Eunuch. Ter. ^^Act. 5. seen. 9. ^ Maniuan. 
y Ter. Adelph. 3. 4. 



558 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

respect another more (as ^Hcedus observes) "prefer another suitor, speak more 
familiarly to him, or use more kindly than himself, if by nod, smile, message, 
she discloseth herself to another, he is instantly tormented, none so dejected 
as he is," utterly undone, a castaway, ^In quern fortuna omnia odiorum suorum 
cradelissima tela exonerat, a dead man, the scorn of fortune, a monster of for- 
tune, worse than nought, the loss of a kingdom had been less. ^Aretine's 
Lucretia made very good proof of this, as she relates it herself "For when I 
made some of my suitors believe I would betake myself to a nunnery, they took 
on, as if they had lost father and mother, because they were for ever after to 
want my company." Omnes labores leves fuere, all other labour was light : '^but 

this might not be endm-ed. Tui carenclum quod erat " for I cannot be 

without thy company," mournful Amyntas, painful Amyntas, careful Amyntas; 
better a metropolitan city were sacked, a royal army overcome, an invincible 
armada sunk, and twenty thousand kings should perish, than her little finger 
ache, so zealous are they, and so tender of her good. They would all turn 
friars for my sake, as she follows it, in hope by that means to meet, or see me 
again, as my confessors, at stool-ball, or at barley-break : And so aftc-rwards 
when an importunate suitor came, "<^If I had bid my maid say that I was not 
at leisure, not within, busy, could not speak with him, he was instantly asto- 
nished, and stood like a pillar of marble; another went swearing, chafing, 
cursing, foaming. ^Illa sihi vox ipsa Jovis violentior ird, cum tonat, &c. the 
voice of a mandrake had been sweeter music: "but he to whom I gave 
entertainment, was in the Elysian fields, ravished for joy, quite beyond himself." 
'Tis the general humour of all lovers, she is their stern, pole-star, and guide. 
^ deliciumque animi, deliquiumque sui. As a tulipant to the sun (which our 
herbalists call Narcissus) when it shines, is Admirandus flos ad radios solis se 
pandens, a glorious flower exposing itself; ^but wlien the sun sets, or a tem- 
pest comes, it hides itself, pines away, and hath no pleasure left (which 
Carolus Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, in a cause not unlike, sometimes used for 
an impress), do all inamorates to theii' mistress; she is their sun, their Primum 
mobile, or anima informans; this ^ one hath elegantly expressed by a wind- 
mill, still moved by the wind, which otherwise hath no motion of itself. Sic 
tua ni spiret gratia, truiicus ero. " He is wholly animated from her breath," 
his soul lives in her body,^ sola claves habet interitus et salutis, she keeps the 
keys of his life : his fortune ebbs and flows with her favour, a gi-acious or bad 
aspect turns him up or down. Mens mea lucescit Lucia luce tud. Howsoever his 
present state be pleasing or displeasing, 'tis continuate so long as he ^ loves, he 
can do nothing, think of nothing but her; desire hath no rest, she is his cynosure, 
hesperus and vesper, his morning and evening star, his goddess, his mistress, 
his life, his soul, his everything; dreaming, waking, she is always in his 
mouth ; his heart, his eyes, ears, and all his thoughts are full of her. 
His Laura, his Victorina, his Columbina, Flavia, Flaminia, Cselia, Delia, or 
Isabella|(call her how you will), she is the sole object of his senses, the sub- 
stance of his soul, nidulus animcB suce, he magnifies her above measure, totus in 
ilia, full of her, can breathe nothing lout her. " I adore Melebsea," saith love- 
sick ^Calisto, "I believe ill Melebsea, I honour, admire and love my Melebsea;" 
His soul was soused, imparadised, imprisone 1 in his lady. When "^ Thais 
took her leave of Phsedria, mi Phcedria, et nimqidd aliud vis ? Swiict- 

■Lib. 1. de contemn, amoribus. Si quem aliam respexerifc arnica suavius, et familiarins, si quem alloquuta 
fiierit, si nutu, nuncio, &c. statimcruciatur. ^ Calisto in Celestina. b Pornodidasc. dial. ItaL 

Patre et matre se singuli orbos censebant, qnod meo contubernio carendura esset. *' Ter. tui caren- 

dum quod erat. d Si responsara esset dominam occupatam esse aliisque vacaret, ille statini % ix 

hoc audito velut in marmor obriguit, alii se damnare, &c. at cui f avebam, in campis Elysiis esse videbatur, &c_ 
« Mantuan. f Loecbeus. K Sole se occultante, aiit tempestate veniente, statim clauditur ac languescit' 

h Emblem amat. 13. i Calisto de Melebasa. k Anima non est ubi anlmat, sed ubi amat 1 Cciestine' 
act 1. ciedo in Melebseam, &c ^ Ter. Eunucli. act. 1. sc. 2. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love. 559 

heart (she said) will vou command me any further service 1 he readily replied, 
and gave in this charge, 



— "egone quid velim? 

Dies noctesqiie ames me, me desideres, 

Me somaies, me exiiectes, me coi^iies, 

Me speres, me te oblectes, mecum tota sis, 

Meus tac postremb animus, quandb ego sum tuus," 



'■ Dost ask (my dear^ what service I will have ? 
To love me day and night is all I crave, 
To dream on me, to expect, to tliink on me, 
Depend and hope, still covet me to see, 
Deh^ht thyself in me, be wholly mine. 
For know, my love, that 1 am wholly thine." 



But all this needed not, you will say; if she affect once, she will be his, settle 
her love on him, on him alone. 



" "^ ilium absens absentem 

Auditque videtque " 

she can, she must think and dream of nought else but hioi, continually of him, 
as did Orpheus on his Eurydice, 

" Te dulcis conjux, te solo in littore mecum, | " On thee sweet wife was all my song, 
Te veniente die, te discedente caneham." j Morn, evening, and all along," 

And Dido upon her ^neas ; 

" et quJE me insomnia terrent, I " And ever and anon she thinks upon the man 

Multa viri virtus, et plurima currit imago." j That was so tine, so fair, so hhtlie, so debonair." 

Clitophon, in the first book of Achilles Tatius, complaineth how that his 
mistress Leucippe tormented him much more in the night than in the day. 
"°For all day long he had some object or other to distract his senses, but in 
the night all ran upon her. All night long he lay ^ awake, and could think of 
nothing else but her, he could not get her out of his mind ; towards morning, 
sleep took a little pity on him, he slumbered awhile, but all his dreams were 
of her." 

"I te nocte sub atra I " In the dark night I speak, embrace, and find 

Alloquor, amplector, falsaque in imagine somni, That fading joys deceive my careful mind." 

Gaudia solicitam palpant evanida meutem." | 

The same complaint Eur ialus makes to his Lucretia, "''day and night I think 
of thee, I wish for thee, I talk of thee, call on thee, look for thee, hope for 
thee, delight myself in thee, day and night I love thee." 

" s Nee mihi vespere 

Surgente decedunt amores, 
Nee rapidum fugiente solem." 

Morning, evening, all is alike with me, 1 have restless thoughts, " * Te vigilans 
oculis, animo te nocte requiro.'' Still I think on thee. Anima non est uhi 
animat, sed ubi amat. I live and breathe in thee, I wish for thee. 

" ^ O niveam qu!B te poterit mihi redd ere lucem, 
O mihi felicem terque quaterque diem." 

" O happy day that shall restore thee to my sight." In the meantime he 
raves on her; her sweet face, eyes, actions, gestures, hands, feet, speech, 
length, breadth, height, depth, and the rest of her dimensions, are so surveyed, 
measured, and taken, by that Astrolabe of phantasy, and that so violently 
sometimes, with such earnestness and eagerness, such continuance, so strong 
an imagination, that at length he thinks he sees her indeed ; he talks with her, 
he embraceth her, Ixion-like, pro Junone nuhem, a cloud for Juno, as he said. 
Nihil prceter Leucip'pen cerno, Leucippe mihi perpetud in oculis, et animo 
versatur, I see and meditate of nought but Leucippe. Be she present or absent, 
all is one; 

' ^ Et quamvis aberat placidse prEesentia form^, 
Quern dederat pragsens forma, manebat amor." 

That impression of her beauty is still fixed in his mind " ^hcerent infixl 

pectore vultus : " as he that is bitten with a mad dog thinks all he sees dogs — 

^ Virg. 4. Mn. ^ Interdiu oculi, et aures occupatas distrahunt animtim, at noctu solus jactor, ad auroram 
somnus paulum misertus, nee tamen ex animo puella abiit, sed o^nnia mUii de Leucippe somnia erant. 
P Tota hac nocte tomnum hisce oculis non vidi. Ter. 1 Bi; ha ;an. sylv. ^ J£n. Sylv. Te dies 

noctesque amo, te cogito, te desidero, te voco, te expecto, te spi.ro, tecum oblecto me, totus in te sum, 
^ Hor. hb. 2. ode 9. t Petronius. ^ Tibullus, 1 . 3. Eleg. 3. ^ Ovid. Fast. 2. ver. 775. " Although 

the presence of her fair form is wanting, the love which it kindled remains." y Virg. iEn. 4. 



560 



L ove- Melancltoly. 



[Part. 3. Sec. 2. 



dogs in his meat, dogs in his dish, dogs in his drink : his mistress is in his 
eyes, ears, heart, in all his senses. Yalleriola had a merchant, his patient, in 
the same predicament ; and ^ Ulricas Molitor, out of Austin, hath a story of 
one, that through vehemency of his love passion, still thought he saw his mis- 
tress present with him, she talked with him, ^t commisceri cum ed vigila7is 
videhatur, still embracing him. 

Now if this passion of love can produce such effects, if it be pleasantlv in- 
tended, what bitter torments shall it breed, when it is with fear and continual 
sorrow, suspicion, care, agony, as commonly it is, still accompanied, what an 
intolerable ^pain must it be? 



Xon tam grandes 



Garg ira culmos, quot clemerso 
Pectore curas longanexas 
Usque catena, vel quss penitus 
Crudelis amor vulnera miscet." 



"Mount Gai-ofarus hath not so many stems 
As lover's breast hath grievous wounds. 
And linked cares, which love compounds.' 



When the king of Babylon would have punished a courtier of his, for loving of 
a young lady of the royal blood, and far above his fortunes, ^ Apollonius in 
presence by all means persuaded to let him alone ; " For to love and not enjoy 
was a most unspeakable torment," no tyrant could invent the like punishment ; 
as a gnat at a candle, in a short space he would consume himself. For love is 
a perpetual ^Jiux, angor animi, a warfare, militat omni amans, a grievous 
wound is love still, and a lover's heart is Cupid's quiver, a consuming ^iire, 
^ accede ad lianc ignem, &c. an inextinguishable fire. 

" f alitur et crescit malum, 

Et ardct intus, qualis ^tuseo vapor 
Exundat antro " 

As -^tna rageth, so doth love, and more than ^Etna or any material fire. 



"SJSfam amor saape Ljioarco 

Vulcano ardentiorem flammam incendert 



solet.' 



Vulcan's flames are but smoke to this. For fire, saith ^Xenophon, burns 
them alone that stand near it, or touch it ; but this fire of love burneth and 
scorcheth afar off, and is more hot and vehement than any material fire : ^ Ignis 
in igne furit, 'tis a fire in a fire, the quintessence of fire. For when Nero 
burnt Rome, as Calisto urgeth, he fired houses, consumed men's bodies and 
goods; but this fire devours the soul itself "and ^one soul is worth a hundred 
thousand bodies." No water can quench this wild fire. 



" 1 In pectus coecos ahsorbuit ignes, 

Ignes qui nee aqua perimi potuere, nee imbi-e 
i)iminui, neque graminihus, magicisque susurrls." 



A fire he took into his breast, 
Which water could not quench, 

Xor herb, nor art, nor magic spells 
Could queU, nor any drench." 



Except it be tears and sighs, for so they may chance find a little ease. 



' ™ Sic candentia colla, sic patens fi'ons. 
Sic me blanda tui Necera ocelli. 
Sic pares minio gen« perui-unt, 
Ut ni me lachrymjE rigent perennes, 
Totus in teuues earn fa villas." 



" So thy white neck, Nefera, me poor soul 
Dotli scorch, thy cheeks, thy wanton eyes that roll 
Were it not for my dropping tears that hinder, 
I should be quite burnt up forthwith to cinder." 



This fire strikes like lightning, which made those old Grecians paint Cupid, in 
many of their ^temples, with Jupiter's thunderbolts in his hands ; for it wounds 
and cannot be perceived how, whence it came, where it pierced. " ° Urimur, 
et ccecum pectora vuhius habent,^' and can hardly be discerned at first, 



" P Est mollis flamma medullas, 

Et taciturn insano vivit sub p;;ctore vulnus.' 



■ A gentle wound, an easy fire it was, 
And fly at first, and secretly did pas; 



* De Pythonissa. ^ Juno, nee ir£e defim tantum, nee tela, nee hostis, quantum tutepotis animis 

illapsus. Sihus Ital. 15. beL Punic, de amore. b Philostratus vita ejus. Maximum to rmentum quod 

excogitare, vel docere te possum, est ipse amor. « Ausoiius, c. 35, d Et cseco carpitur igne ; et milii 

sese offeit ultra mens ignis Amyntas. ® Ter. Eunuc. f Sen. Hippol. S Theocritus, edyl. 2. Levibus 
cor est violabile teUs. h Ignis tangentes solum urit, at forma procul astantes inflfc.mmat, i Nonius. 

k Miijor ilia flamma quae consumit unam animam, quam quae centum millia corporum. 1 Mant. egl. 2. 

"^Marullus, Epig. lib. 1. i^ Imagines deorum. o Ovid. P.(Eneid.4. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love. 5G1 

But by-and-by it began to rage and burn amain j 



"<1 Pectus insanum vapor, 

Amorquc torret, intus speviis vorat 
Penitus medullas, atque per venas meat 
Visceribus ignis mersus, et venis lateiis, 
Ut agilis altas fiamma percurrit trabes." 



' This fiery vapour rageth in the veins, 
And scorcheth entrails, as wlien fire burns 
A house, it nimbly runs along the beams, 
And at the last the whole it overturns." 



Abraham Hoffemannus, lib. 1. amor conjugal, cap. 2. p. 22, relates out of 
Plato, how that Empedocles, the philosopher, was present at the cutting up of 
one that died for love, "^liis heart was combust, his liver smoky, his lungs 
dried up, insomuch that he verily believed his soul was either sodden or roasted 
through the vehemency of love's fire." Which belike made a modern writer 
of amorous emblems express love's fury Idj a pot hanging over the fire, and 
Cupid blowing the coals. As the heat consumes the water, "^Sic sua con- 
suniit viscera ccecus amor,''' so doth love dry up his radical moisture. Another 
compares love to a melting torch, which stood too near the fire. 

"tSic quo quis propior siise puellge est, I " The nearer he unto his mistress is. 

Hoc stultus propior suae ruinge est." | The n.eai'er lie unto his ruin is." 

So that to say truth, as ^^ Castillo describes it, "The beginning, middle, end 
of love is n.jught else but sorrow, vexation, agony, torment, irksomeness, 
wearisomeness ; so that to be squalid, ugly, miserable, solitary, discontent, 
dejected, to wish for death, to complain, rave, and to be peevish, are the certain 
signs and ordinary actions of a love-sick person." This continual pain and 
torture makes them forget themselves, if they be far gone with it, in doubt, 
despair of obtaining, or eagerly bent, to neglect all ordinary business. 

"^pendent opera interrupta, minseque 

Murorum ingentes, sequataque machina coelo." 

Love-sick Dido left her work undone, so did ^ Phaedra, 

" Palladis tel« vacant 



Et inter ipsas pensa labuntur manus."' 

Faustus, in ^Mantuan, took no pleasure in any thing he did, 

" Xulla quies mihi dirlcis erat, nullus labor tegro 
Pectore, sensus iners, et mens torpore sepulta, 
Carminis occiderat studium." 

And 'tis the humour of them all, to be careless of their persons and their 
estates, as the shepherd in ^Theocritus, Et hcec harba inculta est, squalidique 
capilli, their beards flag, and they have no more care of pranking themselves 
or of any business, they care not, as they say, which end goes forward. 

"b Oblitusque gi'eges, et rura domestica totus I " Forgetting flocks of sheep and country farms, 

^'Uritui', et noctes in luctum expendit amaras." | The silly shepherd always mourns and burns." 

Love-sick ^Chserea, when he came from Pamphila's house, and had not so 
good welcome as he did expect, was all amort, Parmeno meets him. Quid tristis 
es? Why art thou so sad man? unde es? whence comest, how doest? but he 
sadly replies. Ego hercle nescio neque unde earn, neque quorsum cam, ita 
prorsus oblitus sutti mei, I have so forgotten myself, I neither know where I 
am, nor whence I come, nor whither I will, what I do. P. "^How so V Ch. 

" I am in love." Prudens sciens. " ^vivus vidensque pereo, nee quid again 

scio." "^He that erst had his thoughts free (as Philostratus Lemnius, in an 

^Seneca. '^Cor totum combustum, jecur suffumigatum,. pulmo arefactus, v.t eredam miseram illam 
animam bis elixam aiit combustam, ob maximum ardorem quern patiuntur ob ignem amoris. *Embl. 
Amat. 4. et 5. tGrotius. ^Lib. 4. nam istius amoris neque principia, neque media aliud habent 

quid, quam molestias, dolores, craciatus, defatigationes, adeo ut miserum esse ma^roi-e, gemitu, solitudine 
torqueri, mortem optare, semperque debacchari, sint certa amantium signa et cert« actiones. ^ Virg. 

^n. 4. " The works are interrupted, promises of great walls, and scatfoldings rising towards the skies, are 
all suspended." ySeneca, Hip. act. ""The shuttle stops, and the M'eb hangs rmfinished from her hands," 
^Eclog. 1. "Xo rest, no business pleased my 1 ve-sick breast, my faculties became dormant, my mind torpid, 
and I lost my taste for poetry and song." ^'Edyl. 14. bMant. Eclog. 2. *^0v^ Met. 13. de 

Polyphemo: uritur obUtus pecormn, antrorumque suorum; jamque tibi formse, &e. dTer. Eunuch. 

^Qui quagso? Amo. fTer. Eunuch. ^Qui olim cogirabat quse vellet, et pulcherrimis philosopliite 

prfficeptis operam insumpsit, qui universi circuitiones coelique naturam, &c., banc unam intendit operam, do 
sola cogitat, noctes et dies se compouit ad hauc, et ad acerbam servitutem redactus animus, &c. 

20 



562 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

epistle of his, describes this fiery passion), and spent his time like a hard 
student, in those delightsome philosophical precepts ; he that with the sun and 
moon wandered all over the world, with stars themselves ranged about, and left 
no secret or small mystery in nature unsearched, since he was enamoured can 
do nothing now but think and meditate of love matters, day and night com- 
poseth himself how to please his mistress ; all his study, endeaA^our, is to 
approve himself to his mistress, to win his mistress' favour, to compass his 
desire, to be counted her servant." When Peter Abelard, that great scholar 
of his age, "^^C^t^ soli patuU scihile quicquid eo'cit"" (■'whose faculties were 
equal to any difficulty in learning "), was now in love with Heloise, he had no 
mind to visit or frequent schools and scholars any more, Tcediosum mihi valde 
fuit (as ^he confesseth) ad scholas 2)vocedere, vel in iismorari,all his mind was 
on his new mistress. 

JSiOw to this end and purpose, if there be any hope of obtaining his suit, to 
prosecute his cause, he will spend himself, goods, fortunes for her, and though 
he lose and alienate all his friends, be threatened, be cast off, and disinherited ; 
for as the poet saith, ^J'niori quis legem det? though he be utterly undone by 
it, disgraced, go a begging, yet for her sweet sake, to enjoy her, he will 
willingly beg, hazard ail he hath, goods, lands, shame, scandal, fame, and life 
itself 

" Not! rcccdam neque quiescam, noctu et interdiu, I " I'll never rest or cease my suit 

Prius pvolecto qiiam aut ipsam, aut mortem in\'estigavero." | 'Till she or death do make me mute." 

Parthenis in ^ Aristsenetus was fully resolved to do as much. " I may have 
better matches, I confess but farewell shame, farewell honour, farewell honesty, 
farewell friends and fortunes, &c. O, Harpedona, keep my counsel, I will 
leave all for his sweet sake, I will have him say no more, contra gentes, I am 
resolved, I will have him." "^Gobrias, the captain, when he had espied Pho- 
danthe, the fair captive maid, fell upon his knees before Mystilus, the general, 
with tears, vows, and all the rhetoric he could, by the scars he had formerly 
received, the good service he had done, or whatsoever else was dear unto him 
besought his governor he might have the captive virgin to be his wife, virtutis 
Slice spolium, as a reward of his worth and service ; and, moreover, he would 
forgive him the money which was owing, and all reckonings besides due unto 
him, " I ask no more, no part of booty, no portion, but PJiodanthe to be my 
wife." And when as he could not compass her by fair means, he fell to 
treacller3^ force and villanj^, and set his life at stake at last to accomplish his 
desire. 'Tis a common humour this, a general passion of all lovers to be so 
affected, and which Emilia told Aratine, a courtier in Castilio's discourse, 
""surely Aratine, if thou werst not so indeed, thou didst not love ; inge- 
nuously confess, for if thou hadst been throughly enamoured, thou wouldst 
have desired nothing more than to please thy mistress. For that is the • 
law of love, to will and nill the same." ^^^ Tantum velle et nolle, velit nolit 
quod arnica.'''' 

Undoubtedly this may be pronounced of them all, they are very slaves, 
drudges for the time, madmen, fools, dizzards, ^atrabilarii, beside themselves, 
and as blind as beetles. Their *i dotage is most eminent, AQuare simid et sapere 
ip>si Jovi non datur, as Seneca holds, Jupiter himself cannot love and be wise 
both together ; the very best of them, if once they be overtaken with this 
passion, the most staid, discreet, grave, generous and wise, otherwise able to 

h Pars epitaphii ejus. iEpist. prima. kBoethius, 1. 3. Met. ult. lEpist. lib 6. Val eat pud or, 

valcat honestiis, valeat honor. ^Theodor. Prodromtis, lib. .3. Amor Mj'stili genibus obvolutus, uber- 

timque lacluimans, &c. Kihil ex toto prseda prseter Rhodanthen viiginem accipam. ^^Lib. 'i. Certe 

vix credam, et bona fi.Je fateare Aratine, te non amasse adeo vehementer ; si enim vere amasses, nihil prius 
aut potius optasses, quam amatas mulieri placere. Ea enim amoris lex est idem velle et nolle. "Stroza, 
sil, Epig. I'Quijipe li£ec omnia ex atra bile et amove provenimit. Jason Piatensis. ^Imnieusua 

amor ipse stultitia est. Cardan, lib. 1. de sapientia. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love. 5G3 

govern themselves, in tliis commit many absurdities, many indecorums, unbe- 
fitting tlieir gravity and persons. 

" ^ Quisquis aniat servit, seniiitur captivris amantem, 



' Quisquis aniat servit, sequitur captivris amantem, 
Fert domita cervice ju^n.m'' 



"Samson, David, Solomon, Hercules, Socrates," &c. are justly taxed of indis- 
cretion in tbis point ; the middle sort are between hawk and buzzard ; and 
although they do perceive and acknowledge their own dotage, weakness, fury, 
yet they cannot withstand it ; as well may witness those expostulations and 
confessions of Dido in Virgil. 



" s incipit effari m°d"aque in voce resistit." — Phcedra in 
"t Qaod ratio poscit, vincit ac regnat furor, 
Potensque tota mente dominatur daus." — M>jn'ha in ^ Ovid, 



" Ula quidem sentit foedoque repugnat amori, 
Et secum qua niente feror, quid molLor, inquit, 
Dii precor, et pietas," &c. 



Again 



-*' Pervigil igne 



Carpitur indomito, furiosaque vota retractat, 
Et modo desperat, modo vult tentare, pudetque 
Et cupit, et quid agat, non invenit," &c. 



" Slie sees andlcnows her fault, and doth resist, 
Ag.iinst her filthy lust she doth contend. 
And whither go I, what am I about ? 
And God forbid ! yet doth it in the end." 



' With raging lust she burns, and now recalls 
Her vow, and then despairs, and when 'tis past. 
Her former thoughts she'll prosecute in haste, 
And what to do she knows not at the last." 



She will and will not, abhors : and yet as Med^ea did, doth it, 

" Trahit invitam nova vis, aliudque cupido, J '< Reason pulls one way, burning lust another, 

Mens aliud suadet ; video meliora proboque, She sees and knows what's good, but she doth neither. 

Deieiiora sequor." ) 

" ^ fraus, amorque, et mentis emotas furor, 
Quo meabstulistis? 

The major part of lovers are carried headlong like so many brute beasts, 
reason counsels one way, thy friends, fortunes, shame, disgrace, danger, and 
an ocean of cares that will certainly follow ; yet this furious lust precipitates, 
counterpoiseth, weighs down on the other ; though it be their utter undoing, 
perpetual infamy, loss, yet they will do it, and become at last insensati, void 
of sense; degenerate into dogs, hogs, asses, brutes; as Jupiter into a bull, 
Apuleius an ass, Lycaon a wolf, Tereus a lapwing, ^Calisto a bear, Elpenor, 
and Grillus into swine by Circe. For what else may we think those ingenious 
poets to have shadowed in their witty fictions and poems but that a man once 
given over to his lust (as ^ Fulgent i us interprets that of Apuleius, Alciat. of 
Tereus) " is no better than a beast." 

" ^ Rex fueram, sic crista docet, sed sordida vita I "I was a king, my crown my witness is, 

Immundam e tanto culmine fecit avem." | But by my filthiness am come to this." 

Their blindness is all out as great, as manifest as their weakness and dotage, 
or rather an inseparable companion, an ordinary sign of it, ^love is blind, as 
the saying is, Cupid's blind, and so are all his followers. Quisquis amat 
ranam, ranmn putat esse Dianam. Every lover admires his mistress, though 
she be very deformed of herself, ill-favoured, wrinkled, pimpled, pale, red, 
yellow, tanned, tallow-faced, have a swollen juggler's platter face,', or a thin, lean, 
chitty face, have clouds in her face, be crooked, dry, bald, goggle-eyed, blear- 
eyed, or with staring eyes, she looks like a squis'd cat, hold her head still 
awry, heavy, dull, hollow-eyed, black or yellow about the eyes, or squint-eyed, 
sparrow-mouthed, Persian hook-nosed, have a sharp fox nose, a red nose, 
China flat, great nose nare simo patuloque, a nose like a promontory, gubber- 
tushed, rotten teeth, black, uneven, brown teeth, beetle browed, a witch's 
beard, her breath stink all over the room, her nose drop winter and summer, 
■with a Bavarian poke under her chin, a sharp chin, lave eared, with a long 

"^ Mantuan. " Whoever is in love is in slavery, he follows Ms sweetheart as a captive his captor, and 
■wears h yoke on his submissive neck " ^ virg. ^n. 4 " She began to speak, but stopped in the middle 

of her discourse." t Seneca Hippol. " What reason requires raging love forbids." ^ Met. 10. 

^ Buchanan. " Oh fraud, and love, and distraction of mind, whitlier have you led me ? " ^ An immodest 
woman is like a bear. ^ Feram induit dum rosas comedat, idem ad se redeat. ^ Alciatus de upupa 

Embl. Animal immundum upupa stereora amans ; ave hac nihil fffidius, nihil libidinosius. Sabin la 
Ovid Met b Love is like a false glass, which represents eveiy thing faii'er than it is. 



564 L(we Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

crane's neck, which stands awry too, penduJAs mammis, " her dugs like two 
double jugs," or else no dugs, in that other extreme, bloody fallen fingers, she 
have filthy, long unpared nails, scabbed hands or wrists, a tanned skin, a 
rotten carcass, crooked bact, she stoops, is lame, splea-footed, " as slender in the 
middle as a cow in the waist," gouty legs, her ankles hang over her shoes, her 
feet stink, she breed lice, a mere changeling, a very monster, an oaf imperfect, 
her whole complexion savours, a harsh voice, incondite gestures, vile gait, 
a vast virago, or an ugly tit, a slug, a fat fustylugs, a truss, a long lean raw- 
bone, a skeleton, a sneaker [si qua latent meliora puta), and to thy judgment 
looks like a mard in a lantern, whom thou couldst not fancy for a world, but 
hatest, loathest, and wouldst have spit in her face, or blow thy nose in her 
bosom, remedium amoris to another man, a dowdy, a slut, a scold, a nasty, 
rank, rammy, filthy, beastly quean, dishonest peradventure, obscene, base, 
beggarly, rude, foolish, untaught, peevish, Irus' daughter, Thersites' sister, 
Grobians' scholar, if he love her once, he admires her for all this, he takes no 

notice of any such errors, or imperfections of body and mind, ^ Ipsa hcec 

delectant, velnti Balhinum Polypus Agnce ; he had rather have her than any 
woman in the world. If he were a king, she alone should be his queen, his 
empress. O that he had but the wealth and treasure of both the Indies to 
endow her with, a carrack of diamonds, a chain of pearl, a cascanet of jewels 
(a pair of calf-skin gloves of four-pence a pair were fitter), or some such toy, 
to send her for a token, she should have it with all his heart ; he would spend 
myriads of crowns for her sake. Yenus herself, Panthea, Cleopatra, Tarquin's 
Tanaquil, Herod's Mariamne, or ^Mary of Burgundy, if she were alive, would 
not match her. 

••(6 Vincit vultus hasc Tyndarios, 
Qui moverunt horrida bella." 

Let Paris himself be judge) renowned Helen comes short, that Rodopheian 
Phillis, Larissean Coronis, Babylonian Thisbe, Polixena, Laura, Lesbia, &c., 
your counterfeit ladies were never so fair as she is. 

— "f Quicquid erit placidi, lepidi, grati, atque faceti, 1 " Whate'er is pretty, pleasant, facete, well, 

Vivida cunctorum retines Pandora deoium." | Whate'er Pandora had, she doth exceL" 

^Diceham Trivice formam nihil esse Diance. Diana was not to be compared to 
her, nor Juno, nor Minerva, nor any goddess. Thetis' feet were as bright as 
silver, the ankles of Hebe clearer than crystal, the arms of Aurora as ruddy 
as the rose, Juno's breasts as white as snow, Minerva wise, Venus fair; but 
what of this 1 Dainty come thou to me : She is all in all, 

" h CEeliaridens I "i Fairest of fair, that fairness doth excel." 



Est Venus, incedens Juno, Minerva loquens." | 

Ephemerus in Aristasnetus, so far admireth his mistress's good parts, that he 
makes proclamation of them, and challengeth all comers in her behalf 
" ^ Whoever saw the beauties of the east, or of the west, let them come from 
all quarters, all, and tell truth, if ever they saw such an excellent feature as 
this is." A good fellow in Petronius cries out, no tongue can tell his lady's 
fine feature, or express it, quicquid dixeris miniis erit, &c. 

" No tongue can her perfections tell, 
In whose each part, all tongues may dwell." 

Most of your lovers are of his humour and opinion. She is nulli secunda, a 
rare creature, a phoenix, the sole commandress of his thoughts, queen of his 

c Hor. ser. lib. sat. 1. 3. " These very things please him, as the wen of Agna did Balbinus." d The 

daughter and heir of Carolus Pugnax. ^ Seneca in Octavia. " Her beauty exci.ls the Tyndainan Helen's, 
which caused such dreadful Avars. fLcecheus. SMantuan. Egl. 1. h Angerianus. i Faene 

Queene, Cant. lyr. 4. k Epist. 12. Quls unquam foi-mas vidit orientis, quis occidentis, veniant undique 

.omnes, et dicant veraces, an tarn insignem viderint formam. 1 Iisulla vox formam ejus possit com- 

pj-ehendere. 



"Candiclior folio uivei Galatea ligustri, 
Floriclior prato, longa procerior alno, 
Splendidior vitro, tenero lascivior hsedo. &c. 
Mollior et cygni plumis, et lacte coacto " 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love. SQo 

desii-es, his only deligM: as ™ Triton now feelingly sings tliat love-sick sea- 
god: 

"Candida Leucothoe placet, et placet atra Melsene, j " Fair Leucothe, black Melasne please me well, 
Sed Galatea placet longb magis omnibus una." | But Galatea doth by odds the rest excel." 

All the gracious elogies, metaphors, hyperbolical comparisons of the best 
things in the world, the most glorious names ; Avhatsoever, I say, is pleasant, 
amiable, sweet, grateful, and delicious, are too little for her. 

" Phosbo pulchrior et sorore Phoebi." j " His Phoebe is so fair, she is so blight, 

I She dims the sun's lustre, and the moon's light." 

Stars, sun, moons, metals, sweet-smelling flowers, odours, perfumes, colours, 
gold, silver, ivory, pearls, precious stones, snow, painted birds, doves, honey, 
sugar, spice, cannot express her, ^so soft, so tender, so radiant, sweet, so fair 
is she. Mollior cuniculi capillo, &c. 

" o Lydia bella, puella Candida, I " Fine Lydia, my mistress, white and ftxir, 

Qu e bene superas lac, et lilium, | Tiie miik, the lily do not thee come near; 

Albamque siuuii rosam et rubicundam, The rose so '.vhite, the rose so red to see, 

Et expolitum ebur Indicum." | And Indian ivory comes short of thea" 

Such a desci'iption our English Homer makes of a fair lady : 

P That Emilia that was fairer to seen, 
Then is lily upon the stalk green : 
And fresher then May with floicers net", 
For with the rose-colour strove her hue, 
Ino't which was the fairer of the two. 

In this very phrase ^Polyphemus courts Galatea : 

" Whiter Galet than the white withie-wind. 
Fresher than a field, higher than a tree, 
Brighter than glass, more wanton than a kid, 
Softer than swan's down, or ought tliat may be." 

So she admires him again, in that conceited dialogue of Lucian, which John 
Secundus, an elegant Dutch modern poet, hath translated into verse. When 
Doris and those other seanymphs upbraided her with her ugly misshapen lover, 
Polyphemus j she replies, they speak out of envy and malice, 

'"^Et plane invidia hue mera vos stimulare videtm-, 
Quod non vos itidem ut me Polyphemus amet : " 

Say what they could, he was a proper man. And as Heloise writ to her 
sweetheart Peter Abelard, Si me Augustus orhis imperator uxorem^ expeferet, 
maliem tua esse meretrix quam orhis imj^ei^atrix ; she had rather be his vassal, 

his quean, than the world's empress or queen, non si me Jupiter ipse forte 

velit, she would not change her love for Jupiter himself 

To thy thinking she is a most loathsome creature; and as when a country 
fellow discommended once that exquisite picture of Helen, made by Zeuxis, 
^for he saw no such beauty in it; Nichomachus a love-sick spectator replied, 
Surne tihi meos oculos et deam existimabis, take mine eyes, and thou wilt think 
she is a goddess, dote on her forthwith, count all her vices virtues ; her imper- 
fections, infirmities, absolute and perfect : if she be flat-nosed, she is lovely ; if 
hook-nosed, kingly; if dwarfish and little, pretty; if tall, proper and man-like, 
our brave British Eoadicea; if crooked, mse; if monstrous, comely; her defects 
arc no defects at all, she hath no deformities. Immo nee ipsum amicce stercus 
foetet, though she be nasty, fulsome, as Sostratus' bitch, or Parmeno's sow; 
thou hadst as lieve have a snake in thy bosom, a toad in thy dish, and callest 
her witch, devil, hag, with all the filthy names thou canst invent ; he admires 
her on the other side, she is his idol, lady, mistress, *venerilla, queen, the 
quintessence of beauty, an angel, a star, a goddess. 

" Thou art my Vesta, thou my goddess art, 
Thy hallowed temple only is my heart. " 

"^Calcagnini dial. Galat. ^^ Catullus. opetronii Catalect. P Chaucer, in the Knight's Tale 

4 Ovid. Met. 13. ^ " It is envy evidently that prompt; you, because Polyphemus does not love you as ha 

does me." spiutarch. sibi dixit tarn pulchram non videri, &c. tQuanto quam Lucifer aurea Phoebe* 

tauto virginibus conspectior omnibus LLerce. Ovid. 



56Q Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

The fragrance of a thousand courtezans is in her face : ^^Nec pulchrce effigies, 
■ hcec Cypridis aut Stratonices; 'tis not Yenus' picture that, nor the Spanish 
infanta's, as you suppose (good sir), no princess, or king's daughter: no, no, but 
his divine mistress, forsooth, his dainty Dulcinea, his dear Antiphila, to whose 
service he is wholly consecrate, whom he alone adores. 

" ^ Cui comparatus indecens erit pavo, I ♦' To whom conferr'd a peacock's indecent, 

Inamabilis sciiirus, et frequens Phoenix." | A squirrers harsh, a phcenix too frequent." 

All the graces, veneries, elegancies, pleasures, attend her. He prefers her 
before a myriad of court ladies. 

"yHe that commends Phillis or N'erjea, 
Or Amarillis, or Galatea, 
Tityinis or Mehbea, by your leave, 
Let him be mute, his love the praises have." 

Nay, before all the gods and goddesses themselves. So ^Quintus Catullus 
admired his squint-eyed friend Eoscius. 

" Pace milii liceat (Coelestes) dicere vestra, I '* By your leave, gentle Gods, this I'll say true, 

Mortalis visus pulchrior esse Deo." | There's none of you that have so fair a hue." 

All the bombast epithets, pathetical adjuncts, incomparably fair, curiously 
neat, divine, sweet, dainty, delicious, &c., pretty diminutives, corculum, sua- 
violum, &c. pleasant names may be invented, bird, mouse, lamb, puss, pigeon, 
pigsney, kid, honey, love, dove, chicken, &c. he puts on her. 

"^Meum mel, mea suavitas, meum cor, 
Meum suaviolum, mei lepores," 

"my life, my light, my jewel, my glory," ^Mai^gareta speciosa, cujus respectu 
omnia mundi pretiosa sordent, my sweet Margaret, my sole delight and dar- 
ling. And as ^E^hodomant courted Isabella: 

" By all kind words and gestures that he might, I His mistress, and his goddess, and such names, 

He calls her his dear heart, his sole beloved, As loving knights apply to lovely dames." 

His joyful comfort, and his sweet delight j 

Every cloth she wears, every fashion pleaseth him above measure ; her hand, 
quales digitos, quos hahet ilia manus 1 pretty foot, pretty coronets, her 
sweet carriage, sweet voice, tone, O that pretty tone, her divine and lovely 
looks, her every thing, lovely, sweet, amiable, and pretty, pretty, pretty. Her 
very name (let it be what it will) is a most pretty, pleasing name; I believe 
now there is some secret power and virtue in names, every action, sight, habit, 
gesture ; he admires, whether she play, sing, or dance, in what tii-es soever she 
goeth, how excellent it was, how well it became her, never the like seen or 
heard. ^Mille hahet ornatus, mille decenter hahet. Let her wear what she 
will, do what she will, say what she will, ® Quicquid enim dicit, seu facit, omne 
decet. Pie applauds and admires everything she wears, saith or doth, 



f lllam quicquid agit, quoqub vestigia vertit, 
Composuit furtim subsequiturque decor ; 
Seu solvit crines, fusis decet esse capillis, 
Seu compsit, comptis est revereiida comis." 



' Whate'er she doth, or whither e'er she go. 

A sweet and pleasing grace attends forsooth ; 
Or loose, or bind her hair, or comb it up. 
She's to be honoured in what she doth." 



^ Vestem induitur, formosa est : exuitur, tota forma est, let her be dressed 
or undressed, all is one, she is excellent still, beautiful, fair, and lovely to 
behold. Women do as much by men ; nay more, far fonder, weaker, and that 
by many parasangs. "Come to me, my dear Lycias" (saith Musseus in ^ Aris- 
tsenetus), " come quickly, sweetheart, all other men are satyrs, mere clowns, 
blockheads to thee, nobody to thee." Thy looks, words, gestures, actions, 
&c., "are incomparably beyond all others." Venus was never so much 
besotted on her Adonis, Phaedra so delighted in Hippolitus, Ariadne in The- 
seus, Thysbe in her Pyramus, as she is enamoured on her Mopsus. 

"Be thou the marygold, and I will be the sun, 
Be thou the friar, and I will be the nun." 



" M. D. Son. 30. 2C]viartial. I. 5. Epig. 38. yAriosto. J^Tully, lib, 1. de nat. deor. pulchrior deo, 

et tamen erat oculis perversissimis. ^ Marullus ad Neseram epig. I . lib. b Barthius. '^ Ariosto, lib. 29. 
liLt. 8. dTibullus. ejxavui. hb. 2. f Tibullus, 1. 4. de Sulpicia. gAristsenetus, Epist.L hEpist. 
24. veni cite, charissime Lycia, cito veni; prse te Satyri omnes videntur non homines, nuUo loco solus es, <fcc 



Mem. 3.] Symjytoms of Love. 5G7 

I could repeat centuries of sucli. Now tell me what greater dotage or blind- 
ness can there be than this in both sexes? and vet their "slavery" is more 
eminent, a greater sign of their folly than the rest. 

They are commonly slaves, captives, voluntary servants, Amator amicce 
mancipium, as ^Castillo terms him, his mistress' servant, her drudge, prisoner, 
bondman, what not ? " He composeth himself wholly to her affections to 
please her, and as u^Emilia said, makes himself her lacquey. All his cares, 
actions, all his thoughts, are subordinate to her will and commandment : " her 
most devote, obsequious, affectiona,te servant and vassal. ''For love" (as 
^ Cyrus in Xenophon well observed) " is a mere tyranny, worse than any dis- 
ease, and they that are troubled with it desire to be free and cannot, but are 
harder bound than if they were in iron chains." What greater captivity or 
slavery can there be (as ^ TuUy expostulates) than to be in love 1 " Is he a 
free man over whom a woman domineers, to whom she prescribes laws, com- 
mands, forbids what she will herself; that dares deny nothing she demands; 
she asks, he gives; she calls, he comes; she threatens, he fears; Nequissi- 
mum hunc servum puto, I account this man a very drudge." And as he fol- 
lows it, "™Is this no small servitude for an enamourite to be every hour 
combing his head, stiffening his beard, perfuming his hair, washing his face 
with sweet water, painting, curling, and not to come abroad but sprucely 
crowned, decked, and apparelled ?" Yet these are but toys in respect, to go 
to the barbel* baths, theatres, &c., he must attend upon her wherever she 
goes, run along the streets by her doors and windows to see her, take all 
opjDortunities, sleeveless errands, disguise, counterfeit shapes, and as many 
forms as Jupiter himself ever took; and come every day to her house (as he 
will surely do if he be truly enamoured) and offer her service, and follow het 
up and down from room to room, as Lucretia's suitors did, he cannot contain 
himself but he will do it, he must and will be where she is, sit next her, still 
talking with her. "" If I did but let my glove fall by chance" (as the said 
Aretine's Lucretia brags), " I had one of my suitors, nay two or three at once 
i-eady to stoop and pick it up, and kiss it, and with a low conge deliver it unto 
me; if I would walk, another was ready to sustain me by the arm. A third 
+0 provide fniits, pears, plums, cherries, or whatsoever I would eat or drink." 
All this and much more he doth in her presence, and when he comes home, as 
Troilus to his Cressida, 'tis all his meditation to recount with liimself his 
actions, words, gestures, what entertainment he had, how kindly she used him 
in such a place, how she smiled, how she graced him, and that infinitely pleased 
him ; and then he breaks out, O sweet Areusa, my dearest Antiphila, O 
most divine looks, lovely graces, and thereupon instantly he makes an epi- 
gram, or a sonnet to five or se^-en tunes, in her commendation, or else he rumi- 
nates how she rejected his service, denied him a kiss, disgraced liim, &c., and 
that as effectually torments him. And these are his exercises between comb 
and glass, madrigals, elegies, &c., these his cogitations till he see her again. 
But all this is easy and gentle, and the least part of his labour and bondage, 
no hunter will take such pains for his game, fowler for his sport, or soldier to 
sack a city, as he will for his mistress' favour. 

"<* Ipsa comes veniam, neqiie me salebrosa movebimt 
Saxa, nee obliquo dente timendus aper." 

i Lib. 3. de aulico, alterius affectiii se totum componit, totus placere studet. et ipsinsanimam arnat^ pedis- 
sequam facit. _ k Cyropged. 1. 5. amor sei^itus, et qui amant optant eo liberari non secus ac alio quovis 
morbo, neque liberari tamen possunt, sed validiori necessitate ligaii sunt quam si in ferrea vincula confecti 
forcnt. 1 In paradoxis, An ille mihi liber videuir cui mulier imperat ? Cui leges imponit, prascribit, jubet, 
vetat quod videtur. ^i nihil imperanti negat, nihil audet, <fcc. poscit? dandum ; vocat? veniendum ; 
minatur ? extimiscendum. ™ lllane par^-a est servitus amatoi-um singulis fere horis pectine capillum, 

calamistroque barbam componere, facicm aquis redolentibus diluere, <fec '^ Si quando in pavimentum 

ricautiiis quid milii excidisset, elevare iiide quam promptissime, nee nisi osculo compacto mihi commendare, 
&c. o ii N^'oj. ^yju (i^g j^Qg j,Q^j^ afiright me, nor the crooked-tusked bear, so that I shall not visit my 

inistreas in pleasant mooa" 



568 Love-Mdancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

As Phaedra to Hippolitus. No danger sliall affright, for if that be true the 
poets feign, Love is the son of Mars and Yenns ; as he hath delights, pleasures, 
elegances from his mother, so hath he hardness, valour, and boldness from his 
father. And 'tis true that Bernard hath; Amore nihil mollius, nihil violentius, 
nothing so boisterous, nothing so tender as love. If once, therefore, enamoured, 
he will go, run, ride many a mile to meet her, day and night, in a very dark 
night, endure scorching heat, cold, wait in frost and snow^ rain, tempest, till 
his teeth chatter in his head, those northern winds and showers cannot cool or 
quench his flame of love. Intempestd node non deterretur, he will, take my 
word, sustain hunger, thirst, Penetrabit omnia^ perrumpet omnia, " love will 
find out a way," through thick and thin he will to her, Exjjeditissimi monies 
videntur amnes tranabiles, he will swim through an ocean, rid^ post over the 
Alps, Apennines, or Pyrenean hills, 

' ' P Tgnem marisque fluctus, atqiie turbines 
Veati paratus est transire," 

though it rain daggers with their points downward, light or dark, all is one : — 
{lioscida per tenebras Faunus ad antra venit,) for her sweet sake he will 
undertake Hercules's twelve labours, endure, hazard, &c,, he feels it not. 
" ^Wliat shall I say," saith Hoedus, " of their great dangers they undergo, 
single combats they undertake, ho w they will venture their lives, creep in at 
windows, gutters, climb over walls to come to their sweethearts" (anointing 
the doors and hinges with oil, because they should not creek, tread soft, swim, 
wade, watch, <k<i.), " and if they be surprised, leap out at windows, cast them- 
selves headlong down, bruising or breaking their legs or arms, and sometimes 
losing life itself," as Calisto did for his lovely Melibsea, Hear some of their 
own confessions, protestations, complaints, proffers, expostulations, wishes, 
brutish attempts, labours in this kind. Hercules served Omphale, put on an 
apron, took a distaff and spun : Thraso the soldier was so submissive to Thais, 
that he was resolved to do whatever she enjoined. ^Fgro me Thaidi dedam, 
et faciam quod jubet, I am at her service. Philostratus in an epistle to his 
mistress, " ^I am ready to die, sweetheart, if it be thy will; allay his thirst 
whom thy star hath scorched and undone, the fountains and rivers deny no 
man drink -that comes; the fountain doth not say thou shalt not drink, nor 
the apple thou shalt not eat, nor the fair meadow walk not in me, but thou 
alone wilt not let me come near thee, or see thee, contemned and despised I 
die for grief." Polienus, when his mistress Circe did but frown upon him in 
Petronius, drew his sword, and bade her* kill, stab, or whip him to death,^ he 
would strip himself naked, and not resist. Another will take a journey to 
Japan, LongcE navigationis molestis non curans : a third (if she say it) will not 
speak a word for a twelvemonth's space, her command shall be most inviolably 
kept: a fourth will take Hercules's club from him, and with that centurion 
in the Spanish "Ceelestina, will kill ten men for his mistress Areusa, for a 
word of her mouth he will cut bucklers in two like pippins, and flap down men 
like flies, Elige quo mortis genere ilium occidi cupis. ^Galeatus of Mantua 
did a little more : for when he was almost mad for love of a fair maid in the 
city, she, to try him belike what he would do for her sake, bade him in jest 
leap into the river Po if he loved her; he forthwith did leap headlong off the 
bridge and was drowned. Another at Ficinum in like passion, when his 
mistress by chance (tTiinking no harm I dare swear) bade him go hang, the 

P Plutarchus, amat. dial. ^ Lib. 1. de contem. amor. quidTeferam eorum pericula et clades, qui in 

amicarum sedes per fenestras ingressi stillicidiaque egressi indeque deturbati, sed aut pr«cipites, membra 
frangunt, collidunt, aut animam amittunt. ^ Ter. Eunuch. Act. 5. Seen. 8^ ^ Paratus sum ad 

obeundum mortem, si tu jubeas; banc sitim asstuantis seda, quain tuum sidus p^ldit, aquse et fontes non 
neifant, &c. t Si occidere placet, femim meum vides, si verberibus conttnta es, cun-o nudus ad pcenam. 

'I Act. 15. 18. Impera mihi; oecidam decem viros, &c. ^Gasper Ens. puellam misere deperiens, per 

jQ.cura ab ea in Padum desilire jussus statim e ponte se i raecipitavit. Alius Ficino insano amore ardens ab 
amica jussus se suspendere, illico fecit. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love. ^ 5G0 

next night at her doors hanged himself. "-^Money (saith XenojAon) is 
a v^ery acceptable and welcome guest, yet I had rather give it my dear 
Clinia than take it of others, I had rather serve him than command others, 
I had rather be his drudge than take my ease, undergo any danger for liis 
sake than live in security. For I had rather see Clinia than all the world 
besides, and had rather want the sight of all other things than him alone; 
I am angry with the night and sleep that I may not see him, and thank the 
light and sun because they show me my Clinia : I will run into the fire for his 
sake, and if you did but see him, I know that you likewise would run with 
me." So Philostratus to his mistress, "^Command me what you will, I will 
do it; bid me go to sea, I am gone in an instant, take so many stripes, I am 
ready, run through the fire, and lay down my life and soul at thy feet, 'tis 
done." So did JEoIus to Juno. 

" Tuus 6 regina quod optas I " queen it is thy pains to enjoin me stiU, 

Explorare labor, mihi jussa capessere fas est." | And I am bound to execute thy will" 

And Phaedra to Hippolitus, 

Me vel sororem Hippolite aut famulam voca, 
Famulamque potius, omne servitium feram." 
" ^ Xon me per altas ire si jubeas nives, 

Pigeat galatis ingredi Pindi jugis, 

Non si per ignes ire aut infesta agmina 

Cuncter, paratus bensibus pectus dare, 

Te tunc jubere, me decet jussa exequi." 

Callicratides in '^Lucian breaks out into this passionate speech, "0 God of 
Heaven, grant me this Mfe for ever to sit over against my mistress, and to 
hear her sweet voice, to go in and out with her, to have every other business 
common with her; I would labour when she labours; sail when she sails; he 
that hates her should hate me; and if a tyrant kill her, he should kill me; 
if she should die, I would not live, and one grave should hold us both." 
^Finiet ilia meos moriens Qnorientis amores. Abrocomus in ^ Aristsenetus 
makes the like petition for his Delphia, — '^ Tecum vivere amein, tecum oheam 
lubens. "I desire to live with thee, and I am ready to die with thee." 'Tis 
the same strain which Theagines used to his Clariclea, "so that I may but 
enjoy thy love, let me die presently : " Leander to his Hero, when he besought 
the sea waves to let him go quietly to his love, and kill him coming back. 
^ Par cite clum projoero, 'mergite dum recleo. " Spare me whilst I go, drown me 
as I return." 'Tis the common humour of them all, to contemn death, to 
wish for death, to confront death in this case, Quippe queis nee f era, nee ignis, 
neque prcecipitium, nee /return, nee ensis, neque laqueus gravia videntur; 
*' 'Tis their desire " (saith Tyrius) " to die." 

" Haud timet mortem, cupit ire in ipsos 
obvius I 



" call me sister, call me servant, choose, 
Or rather servant, I am thine to use." 

" It shall not grieve me to the snowy hills, 
Or frozen Pin ins' tops forthwith to climb, 
Or run throu;;h fire, or tlirough an army. 
Say but the word, for I am always thine." 



" He does not fear death, he desireth such upon the very swords." Though 
a thousand dragons or devils keep the gates, Cerberus himself, Scyron 
and Procrustes lay in wait, and the way as dangerous, as inaccessible as hell, 
through fiery flames and over burning coulters, he will adventure for all this. 
And as ^ Peter Abelard lost his testicles for his Heloise, he will I say not 
venture an incision, but life itself For how many gallants ofiered to lose 
their lives for a night's lodging with Cleopatra in those days ! and in the hour 

3 Intelligo pecTiniam rem esse jucundissimam, meam tamen libentius darem Clinise quam ab aliis acci- 
perem ; libentius huic servii-em, quam aliis imperarem, &c. Noctem et somnum accuso, quod ilium non 
videam, luci a.utem et soli gratiam habeo quod mihi Cliniam ostendant. Ego etiam cum Clinia in ignem 
currerem ; et scio vos quoque mecum ingressuros si videretis, ^Impera quidvis; navigare jube, navem 

conscendo ; plagas accipere, plector ; animam profundere, in ignem currere, non recuso, lubens facio. 
" Seneca in Hipp. act. 2. b Hujus ero vivus, mortuus hujus ero, Propert. lib. 2. vivam si vivat ; si cadat 

ilia, cadam. Id. ^'pial. Amorum. Mihi 6 dii celestes ultra sit vita haec perpetua ex adverso amicre 

sedere, et suave loquentem audire, &c. si moriatur, vivere non sustinebo. et idem erit sepulchrum utrisque. 
d Buchanan. " When she dies n,y love shall also be at rest in the tomb." ^Epist. 21. sit hoc votuin k 

diis auiare Delphidem, ab ea amari, adloqui pulchram et loquentem audire. fHor. EMart. ^Lege 
Calamitates Pet. Abelhardi Epist. prima. 



570 Love- Melancholy. [Part. 3'. Sec. 2. 

or moment of deatli, 'tis their sole comfort to remember their dear mistress, 
as ^Zerbino slain in France, and Brandimart inBarbary; as Arcite did his Emily. 

kwhen he felt death, 

Dusked been his eyes, and faded is his breath, 

But on his lady yet casteth he his eye, 

His last word was, mercy Ernely. 

His spirit changed, and out went there, 

Whither I cannot tell, ne where. 

When Captain Gobrius by an unlucky accident had received his death's 
wound, heu me miserum exclamat, miserable man that I am, (instead of other 
devotions) he cries out, shall I die before I see my sweetheart Bodanthe? Sio 
amor mortem (saith mine author) aut quicquid humanitus accidit, aspernatuvj 
so love triumphs, contemns, insults over death itself Thirteen proper young 
men lost their lives for that fair Hippodamias' sake, the daughter of Onomaus, 
king of Elis : when that hard condition was proposed of death or victory, they 
made no account of it, but courageously for love died, till Pelops at last won 
her by a sleight. "^As many gallants desperately adventured their dearest 
blood for Atalanta, the daughter of Schenius, in hope of marriage, all van- 
quished and overcame, till Hippomenes by a few golden apples happil3^ obtained 
his suit. Perseus, of old, fought with a sea monster for Andromeda's sake; and 
our St. George freed the king's daughter of Sabea (the golden legend is mine 
author) that was exposed to a dragon, by a terrible combat. Our knights 
errant, and the Sir Lancelots of these days, I hope will adventure as much for 
ladies' favours, as the Squire of Dames, Knight of the Sun, Sii* Bevis of 
Southampton, or that renowned peer, 

" ^Orlando, who long time had loved deal' 
Angelica the fair, and for her sake 
About the world in nations far and near, 
Did high attempts perform and undertake." 

he is a very dastard, a coward, a block and a beast, that will not do as much, 
but they will sure, they will ; for it is an ordinary thing for these inamoratos 
of our time to say and do more, to stab their arms, carouse in blood, °or as 
that Thessalian Thero, that bit off his own thumb, provocans rivalem ad hoc 
cemulandum, to make his co-rival do as much. 'Tis frequent with them to 
challenge the field for their lady and mistress' sake, to run a tilt, 

"P That either bears (so furiously they meet) 
The other down under the horses' feet," 

and then up and to it again, 

" And with their axes both so sorely pour, 
That neither plate nor mail sustain'd the stour, 
But riveld wreak like rotten wood asunder, 
And fire did flash like lightning after thunder ; " 

and in her quarrel, to fight so long "^till their head-piece, bucklers be all 
broken, and swords hacked like so many saws," for they must not see her 
abused in any sort, 'tis blasphemy to speak against her, a dishonour without 
all good respect to name her. Tis common with these creatures, to drink ^' 
healths upon their bare knees, though it were a mile to the bottom, no matter 
of what mixture, off it comes. If she bid them they will go barefoot to Jeru- 
salem, to the great Cham's court, ^to the East Indies to fetch her a bird to 
wear in her hat ; and with Drake and Cavendish sail round about the world 
for her sweet sake, adversis ventis, serve twice seven years as Jacob did for 
Bachel; do as much as *Gesmunda, the daughter of Tancredus, prince of 
Salerna, did for Guisardus, her true love, eat his heart when he died ; or as 

i Ariosto. k Chaucer, in the Knight's Tale. 1 Theodorus prodromus, Amontm lib. 6. Interpret. 

Gaulmino. i^Ovid. 10 Met. Higinius, c. 185. i^Ariost. lib I. Cant. 1. staff. 5. »Flut. dial, 

amor. P Faerie Queene, cant 1. lib. 4. etcant. 3. lib. 4. ^Dum cassis pertusa, ensis instar Serr£e 

excisus, scutum, &c.! iBarthius, Cselestina. '' Lesbia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur. ^ As 

Xanthus for tlie love of Eurippe, omnem Europam peragravit. Parthenius, Erot. cap. 8. t Beroaldas b 

Bocatio. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love, 571 

Artemesia drank her husband's bones beaten to powder, and so bury him in 
herself, and endure more torments than Theseus or Paris. Et his colitur 
Venus magis quani tlmre, et victiiiiis, with such sacrifices as these (as^Aris- 
tsenetus holds) Venus is well pleased. Generally they undertake any pain, any 
labour, any toil, for their mistress' sake, love and admire a servant, not to her 
alone, but to all her friends and followers, they hug and embrace them for her 
sake; her dog, picture, and every thing she wears, they adore it as a relic. If 
any man come from her, they feast him, reward him, will not be out of his 
company, do him all offices, still remembering, still talking of her : 

" '^ Xiim si abest quod ames, presto simulacra tamcii sunt 
lUius, et nomeu dulce observutur ad aures." 

The very carrier that comes from him to her is a most welcome guest; and 
if he bring a letter, she will read it twenty times over, and as ^ Lucretia did by 
Euryalus, " kiss the letter a thousand times together, and then read it :" And 
^Chelidonia by Philonius, after many sweet kisses, put the letter in her bosom, 

" And Iviss again, and often look thereon, 

" And stay the messenger that/rt'ould be gone : " 

And ask many pretty questions, over and over again, as how he looked, what 
he did, and what he said? In a word, 

«'^ Vult placere sese amicjE, vult miM, vult pedissequa3,l " He strives to please his mistress, and her maid, 
ViUt famulis, vult etiam anciUis, et catulo meo." | Her servants, and her dog, and 's well apaid." 

If he get any remnant of hers, a busk-point, a feather of her fan, a shoe-tie, 
a lace, a ring, a bracelet of hair, 

"bPignusquc direptum lacerfis; 
Aut digifco male pertinaci," 

he wears it for a favour on his arm, in his hat, finger, or next his heart. Her 
picture he adores twice a day, and for two hours together will not look off it ; 
as Laodamia did by Protesilaus, when he went to war, "'''sit at home with his 
picture before her :' a garter or a bracelet of hers is more precious than any 
saint's relic," he lays it up in his casket (O blessed relic), and every day will 
kiss it : if in her presence, his eye is never off her, and drink he will where 
she drank, if it be possible, in that very place, &c. If absent, he will walk in 
the walk, sit under that tree where she did use to sit, in that bower, in that 

very seat, etforibus miser oscula figit,^ many years after sometimes, though 

she be far distant and dwell many miles off, he loves yet to walk that way still, 
to have his chamber-window look that way : to walk by that river's side, which 
(though far away) runs by the house v/here she dwells, he loves the wind blows 
to that coast. 

" ^ O quoties dixi Zephyris properantibus illuc, I " happy western winds that blow that way, 

Felices pulchram vismi Amaiyllida venti. " | For you shall see my love's fair face to-day." 

He will send a message to her by the wdnd, 

"f Vos aurse Alpinte, placidis de moatibus aurse, 
Hsec nil poitate," 

^ he desires to confer with some of her acquaintance, for his heart is still with 
her, ^to talk of her, admiring and commending her, lamenting, moaning, 
wishing himself any thing for her sake, to have opportunity to see her, O that 
he might but enjoy her presence! So did Philostratus to his mistress, "^ O 
happy gTound on which she treads, and happy were I if she would tread upon 

"Epist. 17. 1. 2. ^Lucretius. "For if the object of j^our love be absent, her image is present, 

and her sweet name is still familiar in my ears." y Jineas Sylvius: Lucretia quum accepit Euriali literas 

liilaris statim milliesque papii-um bneiavit. ^ Mediis inseruit papillis lltteram ejus, mille prius pangens 

suavia. Arist. 2. epist. 13. ^Plautus, Asinar. b Hor. " Some token snatched from her arm or her 

gently resisting finger." •^ Ilia domi sedens imaginem ejus Axis oculis assidue conspicata. d " And 

distracted will unprint kisses on the doors." ® Buchanan, Sylva. f Fracastorius Naugerio. "Ye 

alpine winds, ye mountain breezes, bear these gifts to hei." s Happy servants that serve her, happy men 
that are in her company. hNon ipsos solum sed ipsorum memoriam amaut. Lucian. i Epist. ter 

f elix solum ! beatus ego, si me calcaveris ; vultus tuus amnes sistere potest, &c. 



572 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2." 

me. I think her countenance would make the rivers stand, and when she comes 
abroad, birds will sing and come about her." 

" Ridcbunt valles, videbant obvia Tempe, [ " The fields will laugli, the pleasant valleys hum, 

111 rioiem viridis protlnus ibi humus." | Aud all the grass will into flowers turn." 

Oniiiis Ambrosiam spirabit aura. "^ When she is in the meadow, she is fairer 
than any flower, for that lasts but for a day, the river is pleasing, but it 
vauisheth on a sudden, but thy flower doth not fade, thy stream is greater than 
tlie sea. If I look upon the heaven, methinks I see the sun fallen down to 
shine below, and thee to shine in his place, whom I desire. If I look upon the 
night, niethiuks I see two more glorious stars, Hesperus and thyself." A little 
after he thus courts his mistress, "Mf thou goest forth of the city, the protect- 
ing gods tliat keep the tov/n will run after to gaze upon thee : if thou sail upon 
the seas, as so many small boats, they will follow thee : w^hat river would not 
run into the sea?" Another, he sighs and sobs, swears he hath Cor scissum, 
a heart bruised to powder, dissolved and melted within him, or quite gone 
from him, to his mistress' bosom belike, he is in an oven, a salamander in the 
fire, so scorched with love's heat ; he wisheth himself a saddle for her to sit on, 
a posy for her to smell to, and it would not grieve him to be hanged, if he 
might be strangled in her garters : he would willingly die to-morrow, so that 
she might kill him with her own hands. ™ Ovid would be a flea, a gnat, a ring, 
Catullus a sparrow, * 

" * si tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem, 
Et tristes animi levare curas." 

"Anacreon, a glass, a gown, a chain, any thing, 



■ Sed speculum ego ipse fiam, 
Ut me tuuni usque cernas, 
Et vestis ipse fiam, 
Ut me tuum usque gestes. 
;Mutari et optu in undam, 
Lavem tuos ut artus, 
Kardus puella fiam, 
L't ego teipsam inungam, 
Sim fascia in papillis, 
Tuo et monile collo, 
Fiamque calceus, me 
Saltern ut pede usque calces.' 



"OBut I a looking-glass would be, 
Still to be look'd upon by thee, 
Or I, my love, would be thy gown. 
By thee to be worn up and down ; 
Or a pure well full to the brims. 
That I might wash thy purer limbs: 
Or, I'd be precious balm to 'noint. 
With choicest care each choicest joint; 
Or. if I miiiht, I would he fain 
About thy neck thy happy chain. 
Or would it were my hlessed hap 
To be the lawn o'er thy fair pap. 
Or would I were thy shoe, to be 
Daily trod upon by thee." 



O thrice happy man that shall enjoy her: as they that saw Hero in Museus, 
and ^'Salmacis to Hermaphroditus, 

" *l Felices mater, &c. felix nntrix. 

Sed longfe cunctis, longeque beatior ille, 
Quem fi-uctu sponsi et socii dignabere lecti." 

The same passion made her break out in the comedy,^iVce illm fortunatce sunt 
qncB cum illo cubant, " happy are his bedfellows;" and as she said of Cyprus, 
^Beata quae illi uxor futura esset, blessed is that woman that shall be his wife, 
nay, thrice happy she that shall enjoy him but a night. ^Una nox Jovis 
sceptro cequiparanda, such a night's lodging is worth Jupiter's sceptre. 

" Qualis nox erit ilia, dii, deisque, 
Quam mollis thorus ? " 

"0 what a blissful night would it be, how soft, how sweet a bed !" She will 
adventure all her estate for such, a night, for anectarean, a balsam kiss alone. 

"Qui te videt beatns est, 
Beafcior qui te audiet, 
Qui te poLiDur est i>eus."^ 

The sultan of Sana's wife in Arabia, when she had seen Yertomannus, that 

J<I<lcm cpist. in prato cum sit.floressuperat; illi pulchri soduniustantum diei; fluviusgratussedevanescit. 
at tuns fluvias mari major. Si ecclum aspicio, solem existiino cecidi>sc, cl in terra ambulare,.to. 1 Si civitate 
cgivdevi?. sequentur te'dii custodes, spectaculo commoti ; si naviges sequentur; quis flu\-iiis salum tuum 
li'jM •,i','a;-ct.' °' El. 15. 2. * "Oil, if 1 miijhl oiiiy dally witli thee, and alleviate the wasting sorrows of 

iJiy ininJ." ° Carm. 30. '^ Englished by .M B. lloHidiiy, in his Technog. act. 1. seen. 7. POvid. Met. 

pr>. 4. <1 Xenoplion, Cyropsed lib. 5. '"I'laurus dc mi'lite. ^ i^ucian. tEOrsecoRuf "Petronius. 
^ " Uti lb hai)i>y wiio sees thee, more happy who hears a god who enjoys thee." 



Mem. 3.] 



Symptoms of Love. 



573 



comely traveller, lamented to herself in this manner, " ^ O God, thon hast 
made this man whiter than the sun, but me, mine husband, and all my children 
black ; I would to God he were my husband, or that I had such a son : " she 
fell a weeping, and so impatient for love at last, that (as Potiphar's wife did 
by Joseph) she would have had him gone in with her, she sent away Gazella, 
Tegeia, Galzerana, her waiting-maids, loaded him with fair promises and gifts, 

and wooed him with all the rhetoric she could extremum hoc jniserce da 

munus amanti, " grant this last request to a wretched lover." But when he 
gave not consent, she would have gone with him, and left all, to be his page, 
his servant, or his lackey, Certa sequi charum corpus ut umbra solet, so that she 
might enjoy him, threatening moreover to kill herself," &c. Men will do as 
much and more for women, spend goods, lands, lives, fortunes ; kings will 
leave their crowns, as King John for Matilda the nun at Dunmow. 

" ^But kings in this yet priviieg'd may lie, 
I'll be a monk so I may live with thee." 

The very gods will endure any shame {atque aliquis de diis nan ti'istibus inquit, 
&c.) be a spectacle as Mars and Yenus were, to all the rest ; so did Lucian's 
Mercury wish, and peradventure so dost thou. They will adventure their lives 

with alacrity ^ p7'o qua non metuam mori nay more, pro qua non 

metuam bis mori, I will die twice, nay, twenty times for her. If she die, 
there's no remedy, they must die with her, they cannot help it. A lover in 
Calcagninus, wrote this on his darling's tomb, 



Quincia obiit, sed non Quincia sola ohiit, 
Quincia obiit, sed cnm Quincia et ipse obii; 
Kisus obit, obit gratia, lusus obit, 
Nee mea nunc anima in pectore, at in tumulo est. ' 



" Quincia my dear is dead, but not alone, 
For I am dead, and with her I am gone : 
Sweet smiles, mirth, graces, all with her do rest. 
And my soul too, for 'tis not in my breast." 



How many doting lovers upon the like occasion might say the same ? But 
these are toys in respect, they will hazard their very soul for their mistress' 



•' One Slid, to heaven would I not 
desire at all to go. 
If that at mine own house I had 
such a fine wife as Hero." 

■^ccelo prcBfertuT Adonis. Old 



" Atque aliquis inter juvenes mii-atus est, el verbum dixit, 
Non ego in coelo cuperem Deus esse, 
Nostram uxoremhabens domi Hero." 

"Venus forsook heaven for Adonis' sake- 



Janivere, in Chaucer, thought when he had his fair May he should never go to 
heaven, he should live so merrily here on earth ; had I such a mistress, he 
protests, 

" ° Coelum diis ego non suum m\iderem, I " I would not envy their prosperity, 

Sed sortem mihi dii meam inviderent." | The gods should envy my felicity." 

Another as earnestly desires to behold his sweetheart, he will adventure and 
leave all this, and more than this to see her alone. 



" d Omnia qu83 patior mala si pensare velit fors, 
Una aliqua nobis prosperitate, dii 
Hoc precor, ut faciant, faciant me cernere coram, 
Cor mihi captivum quae tenet hocce, deam." 



If all my mischiefs were recompensed. 
And God would give me what I reqiiested, 
I would my mistress' presence only seek, 
Which doth mine heart in prison captive keep. 



But who can reckon upon the dotage, madness, servitude and blindness, the 
foolish phantasms and vanities of lovers, their torments, wishes, idle attempts 1 
Yet for all this, amongst so many irksome, absurd, troublesome symptoms, 
inconveniences, phantastical fits and passionswhich are usually incident to such 
persons, there be some good and graceful qualities in lovers, which this affec- 
tion causeth. " As it makes wise men fools, so many times it makes fools 
become wise ; ® it makes base fellows become generous, cowards courageous," 
as Cardan notes out of Plutarch; covetous, liberal and magnificent j clowns, 



^Lod. Vertomannus, navig. lib. 2. c. 5. dens, hunc creasti sole candidiorem, e diverse me, et conjugem 
meum, et natos meos omnes nigricantes. Utinam hie, &c. Ibit Gazella, Tegeia, Galzerana, et promissis 
oneravit, et donis, &c. ^M D. a Hor. Ode 9. lib. 3. b Ov. Jlet. 10. ° Buchanan. Hendecasyl. 

dPetrarch. ^Cardan, lib. 2. de sap. ex vilibus generosos efficere solet, ex timidis audaces, ex avails splen- 
didos, ex agrestibus ci^lles, ex cradelibus mansuetos, ex impiis religiosos, ex sordidis nitidos atque cuitos, 
ex dui-is misericordes, ex mutis eloquentes. 



574 



Lorn-Melancholy, 



[Part. 3. Sec. 2. 



civil j cruel, gentle ; wicked profane persons to become religious ; slovens, 
neat ; churls, merciful ; and dumb dogs, eloquent ; your lazy drones, quick 
and nimble." Feras mentes domat cupido, that fierce, cruel, and rude Cyclops 
Polyphemus sighed, and shed many a salt tear for Galatea's sake. Ho passion 
causeth greater alterations, or more vehement of joy or discontent. Plutarch. 
Si/mpos. lib. 5. qucest. 1, ^saith, "that the soul of a man in love is full of 
perfumes and sweet odours, and all manner of pleasing tones and tunes, inso- 
much that it is hard to say (as he adds) whether love do mortal men more 
harm than good." It adds spirits and makes them, otherwise soft and silly, 
generous and courageous, ^Audacem faciebat amor. Ariadne's love made 
Theseus so adventurous, and Medea's beauty Jason so victorious; expectorat 
amor timorem. ^ Plato is of opinion that the love of Yenus made Mars so 
valorous. " A young man will be much abashed to commit any foul offence 
that shall come to the hearing or sight of his mistress." As ^ he that desired 
of his enemy now dying, to lay him with his face upward, ne amasius videret 
eum a tergo vainer atum, lest his sweetheart should say he was a coward, 
" And if it were ^ possible to have an army consist of lovers, such as love, or 
are beloved, they would be extraordinary valiant and wise in their government, 
modesty would detain them from doing amiss, emulation incite them to do that 
which is good and honest, and a few of them would overcome a great company 
of others." There is no man so pusillnaniraous, so very a dastard, whom love 
would not incense, make of a divine temper, and an heroical spirit. As he said 
in like case, ^Tota mat cceli moles, non terreor, (fee. Nothing can terrify, 
nothing can dismay them. But as Sir Blandimor and Paridel, those two brave 
fairy knights, fought for the love of fair Florimel in presence — 



' And (Irawinof both their swords with rage anew, 
Like two mad mastives eacli other slew. 
And shields did share, and males did rash, and helms 
So furiously each other did assail, [did hew: 

As if their souls at once they would have I'eut, 
Out of their breasts, that streaius of blood did trail 



Adown as if their springs of Ufe were spent. 
That all the ground with purple blood was sprent. 
And all their armour stained with bloody gore, 
Yet scarcely once to breathe woul.l they relent. 
So mortal was their malice and so soi'e, 
That both resolved (than yield) to die 



Every base swain in love will dare to do as mucli for his dear mistress' sake. 
He will fight and fetch ^ Argivum Clypeum, that fiimous buckler of Argos, to 
do her service, adventure at all, undertake any enterprise. And as Serranus 
the Spaniard, then Governor of Sluys, made answer to Marquis Spinola, if 
the enemy brought 50,000 devils agtiinst him he would keep it. The nine 
worthies, Oliver and Rowland, and forty dozen of peers are all in him, he is all 
mettle, armour of proof, more than a man, and in this case improved beyond 
himself. For as °Agatho contends, a true lover is wise, just, temperate, and 
valiant. " ^I doubt not, therefore, but if a man had such an army of lovers 
(as Castillo supposeth) he might soon conquer all the world, except by chance 
he met with such another army of inamoratos to oppose it." *^For so perhaps 
they might fight as that fatal dog and fatal hare in the heavens, course one 
another round, and never make an end. Castillo thinks Ferdinand King of 
Spain would never have conquered Granada, had not Queen Isabel and her 
ladies been present at the siege : " ^ It cannot be expressed what courage the 
Spanish knights took when the ladies were present, a few Spaniards overcame 
a multitude of Moors." They will undergo any danger whatsoever, as Sir 
Walter Manny in Edward the Third's time, stuck full of ladies' favours, fought 
like a dragon. For soli amantes, as ^ Plato holds^ pro amicis mori appetunt, 

f Anima hominis amore capti tota referta suffitibus et odoribus : Paeanes resonat, &c. ^ Ovid. h In 

convi-sdo : amor Veneris Martem detinet, et fortem facit ; adolescentem maxime erubescere cernimus quum 
amatrix eum turpe quid committentem ostendit. i Plutarch. Amator. dial. k Si quo pacto fieri 

civitas aut exercitus posset partim ex his qui amant, partim ex his, &c. 1 Angerianus. ™ Faerie Qa. 

lib. 4. cant. 2. ^ Zened. preverb. cont. 6. ° Plat, conviv. P Lib. 3. de Aulico. non dubito quin 

is qui talem exercitum haberet, totius orbis statim victor esset, nisi forte cum aliquo exercitu conrtigendum 
esset in quo omnes amatores essent. P Hyginus de cane et lepore coelesti, et decimator. ^" Vix dici 

potest quantam inde audaciam assuaaerent Hispani, Inde pauci infiiiitas Maui'orum copias superarunt, 
•Lib. 5. de legibus. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love. 575 

only lovers will die for their friends, and in their mistress' quarrel. And for 
that cause he would have women follow the camp, to be spectators and encou- 
ragers of noble actions : upon such an occasion, the * Squire of Dames himself, 
Sir Lancelot or Sir Tristram, Csesar, or Alexander, shall not be more resolute 
or go beyond them. 

Not courage only doth love add, but as I said, subtlety, wit, and many 
pretty devices, ^ Nobmque dolos insjnrat amo7', fraudesque ministrat, ^Jupiter 
in love with Leda, and not knowing how to compass his desire, turned himself 
into a swan, and got Venus to pursue him in the likeness of an eagle; which 
she doing, for shelter, he fled to Leda's lap, et in ejus gremio se collocavit, Leda 
embraced him, and so fell fast asleep, sed dormieritem Jupiter compressit, by 
which means Jupiter had his will. Infinite such tricks love can devise, such 
fine feasts in abundance, with wisdom and wariness, ^quis fallere possit aman- 
tem. All manner of civility, decency, compliment and good behaviour, plus 
salis et leporis, polite graces and merry conceits. Bocaccio hath a pleasant tale 
to this purpose, which he borrowed from the Greeks, and which Beroaldus 
hath turned into Latin, Bebelius in verse, of Cymon and Iphigenia. This 
Cymon was a fool, a proper man of person, and the governor of Cyprus' son, 
but a very ass, insomuch that his father being ashamed of him, sent him to a 
farm-house he had in the country, to be brought up. Where by chance, as his 
manner was, walking alone, he espied a gallant young gentlewoman, named 
Iphigenia, a burgomaster s daughter of Cyprus, with her maid, by a brook 
side in a little thicket, fast asleep in her smock, where she had newly bathed 
herself: " When ^ Cymon saw her, he stood leaning on his stafij gaping on 
her immoveable, and in amaze ;" at last he fell so far in love with the glorious 
object, that he began to rouse himself up, to bethink what he was, would needs 
fellow her to the city, and for her sake began to be civil, to learn to sing and 
dance, to play on instruments, and got all those gentlemanlike qualities and 
compliments in a short space, which his friends were most glad of In brief 
he became, from an idiot and a clown, to be one of the most complete gentle- 
men in Cyprus, did many valorous exploits, and all for the love of mi stress Iphi- 
genia. In a word, I may say thus much of them all, let them be never so 
clownish, rude and horrid, Grobians and sluts, if once they be in love they will 
be most neat and spruce; for, ^Omnibus rebus, et nitidis nitoribus antevenit 
amor, they will follow the fashion, begin to trick up, and to have a good 
opinion of themselves, venustatem enim onater Venus; a ship is not so long a 
figging as a young gentlev/oman a trimming up herself against her sweetheart 
comes. A painter's shop, a flowery meadow, no so gracious asj)ect in nature's 
storehouse as a young maid, nubilis puella, a Novitsa or Venetian bride, that 
looks for a husband, or a young man that is her suitor; composed looks, com- 
posed gait, clothes, gestures, actions, all composed ; all the graces, elegances 
in the world are in her face, Their best robes, ribands, chains, jewels, lawns, 
linens, laces, spangles, must come on, ^prceter quam res patitur stiident ele- 
gantice, they are beyond all measure coy, nice, and too curious on a sudden : 
'tis all their study, all their business, how to wear their clothes neat, to be 
polite and terse, and to set out themselves. ISTo sooner doth, a young man see 
his sweetheart coming, but he smugs up himself, pulls u^'his^loak now fallen 
about his shoulders, ties his garters, points, sets his band, cufis, slicks his 
hair, tvx^ires his beard, &c. When Mercury was to come before his mistress, 

"''Chlamydemque utpendeat apte I "He put his cloak in order, that the lace, 

CoUocat, ut limbus totumque appareat aurum." | And hem, and gold--work all might have his grace." 



t Spenser's Faerie Queens, 3. bo^k. cant. 8. u h j'ginus, 1.2. " For love both inspires us with stratagems, 
and suggests to us frauds." ^ Aratus in Ph^nom. yVirg. "Who can deceive a lover." ^Hanc 

ubi conspicatus est Cymon, baculo innixus, Immobilis stctit, et mirabmidus, &c. * Flautus, Casina, act %. 
sc. 4. b Plautus. c Ovid. Met. 2. 



676 Love-Melanchohj. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

Salmacis would not be seen of Hermaplu'oditus, till slie had spruced up 
herself first. 

" d Nectamen ante adiit, etsi properabat acVire, 1 "Nnr did she come, although 'twas her desire, 

Quamse composiiit, quam cii-eunispexit amictus,| Till she composed herself, and tvimm'd her tire, 
Et flnxlt vultum, et merait formosa videri." I And set her looks to make him to admire." 

Yenus had so ordered the matter, that when her son *^^neas was to appear 
before Queen Dido, he was 

" Os humevosqne deo similis fnamqne ipsa decoram 
Cassariem nato ge.iietrix, lumenque juventas 
Puvpureum et laitos ociilis afflarat honores.)" 

like a god, for she was the tire-woman herself, to set him out with all natural 
and artificial impostures. As mother Mammea did her son Heliogabalus, new 
chosen emperor, when he was to be seen of the people first. When the hirsute 
cyclopical Polyphemus courted Galatea; 



'f Jamque tibi forms, jamque est tibi cura placendi, 
Jam rigidos pectis raslris Polypheme capillos, 
Jam libet hirsutam tibi falce recidere bai'bani, 
Et spectare feros in aqua et componere vultus." 



And then he did begin to prank himself, 
To plait and comb his head, and beard to shave. 
And look his fiice i' th' water as a glass, 
And to compose himself for to be brave." 



He was upon a sudden now spruce and keen, as a new ground hatchet. He 
now began to have a good opinion of his own features and good parts, now 
to be a gallant. 



' Jam Galatea veni, nee munera despice nostra, 
Certfe ego me novi, liquidaque in imagine vidi 
Nuper aquae, placuitque milii mea forma videnti. 



"Come now, my Galatea, scorn me not, 
Nor my poor presents ; for but yesterday 
I saw my sell i' th' water, and nietli ought 
Full fair I was, then scorn me not I say." 
" S Non sum adeb infonnis, nuper me in littore vidi, 
Cum placidum ventis staret mare." 



'Tis the common humour of all suitors to trick up themselves, to be prodigal 
in appare], 'pure lotus, neat, combed, and curled, with powdered hair, comptus 
et calamistratus, with a long love-lock, a flower in his ear, perfumed gloves, 
rings, scarfs, feathers, points, &c. as if he were a prince's Ganymede, with 
every day new suits, as the fashion varies; going as if he trod upon eggs, and 
as Heinsius writ to Primierus, "^ if once he be Ijesotten on a wench, he must 
lie awake at nights, renounce his book, sigh and lament, now and then weep 
for his hard hap, and mark above all things what hats, bands, doublets, 
breeches, are in fashion, how to cut his beard, and wear his locks, to turn up 
his mustachios, and curl his head, prune his pickitivant, or if he w^ar it 
abroad, that the east side be correspondent to the west:" he may be scoffed at 
otherwise, as Julian that apostate emperor was for wearing a long hirsute 
goatish beard, fit to make ropes with, as in his Mysopogoue, or that apologeti- 
cal oration he made at Antioch to excuse himseJf, he doth ironically confess, it 
hindered his kissing, nmn non licuit inde pur a puris, eoque suaviorihus lahra 
labris adjungere, but he did not much esteem it, as it seems by the sequel, de 
accipiendis dandisve osculis non laboro, yet (to follow mine author) it may much 
concern a young lover, he must be more respectful in his behalf, " he must 
be in league with an excellent tailor, barber," 

" i Tonsorem puerum sed arte talem, 
Qualis nee Thalamis fuit Neronis ; " 

*' have neat shoe-ties, points, garters, speak in print, walk in print, eat and 
drink in print, and that which is all in all, he must be mad in print. " 

Amongst other good qualities an amorous fellow is endowed with, he must 
learn to sing and dance, play upon some instrument or other, as without all 
doubt he will, if he be truly touched with this loadstone of love. For as 

dOvid. Met. 4. ^ virg. 1. ^n. " He resembled a god as to his head and shoulders, for his mother had 

made his hair seem beautiful, bestowed upon him the lovely bloom of youth, and given the happiest lustre to 
his eyes." f Ovid. Met. 13. S Virg. E. 1. 2. " I am not so defoimed, I lately saw myself in the tranquil 
glassy sea, as I stood upon the shore." h Epist. An uxorliterato sit ducenda. Noctes insomnes tradu- 

cend£e. Uteris renuiiciandum, faepe gemendum, nonnunquam et iUacrymandum sorti et conditioni tuas. 
Videndum quae vestes, quis cultus te deceat, quis in usu sit, utrum latus barbas, &c. Cum cura loquendum, 
incedendum, bibendum et cum cura insaniendum. iMartEpig. 5. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love. 577 

^ Erasmus hath it, Musicam docet amor et Poesin, love will make them musi- 
cians, and to compose ditties, madrigals, elegies, love sonnets, and sing them 
to several pretty tunes, to get all good qualities may be had. ^Jupiter per- 
ceived Mercury to be in love with Philologia, because he learned languages, 
polite speech (for Suadela herself was Venus' daughter, as some wiite), arts 
and sciences, qiio virgini placeret^ all to ingratiate himself, and please his 
mistress. 'Tis their chiefest study to sing, dance; and without question, so 
many gentlemen and gentlewomen would not be so well qualified in this kind, 
if love did not incite them. " °^ Who," saith Castillo, " would learn to play, 
or give his mind to music, learn to dance, or make so many rhymes, love- 
songs, as most do, but for women's sake, because they hope by that means to 
purchase their good wills, and win their favour ? " We see this daily verified 
in our young women and wives, they that being maids took so much pains to 
sing, play, and dance, with such cost and charge to their parents, to get those 
graceful qualities, now being married will scarce touch an instrument, they 
care not for it. Oonstantine agricult. lib. 11. cap. 18, makes Cupid himself 
to be a great dancer; by the same token that he was capering amongst the 
gods, " ^Uie flung doTVTi a bowl of nectar, which distilling upon the white rose, 
ever since made it red:" and Calistratus, by the help of Dsedalus, about 
Cupid's statue °made a many of young wenches still a dancing, to signify 
belike that Cupid was much afifected with it, as without all doubt he was. For 
at his and Psyche's wedding, the gods being present to grace the feast, Gany- 
mede filled nectar in abundance (as ^Apuleius describes it), Yulcan was the 
cook, the Hours made all fine with roses and flowers, Apollo played on the 
harp, the Muses sang to it, sed suavi Musicce super ingressa Venus saltavit, but 
his mother Venus danced to his and their sweet content. Witty ^^ Lucian in 
that pathetical love passage, or pleasant description of Jupiter's stealmg of 
Europa, and swimming from Phoenicia to Crete, makes the sea calm, the winds 
hush, Neptune and Amphitrite riding in their chariot to break the waves 
before them, the tritons dancing round about, with every one a torch, the sea- 
nymphs half-naked, keeping time on dolphins' backs, and singing Hymeneus, 
Cupid nimbly tripping on the top of the waters, and Venus herself coming 
after in a shell, strewing roses and flowers on their heads. Praxiteles, in all 
his pictures of love, feigns Cupid ever smiling, and looking upon dancers ; and 
in Saint Mark's in Pome (whose work I know not), one of the most delicious 
pieces, is a many of ^'satyrs dancing about a wench asleep. So that dancing 
still is as it were a necessary appendix to love matters. Young lasses are 
never better pleased than when as upon a holiday, after evensong, they may 
meet their sweethearts, and dance about a maypole, or in a town-green under 
a shady elm." Nothing so familiar in ^France, as for citizens' wives and maids 
to dance a round in the streets, and often too, for want of better instruments, 
to make good music of their own voices, and dance after it. Yea many times 
this love will make old men and women that have more toes than teeth, 

dance, "John, come kiss me now," mask and mum; for Comus and 

Hymen love masks, and all such merriments above measure, will allow men to 
put on women's apparel in some cases, and promiscuously to dance, young and 
old, rich and poor, generous and base, of all sorts. Paulus Jovius taxeth 
Augustine Niphus the philosopher, " *for that being an old man and a public 

_k Chil. 4. cent. 5. pro. 16. 1 Martianus Capella, lib. 1. de nupt. philol. Jam ilium sentio amore teneri, 
ejusque studio plures habere comparatas in faojulitio disciplinas, &c. "^Lib. 3. de aulico. Quis choreis 
insudaret, nisi fominarum causa? Quis musicsE tantam navaret operam nisi quod illius dulcedine per- 
mulcere speret? Quis tot carmina componeret, nisi ut inde affectus suos in mi^lieres explicaret? '^ Cra- 
tereni nectaris evertit saltans apud Deos, qui in tt-rram cadens, rosam prius albam rubore infecit. ^ Puellas 
choreantes circa juvenilem Cupidinis statuam fecit. Philostrat. Imag. lib. 3. de statuis. Exercitium amori 
aptissimum. PLib6. Met. iTom. 4. i^Kornman de cur. mort. part. 5. cap. 28. Sat. puellse 

(lormienti insultantium, &c. ^ View of Fr. t Vita ejus. Puellte amore septuagenarius senex usque ad 
insaniam correptus, niultis liberis susceptis : multi uon sine pudore conspexerunt senem et philosophum 
podagricum, non sine risu saltantera ad tibise modes. 

2p 



578 



■Melancholy. 



[Part. 3. Sec. 2. 



professor, a father of many cliildren, lie was so mad for the love of a young 
maid (that which many of his friends were ashamed to see), an old gouty 
fellow, yet would dance after fiddlers." Many laughed him to scorn for it, 
but this omnipotent love would have it so. 



" ^ Hyacinthino bacillo 

Propsrans amor, me adegit 
Violenter ad seqaendum." 



" Love hasty with his purple staff did make 
Me follow and the dance to undertake." 



And 'tis no news this, no indecorum; for why? a good reason may be given 
of it. Cupid and death meet both in an inn ; and being merrily disposed, they 
did exchange some arrows from either quiver ; ever since young men die, and 

oftentimes old men dote ^Sic moritur Juvenis, sic moribundus amat. And 

who can then withstand it? If once we be in love, young or old, though our 
teeth shake in our heads like virginal jacks, or stand parallel asunder like the 
arches of a bridge, there is no remedy, we must dance trenchmore for a need, 
over tables, chairs, and stools, &c. And Princum Prancum is a fine dance. Plu- 
tarch, Sympos. 1. qucest. 5, doth in some sort excuse it, and telleth us moreover 
in what sense, Musicam docet amor^ licet priusfuerit rudis, how love makes them 
that had no skill before learn to sing and dance; he concludes, 'tis only that 
power and prerogative love hath over us. " ^Love (as he holds) will make a 
silent man speak, a modest man most officious ; dull, quick ; slow, nimble ; 
and that which is most to be admired, a hard, base, untractable churl, as fire 
doth iron in a smith's forge, free, facile, gentle and easy to be entreated." 
Nay, 'twill make him prodigal in the other extreme, and give a ^hundred 
sesterces for a uight's lodging, as they did of old to Lais of Corinth, or 
^ditcenta drachmariim millia pro unicd node, as Mimdus to Paulina, spend all 
his fortunes (as too many do in like case) to obtain his suit. For which cause 
many compare love to wine, which makes men jovial and merry, frolic and 
sad, whine, sing, dance, and what not. 

But above all the other symptoms of lovers, this is not lightly to be over- 
passed, that likely of what condition soever, if once they be in love, they turn 
to their ability, rhymers, ballad-makers and poets. For as Plutarch saitli, 
" ''They will be witnesses and trumpeters of their paramours' good parts, be- 
decking them with verses and commendatory songs, as we do statues with gold, 
that they may be remembered and admired of all." Ancient men will dote in 
this kind sometimes as well as the rest ; the heat of love will thaw their frozen 
affections, dissolve the ice of age, and so far enable them, though they be sixty 
years of age above the girdle, to be scarce thirty beneath. Jovianus Pontanus 
makes an old fool rhyme, and turn Poetaster to please his mistress. 



*' ^^ Ne ringas Mariana, meos ne despice canes, 
De sene nam juvenem dia refen-e potes," &c. 



"Sweet Marian do not mine age disdain, 
For thou canst make an old man young again." 



They will be still singing amorous songs and ditties (if young especially), and' 
cannot abstain though it be when they go to, or should be at church. We 
have a pretty story to this purpose in ^Westmonasteriensis an old writer of 
ours (if you will believe it) An. Dom. 1012. at Colewiz in Saxony, on Christ- 
mas eve a company of young men and maids, whilst the priest was at mass in 
the church, v/ere singing catches and love songs in the churchyard, he sent to 
them to make less noise, but they sung on still : and if you will, you shall 
have the very song itself 



"Equitahat homo per sylvam frondosam, 
Ducebatque secum Meswinden formosam, 
Quid stamus, cur non imus ? " 



" A fellow rid by the greenwood side, 
And fair Meswinde was his bride, 

Why stand we so, and do not go ? ' 



" Anacreon. Carm. 7. ^ Joach. Bellius, Epig. " Thus youth dies, thus in death he loves." _ y r>e 

taciturno loquacem facit, et de verecundo officiosum reddit, denegligenteindustrium, desocordeimpigruni. 
2 Josephus, antiq. Jud. lib. 18. cap. 4. ^ Gellius, 1. 1. cap. 8. Pretium noctis centum sesterlia. b lp4 
enim volunt suarum areasiarum pulchritudinis praecones ac testes esse, eas laudibus, et cantilenis et versibus 
exornare, ut auro statuas, ut memorentur, et ab omnibus admirentur. ^ Tom. 2. Ant. Dialogo. 

d Flores hist. fol. 2ii8. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Love. 579 

This they sung, he chaft, till at length, impatient as he was, he prayed to St. 
Magnus, patron of the church, they might all three sing and dance till that 
time twelvemonth, and so ^they did without meat and drink, wearisomeness or 
giving over, till at year's end they ceased singing, and were absolved by Here- 
bertus archbishop of Cologne. They will in all places be doing thus, young 
folks especially, reading love stories, talking of this or that young man, such a 
fair maid, singing, telling or hearing lascivious tales, scurrilous tunes, such 
objects are their sole delight, their continual meditation, and as Guastavinius 
adds. Com. in 4. Sect. 27. Prov. Arist. oh seminis ahundantiam crehrce cogita- 
tiones, veneris frequens recordatio et pruriens voluptas, &c. an earnest longing 
comes hence, pruriens coiyus, pruriens anima, amorous conceits, tickling 
thoughts, sweet and pleasant thoughts; hence it is, they can think, discourse 
willingly, or speak almost of no other subject. 'Tis their only desire, if it may 
be done by art, to see their husband's picture in a glass, they'll give anything 
to know when they shall be married, how many husbands they shall have, by 
cromnyomantia, a kind of divination with ^onions laid on the altar on Christmas 
eve, or by fasting on St. Anne's eve or night, to know who shall be their first 
husband, or by amphitomantia, by beans in a cake, &c., to burn the same. 
This love is the cause of all good conceits, ^neatness, exornations, plays, 
elegancies, delights, pleasant expressions, sweet motions, and gestures, joys, 
comforts, exultancies, and all the sweetness of our life, ^qualis jam vita foret, 
aut quid jucundi sine aured Venere] ^Emoriar cum istd non atnplius mihi 
curafuerit, let me live no longer than I may love, saith a mad merry fellow in 
Mimnermus. This love is that salt that seasoneth our harsh and dull labours, 
and gives a pleasant relish to our other unsavoury proceedings, ^Ahsit amor, 
surgunt tenebrce, torpedo, veternum, pestis, &c. All our feasts almost, masques, 
mummings, banquets, merry meetings, weddings, pleasing songs, fine tunes, 
poems, love stories, plays, comedies, attelans, jigs, fescenines, elegies, odes, 
&c. proceed hence. ^Danaus, the son of Belus, at his daughter's wedding at 
Argos, instituted the first plays (some say) that ever were heard of symbols, 
emblems, impresses, devices, if we shall believe Jovius, Contiles, Paradine, 
Camillus de Camillis, may be ascribed to it. Most of our arts and sciences, 
painting amongst the rest, was first invented, saith ^Patritius ex amoris bene- 
Jicio, for love's sake. For when the daughter of '^ Deburiades the Sycionian, 
was to take leave of her sweetheart now going to wars, ut desiderio ejus minus 
tabesceret, to comfort herself in his absence, she took his picture with coal upon 
a wall, as the candle gave the shadow, which her father admiring, perfected 
afterwards, and it was the first picture by report that ever was made. And 
long after, Sycion for painting, carving, statuary, music, and philosophy, was 
preferred before all the cities in Greece. °Apollo was the first inventor of 
physic, divination, oracles ; Minerva found out weaving, Yulcan curious iron- 
work. Mercury letters, but who prompted all this into their heads ? Love, 
Nunquam talia invenissent, nisi talia adamdssent, they loved such things, or 
some party, for whose sake they were undertaken at first. 'Tis true, Yulcan 
made a most admirable brooch or necklace, which long after Axion and 
Temenus, Phegius' sons, for the singular worth of it, consecrated to Apollo, 
at Delphos,but Pharyllusthe tyrant stole it away, and presented it to Ariston's 
wife, on whom he miserably doted (Parthenius tells the story out of Phylar- 
chus) ; but why did Yulcan make this excellent Ouch 1 to give Hermione 
Cadmus' wife, whom he dearly loved. All our tilts and tournaments, orders of 

® Per totum anmim cantarunt, plnvia super illos non cecidit; non fripus, non calor, non sitis, nee lassitude 
illos affecit, &c. f His eorura nomina inscriMntur de quibus quisrunt. s Huic munditias, ornatura, 
le- orem, delicias, ludos, elegantiam, omnem deniqne vit£e suavitatem debemus. t Ilyginus, cap. 272. 

i E Gra'co. k Angerianus. 1 Lib. 4. tit. 11. de prin. instit. "^ Plin. lil). 35. cap. 12. ^ Gerbelius, 
1. 6. descript. Gr. '' transus, 1. 3. de symbolis : qui primus symbolum excogitavit voluit nimii'um hac 

ratione implicatum aniinum evolvere, eumque vel dominse vel aliis intueutibus ostendere. 



580 Love-Melanchohj. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

the garter, golden fleece, &c. — Nobilitas sub amove jacet owe tlieir begin- 
nings to love, and many of our histories. By this means, saith Jovius, they 
would express their loving minds to their mistress, and to the beholders. 'Tis 
the sole subject almost of poetry, all our invention tends to it, all our songs, 
whatever those old Anacreons (and therefore Hesiod makes the Muses and 
Graces still follow Cupid, and as Plutarch holds, Menander and the rest of the 
poets were love's priests) : all our Greek and Latin epigrammatists, love writers. 
Antony Diogens the most ancient, Avhose epitome we find in Phocius Biblio- 
theca, Longus Sophista, Eustathius, Achilles Tatius, Aristeenetus, Heliodorus, 
Plato, Plutarch, Lucian, Parthenius, Theodorus, Prodromus, Ovid, Catullus, 
Tibullus, &c. Our new Ariostos, Boyards, Authors of Arcadia, Urania, Faerie 
Queene, &c. Marullus, Leotichius, Angerianus, Stroza, Secundus, Capellanus, 
&c. with the rest of those facete modern poets, have written in this kind, are 
but as so many symptoms of love. Their whole books are a synopsis or 
breviary of love, the portuous of love, legends of lovers' lives and deaths, and of 
their memorable adventures, nay more, quod leguntur, quod laudantur amori 
debent, as ^ Nevisanus the lawyer holds, " there never was any excellent poet 
that invented good fables, or made laudable verses, which was not in love him- 
self ;" had he not taken a quill from Cupid's wings, he could never have written 
so amorously as he did. 



" Wanton Propertius and witty Gallus, 
Subtile Tibullus, and learned Catullus, 
It was Cynthia, Lesbia, Lychoris, 
That made you poets all; and if Alexis, 
Or Corinna chance my paramour to be. 
Virffil and Ovid shall not despise me." 



*' ^Cynthia te vatem fecit, lascive Properti, 
Ingenium Galli pulchra Lycoris habet. 
Fama est arguti Nemesis formosa Tibulli, 

Lesbia dictavit, docte Catulle, tibi. 
Non me Pelignus, nee spernet Mantua vatem. 
Si qua Corinna mihi, si quis Alexis erit." 

" ^ Non me carminibus vincet nee Thraceus Orpheus, 
Nee Linus." 

Petrarch's Laura made him so ftimous, Astrophel's Stella, and Jbvianus Pon- 
tanus' mistress was the cause of his roses, violets, lilies, nequitise, blanditise, 
joci, decor, nardus, ver, corolla, thus. Mars, Pallas, Yenus, Charis, crocum, 
Laurus, unguentum, costum, lachrymae, myrrha, musse, &c. and the rest of 
his poems ; why are Italians at this day generally so good poets and painters 1 
Because every man of any fashion amongst them hath his mistress. The very 
rustics and hog-rubbers, Menalcas and Corydon, quifoetent de stercore equina, 
those fulsome knaves, if once they taste of this love-liquor, are inspired in an 
instant. Instead of those accurate emblems, curious impresses, gaudy masques, 
tilts, tournaments, &c., they have their wakes, Whit sun-ales, shepherd's 
feasts, meetings on holidays, country dances, roundelays, writing their names 
on ^ trees, true lover's knots, pretty gifts. 

" With tokens, hearts divided, and half rings, 
Shepherds in their loves are as coy as kings." 

Choosing lords, ladies, kings, queens, and valentines, &c., they go by couples," 

" Corydon's Phlllis, Nysa and Mopsus, 
With dainty Dousibel and Sir Tophus." 

Instead of odes, epigrams and elegies, &c., they have their ballads, country 
tunes, " O the broom, the bonny, bonny broom," ditties and songs, " Bess a 
belle, she doth excel," — they must write likewise and indite all in rhyme. 



'' t Thou honeysuckle of the hawthorn hedge, 
Vouchsafe in Cupid's cup my heart to pledge; 
My heart's dear blood, sweet Cis, is thy carouse 
Worth all the ale in Gammer Gubbin's house." 
I say no more, affairs call me away. 
My father's horse far provender doth stay. 



Be thou the Lady Cressetlight to me, 
Sir Trolly Lolly will I prove to thee. 
Written in haste, farewell my cowslip sweet. 
Pray let's a Sunday at the alehouse meet." 



Your most grim stoics and severe philosophers will melt away with this pas- 

P Lib. 4. num. 102, sylvse nuptialis poetje non inveniunt fabulas, aut versus laudatos faciunt, nisi qui ab 
aniore fuerint excitati. 1 Martial, ep. 73. lib. •). ^ Virg. Eclog. 4. "None shall excel me in poetry, 
Tieitlier tiie Tliracian Orpheus, nor Apollo." ^ Teneris arboribus amicariun nomina inscribentes ut simul 
crescaut. Heed. t S. H. 1600. • 



Mem. 4.] Cure of Love-Melancholij, 581 

sion, and if ^Athenens belie them not, Ari.stipi3us, Apollidonis, Antiplianes, 
&c., liave made love-songs and commentaries of their mistress' praises, '"^orators 
write epistles, princes give titles, honours, what not? •^Xerxes gave to The- 
mistocles Lampsacus to find him wine. Magnesia for bread, and IMyunte for the 
rest of his diet. The ^Persian kings allotted whole cities to like use, licec 
civitas mulieri redimicidum prcBbeat, hcec in colluin, hcBC in crines, one whole 
city served to dress her hair, another her neck, a third her hood. Ahasuerus 
would ^'^have given Esther half his empire, and ^ Herod bid Herodias "ask 
what she would, she should have it." Caligula gave 100,000 sesterces to his 
courtezan at first word, to buy her pins, and yet when he was solicited by the 
senate to bestow something to repair the decayed walls of Rome for the com- 
monwealth's good, he would give but 6000 sesterces at most. ^Dionysius, 
that Sicilian tyrant, rejected all his privy councillors, and was so besotted on 
Mirrha his favourite and mistress, that he would bestow no office, or in the 
most weightiest business of the kingdom do aught without her especial advice, 
prefer, depose, send, entertain no man, though worthy and well-deserving, but 
by her consent ; and he again whom she commended, howsoever unfit, un- 
worthy, was as highly approved. Kings and emperors, instead of jDoems, build 
cities; Adrian built Antinoa in Egypt, besides constellations, temples, altars, 
statues, images, &c., in the honour of his Antinous, Alexander bestowed 
infinite sums to set out his Hej^hestion to all eternity. ^Socrates professeth 
himself love's servant, ignorant in all arts and sciences, a doctor alone in love 
matters, et quum ulienarum rerum omnium scientiam. diffiteretur, saith ®Max- 
imus Tyrius, his sectator, hujus negotii professor, &c., and this he spake openly, 
at home and abroad, at public feasts, in the academy, in Pyrceo, Lycceo, sub 
Plafafio, (kc, the very blood-hound of beauty, as he is styled by others. But 
I conclude there is no end of love's symptoms, 'tis a bottomless pit. Love is 
subject to no dimensions; not to be surveyed by any art or engine: and 
besides, I am of ^Hsedus' mind, " no man can discourse of love matters, or 
judge of them aright, that hath not made trial in his own person," or as ^neas 
Sylvius ^adds, " hath not a little doted, been ma,d or love-sick himself. I con- 
fess I am but a novice, a contemplator only, Nescio quid sit amor nee amo^ 

I have a tincture; for why should I lie, dissemble or excuse it, jet homo sum 
(fee, not altogether iuexpert in this subject, non sum prceceptor amandi, and 
what I say is merely reading, ex aliorumforsan ineptiis, by mine own obser- 
vation, and others' relation. 



MEMB. lY. 
Prognostics of Love-Melancholy. 



"What fires, torments, cares, jealousies, suspicions, fears, griefs, anxieties, 
accompany such as are in love, I have sufficiently said : the next question is, 
what will be the event of such mii^eries, what they foretel. Some are of opi- 
nion that this love cannot be cured, Nullis amor est mcdicabilis herbis, it 
accompanies them to the ^ last, /<iem amor exitio est pecori pecorisque magistro.^ 
" The same passion consumes both the sheep and the shejDherd," and is so 
continuate, that by no persuasion almost it may be relieved. " ^Bid me not 

" Lib. 13. cap. Dipnosophist. ^ See Putean. epist. 33. de sua Margareta Beroaldus. &c. J"Hen. Staph, 
apol. pro Herod. '^ Tally, orat.4. Verr. * Esth. v. b Mat. 1. 47. ° Gravissimis regni negotiis nihil sine 
amasise su« consensu fecit, omnesque actiones suas scortillo communicavit, tfec. Xich. Bellus. discours. '26. de 
amat. d Amons famulus omnem scientiam difBtetur, amandi tamen se scientissimum doctorem agnoscit. 
^Serra. 8. f Quis horum scribere molestias potest, nisi qai et is aliquantum insanit? s jib. i. de con- 
temnendis amoribus ; opinor hac de re neminem aut disceptare recto posse aut judicare qui non in ea versatur, 
aut magnum fecerit periculura. h " I ani not in love, nor do I know what love may be." i Semper moritur, 
nunquam mortuus est qui amat. ^n. Sylv. 1 Eui'ial. ep. ad Lucretiom, apud J£neam Sylvium : Rogas ut 
aniare defieiam ? voga montes ut in planum deveniaut, ut fontes flamina repetant : tarn possum te non 
aiuare ac suum rhu;bus reliuquere cm-sum. 



582 Love-MelancJioly. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

love," said Euryahis, "bid the mountains come down into the plains, bid the 
rivers run back to their fountains ; I can as soon leave to love, as the sun leave 
his course;" 

" ^ Et prius {Bquoribus pisces, et montibus umbr^, ]" First seas shall want their fish, the mountains shade, 
Et volucres deenint sylvis, et murmura ventis, Woods singing birds, the wind's murmur shall fade, 

Quam mihi discedent formosee Amaryllidis ignes."! Than my fair Amaryllis' love allay'd." 

Bid me not love, bid a deaf man hear, a blind man see, a dumb speak, lame 
run, counsel can do no good, a sick man cannot relish, no physic can ease me. 
Non prosunt domino qucB prosunt omnibus artes. As Apollo confessed, and 
Jupiter himself could not be cured. 

" i^Omnes humanos curat medicina dolores, I *' Physic can soon cure every disease, 
Solus amor morbi non habet artiflcem." | ® Excepting love, that can it not appease." 

But whether love may be cured or no, and by what means, shall be explained 
in his place ; in the mean time, if it take his course, and be not otherwise eased 
or amended, it breaks out into outrageous often and prodigious events. Amor 
et Liber violenti dii sunt, as ^^Tatius observes, et eousque animum incendunt, 
ut pudoris oblimsci cogant, Love and Bacchus are so violent gods, so furiously 
rage in our minds, that they make us forget all honesty, shame, and common 
civility. For such men ordinarily, as are thoroiiglily possessed with this 
humour, become inse/isati et iiisar^i, for it is ^ainor insanus, as the poet 
calls it, beside themselves, and as I have proved, no better than beasts, irra- 
tional, stupid, head-strong, void of fear of God or men, they frequently for- 
swear themselves, spend, steal, commit incests, rapes, adulteries, murders, 
depopulate towns, cities, countries, to satisfy their lust. 

" ^ A devil 'tis, and mischief such doth work, 
As never yet did Pagan, Jew, or Turk." 

The wars of Troy may be a sufficient witness ; and as Appian, lib. 5. hist, saith 
of Antony and Cleopatra, " ^ Their love brought themselves and alh Egypt into 
extreme and miserable calamities," " the end of her is as bitter as worm-wood, 
and as sharp as a two-edged sword," Prov. v. 4, 5. " Her feet go down to death 
her steps lead on to hell. She is more bitter than death, (Eccles. vii. 2^.) and 
the sinner shall betaken by her." ^ Qui in awore prcBcipitavit, pejus perit 
quam qui saxo salit. " '^He that runs headlong from the top of a rock is not 
in so bad a case as he that falls into this gulf of love." " For hence," saith 
^Platina, " comes repentance, dotage, they lose themselves, their wits, and 
make shipwreck of their fortunes altogether :" madness, to make away them- 
selves and others, violent death. Prognosticatio est talis, saith Gordonius, ^si 
non succurratur iis, ant m maniam cadunt, aut moriuntur; the prognostica- 
tion is, they will either run mad, or die. " For if this passion continue," saith 
^a^lian Montaltus, ''it makes the blood hot, thick, and black; and if the 
inflammation get into the brain, with continual meditation and waking, it so 
dries it up, that madness follows, or else they make away themselves," ^ Cory- 
don, Cory don, quce te dementia cepit? Now, as Arnoldus adds, it will speedily 
work these effects, if it be not presently helped; " ^They will pine away, run 
mad, and die upon a sudden ; " Facile incidunt in maniam.^ saith Valescus, 
quickly mad, nisi succurratur, if good order be not taken, 

" <' Eheu triste jugum quisquis amoris habet, | " Oh heavy yoke of love, which whoso bears, 
Is prius ac norit se periisse perit." | Is quite undone, and that at unawares." 

*" Buchanan, Syl. "^ Propert. lib. 2. eleg. I. ® Est orcus ilia vis, est immedicabilis, res rabies insana. 
P Lib. 2. *l Virg. Eel. 3. ^ R. T. ^ Qui quidem amor utvosque et totam Egyptum extremis calamitatibus 
involvit. tpiauius. "Ut corpus pondere, sic animus amore prsecipitatur. Austin. 1. 2. de civ, dei. c. 28. 
^ Dial, hinc oritur poenitentia, desperatio, et non vident ingenium se ciim re simul amisisse. y Idem 

Savanarola, et plures alii, &c. Rabidam facturus Orexin. Juven. ^Cap. de Heroico Amore. Haec passio 
durans sanguinem torridum et atrabiliarum reddit; hie vero ad cerebrum delatus insaniara parat, vigilia 
et crebro desiderio exsiccans. ^Virg. Egi. 2. "Oli ( orydon, Corydon ! what madness possesses 

you ? ■' b Insani fiunt aut sibi ipsis desperaiites mortem aftcrunt. Languentes cito mortem aut maniam 
patiuntur. <^ Calcagninus. 



Mem. 4.] Cure of Lovc-Mdancholy. 583 

So slie confessed of herself in the poet, 

-" d Insaniam priusquam qi;is sentiate, I " I shall be mad before it be perceived, 



Vix pili intervallo a furore absum." | A hair-breadth ofl' scarce am I, now distracted." 

As mad as Orlando for his Angelica, or Hercules for his Hylas, 

" At ille ruebat quo pedes ducebant, fiiribundus, j " He went he car'd not whither, mad he was, 
Nana illi ssevus Deus intus jecur laniabat." | The cruel God so tortur'd him, alas !" 

At the sight of Hero I cannot tell how many ran mad, 

" ^Alius vulnus celans insanit pulchritudiire puellse.' I " And Avhilst he doth conceal his arief, 

I Madness comes on him like a thief." 

Go to bedlam for examples. It is so well known in every village, how many 
have either died for love, or voluntary made away themselves, that I need not 
much labour to prove it : ^ Nee 7nodiis aut requies nisi mors reperitur amoris: 
death is tlie common catastrophe to such persons. 

" S Mori mihi contincat, non enim alia I " Would I were dead I for nought, God knows, 

Liberatio ab £Erumnis fuerit ullo pacto istis." I But death can rid me of these woes." 

As soon as Euryalus departed from Senes, Lucretia, his paramour, " never 
looked up, no jest could exhilarate her sad mind, no joys comfort her wounded 
and distressed soul, but a little after she fell sick and died." But this is a 
gentle end, a natural death, such persons commonly make away themselves. 

"proprioque in sanguine laitus, 

Indignantem animam vacuas effudit in am-as ; " 

SO did Dido; Sed inoriamur ait, sic sic juvat ire per umbras ;^ Pyramusand 
Thisbe, Medea, ^Coresusand Callirhoe, ^Thea^gines the philosopher, and many 
myriads besides, and so will ever do, 



• 1 et mihi fort's I " Whoever heard a story of more woe, 



Est manuSj est et amor, dabit hie in vulnera vires." \ Than that of Juliet and her liomeo ? ' 

Head Parthenium in Eroticis, and Plutarch's amatorias narrationes, or love 
stories, all tending almost to this purpose. Yalleriola, lib. 2. observ. 7, hath a 
la,mentable narration of a merchant, his patient, "°^that raving through impa- 
tience of love, had he not been watched, would every while have offered violence 
to himself." Amatus Lucitanus, cent. 3. car. 56, hath such "^ another story, and 
Pelix Plater, med. observ. lib. 1. a third of a young gentleman that studied 
physic, and for the love of a doctor's daughter, having no hope to compass 
his desire, poisoned himself. ^Anno 1615, a barber in Frankfort, because his 
wench was betrothed to another, cut his own tliroat. ^At JSTeoburg, the same 
year, a young man, because he could not get her parents' consent, killed his 
sweetheart, and afterwards himself, desiring this of the magistrate, as he gave 
up the ghost, that they might be buried in one grave, Quodque regis superest 
una requiescal in urnd, which ^Gismunda besought of Tancredus, her father, 
that she might be in like sort buried with Guiscardus, her lover, that so their 
bodies might lie together in the grave, as their souls wander about ® Campos 

lugentes in the Elysian fields, quos durus amor crudeli tabe peredit,^ in a 

myrtle grove 

" et myrtea circrnn 

Sylva tegit : curas non ipsa iu morte relinquunt." 

YoM have not yet heard the worst, they do not offer violence to themselves in 
this rage of lust but unto others, their nearest and dearest friends. ^Catiline 
killed his only son, inisitque ad orci pallida, lethi ohnubila, obsita tenebris loca, 

dLucianlmag. So for Lucian's mistress, all that saw her and could not enjoy her, ran mad, or hanged 
themselves. ^Mus^us. f Ovid Met. 10. Jineas Syhius. Ad ejus decessum nunquam visa Lucretia 

ridere, nullis facetiis, jocis, nuUo gaudio potuit ad Isetitiam renovari, mox in tegritudinem incidit, et sicbrevi 
contabuit. SAnacreon. h " But let me die, she says, thus ; thus it is better to descend to the shades." 

iPausanias Achaicis, 1. 7. kMegarensis amore flagrans, Lucian. Tom. 4. lOvid. 3. met. ™Furi- 

bundus putavit se videre imaginem puell^, et coram loqui blandiens illi, &c. Ji Juven. Hebrseus. 

® Juvenis Medicinse operam dans doctoris fiUam deperibat, &c. P Gotardus Arthus Gallobelgicus, nund. • 

vernaL 161-5. collum novacula aperuit, et inde exphavit. ICum renuente parente utroqu^e et ipsa virgine 
fruL non posset, ipsum et ipsam interfecit, hoc a magistratu petens, ut in eodem sepulchro sepeliri possent. 
^ Bocaccio. » gedes eorum qui pro amoris impatientia pereunt, Yirg. 6. ^neid. t " Whom cruel love 

Avith its wasting power destroyed." ^ i * ^jj^ ^ myrtle grove overshadow thee : nor do cares relinquisU 

thee even in death itself." ^ SaL VaL 



584 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

for the love of Aurelia Oristella, quod ejus nuptias vivofilio recusaref. ^Lao- 
dice, the sister of Mithridates, poisoned her husband, to give consent to a base 
fellow whom she loved. ^ Alexander, to please Thais, a concubine of his, set 
Persepolis on fire. ^Nereus' wife, a widow, and lady of Athens, for the love 
of a Venetian gentleman, betrayed the city; and he for her sake, murdered his 
wife, the daughter of a nobleman in Venice. ^Constantine Despota made away 
Catherine, his wife, turned his son Michael and his other children out of doors, 
for the love of a base scrivener's daughter in Thessalonica, with whose beauty 
he was enamoured. ^Leucophria betrayed the city where she dwelt, for her 
sweetheart's sake, that was in the enemies' camp. ^Pithidice, the governor's 
daughter of Methinia, for the love of Achilles, betrayed the whole island to 
him, her father's enemy. ^Diognetus did as much in the city where he dwelt, 
for the love of Policrita, Medea for the love of Jason, she taught him how to 
tame the fire-breathing brass-feeted bulls, and kill the mighty dragon that 
kept the golden fleece, and tore her little brother Absyrtus in pieces, that her 
father ^thes might have something to detain him, while she ran away with 
her beloved Jason, &c. Such acts and scenes hath this tragi-comedy of love. 



MEMB. Y. 

SuBSECT. I. — Cure of Love-Melancholy^ by Labour, Diet, Physic, Fasting, 8^c, 

Although it be controverted by some, whether love-melancholy may be 
cured, because it is so irresistible and violent a passion; for as you know, 

f facilis descensus Averni ; I " It is an easy passage do^vn to hell, 



Scd revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras; But to come back, once there, you cannot well." 

Hie lahor, hoc opus est." 1 

Yet without question, if it be taken in time, it may be helped, and by many 
good remedies amended, Avicenna, lib. 3. Fen. cap. 23. et 24. sets down 
seven compendious ways how this malady may be eased, altered, and expelled* 
Savanarola 9. principal observations, Jason Prateusis prescribes eight rules 
besides physic, how this passion may be tamed, Laurentius 2. main precepts, 
Arnoldus, Yalleriola, Montaltus, Hildesheim, Langius, and others inform us 
otherwise, and yet all tending to the same purpose. The sum of which I will 
briefly epitomise (for I light my candle from their torches), and enlarge again 
upon occasion, as shall seem best to me, and that after mine own method. The 
first rule to be observed in this stubborn and unbridled passion, is exercise and 
'diet. It is an old and well-known sentence. Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus 
(love grows cool without bread and wine). As an ^idle sedentary life, liberal 
feeding, are great causes of it, so the opposite, labour, slender and sparing diet, 
with continual business, are the best and most ordinary means to prevent it. 

'• Otia si tollas periere Cupidinis artes, I "Take idleness away, and put to flight _ ^^ 

Contempt£Eque jacent, et sine luce faces." 1 Are Cupid's arts, his torches give no light. 

Minerva, Diana, Yesta, and the nine Muses were not enamoured at all, be- 
cause they never were idle. 



h FiTistra hlanditise appulistis ad has, 
Frustranequiti* venistis ad has, 
Frustra delitise ohsidehitis has, 
Frustra has illecebrse, et procacitates, 
Et suspiiia, et oscula, et susuiTi, 
Et quisquis male sana corda amantum 
Blandis ebria fascinat venenis." 



' In vain are all your flatteries, 
In vain are all your knaveries, 
Delights, deceits, procacities, 
t'ighs, kisses, and conspiracies, 
And whate'er is done by art, 
To bewitch a lover's heart." 



' Tis in vain to set upon those that are busy. 'Tis Savanarola's third rule, 

y Sabel. lib. 3. En. 6. ^c^rtius, lib. 5. » Chalcocondilas de reb. Tuscicis, lib. 9. Nerei 

uxor Athenarum domina, &c. bNicephorus Greg. hist. lib. 8. Uxorem occidit liberos et Michaelem 

filium videre abhorruit. Thessalonica amore captus pronotarii filise, &c. <= Partlienius, Erot. hb. cap. 5. 

^xl Jdem, ca. 21. Gubernatoris filia AchiUis amore capta civitatem prodidit. ^Idem, cap, 9. f Virg. &a.. 6. 
B Otium naufragium castitatis. Austin. hBuchanan, Hendecasyl. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 1.] 



Cure of Love-Melancholy. 



585 



Occupari in multis et magnis negotiis, and Avicenna's precept, cap. 24. ^ Cedit 
amor rebus; res age, tutus eris. To be busy still, and, as ^ Guianerius enjoins, 
about matters of great moment, if it may be. ^ Magninus adds, " Never to 
be idle but at the hours of sleep." 



"^etni 

Pcscas ante diem librum cum luraine, si non 
Intendas animum studiis, et rebus honestis, 
Invidia vel amore miser torquebere." 



For if thou dost not ply thy book, 
By candle-light to study bent, 
Employ'd about some honest thing. 
Envy or love shall thee torment." 



No better physic than to be always occupied, seriously intent. 



"11 Cur in penates rarius temies subit, 
lljec delicatas eligens pesiis domus, 
Mediumque sanos vulgus affectus tenet ? ' 



&c. 



" Why dost thou ask, poor folks are often free 
And dainty places still molested be?" 



Because poor people fare coarsely, work hard, go wolward and bare. ° JVorb 
habet unde suum paupertas pascat amorem. ^ Guianerius therefore prescribes 
his patient " to go with hair-cloth next his skin, to go bare-footed, and bare- 
legged in cold weather, to whip himself now and then, as monks do, but above 
all to fast. Not with sweet wine, mutton and pottage, as many of those ten- 
ter-bellies do, howsoever theyput on Lenten faces, and whatsoever theypretend, 
but from all manner of meat. Easting is an all-sufficient remedy of itself ; 
for, as Jason Pratensis holds, the bodies of such persons that feed liberally, 
and live at ease, " ^ are full of bad spirits and devils, devilish thoughts ; no 
better physic for such parties, than to fast." Hildesheim, spicel. 2. to this of 
hunger, adds, " ''often baths, much exercise and sweat," but hunger and fasting 
he prescribes before the rest. And 'tis indeed our Saviour's oracle, " This kind 
of devil is not cast out but by fasting and prayer," which makes the fathers 
so immoderate in commendation of fasting. As "hunger," saith ^Ambrose, " is 
a friend of virginity, so is it an enemy to lasciviousness, but fulness overthrows 
chastity, and fostereth all manner of provocations." If thine horse be too 
lusty, Hierome adviseth thee to take away some of his provender; by this 
means those Pauls, Hilaries, Anthonies, and famous anchorites, subdued the 
lusts of the flesh; by this means Hilarion " made his ass, as he called his own 
body, leave kifcking (so * Hierome relates of him in his life), when the devil 
tempted him to any such foul offence." By this means those " Indian Brah- 
mins kept themselves continent : they lay upon the ground covered with skins, 
as the red-shanks do on heather, and dieted themselves sparingly on one dish, 
which Guianerius w^ould*have all young men put in practice, and if that will 
not serve, ^ Gordonius "would have them soundly whipped, or, to cool their 
courage kept in prison," and there fed with bread and water till they acknow- 
ledge their error, and become of another mind. If imprisonment and hunger 
will not take them down, according to the directions of that ^ Theban Crates, 
" time must wear it out ; if time will not, the last refuge is a halter." But 
this, you will say, is comically spoken. Howsoever, fasting, by all means, 
must be still used ; and as they must refrain from such meats formerly men- 
tioned, which cause venery, or provoke lust, so they must use an opposite diet. 
^ Wine must be altogether avoided of the younger sort. So * Plato prescribes, 
and would have the magistrates themselves abstain from it, for example's sake, 



iO-sid. lib. 1. remed. "Love yields to business; be employed, and you'll be safe." kCap. 16. circa res 
arduas exerceri. 1 Tart. 2. c. 23. reg. San. His praeter horam somni, nulla per otium transeat. ^ Hor. 
lib. 1. epist. 2. i^Seneca. ° " Poverty has not the means of feeding her passion." P Tract. 16. cap, 
18. sgepe nuda came cilicium portent tempore frigido sine caligis, et nudis pedibus incedant,in pane et aqua 
jejunent, ssepius se verberibus cixdant, &c. iD^mcnibus referta sunt corpora nostra, illorum prtecipue 
qui delicatis vescuntur eduliis, advolitant, et corporibus inhserent; banc ob rem jejunium impendio proba- 
tur ad pudicitiam. ^ Victus sit attenuatus, balnei frequens usus et sudationes, cold baths, not hot, saith 
Magninus, part 3. ca. 23. to dive over head and ears in a cold river, &c. ^Ser. de gula; fames amica 

virginitati est, inimica lascivi^; saturitas vero castitatem perdit, et nutrit illecebras. t Vita Hilarionis, 
lib. 3. epist. cum tentasset eum daemon titillatione inter caetera, Ego inquit, aselle, ad corpus suum, 
faciam, &c. ^Strabo, 1. 15. Geog. sub pellibus cubant, &c. ^ Cap. 2. part. 2. Si sit juvenis, et nou 

vult obedire, flagelletur ft-equenter et fortirer, dum incipiat foetere. ^Laertius, lib. 6. cap. 5. amori 

medetur fames; sin aliter, tempus ; sin non hoc, laqueus. ^ Vina parant animos Veneri, &c. ^3. do 

Legibus. 



£)8G Love-Melamlwly. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

Inghly comiT! ending tlio Carthaginians for their temperance in this kind. And 
'twas a good edict^ a commendable thing, so that it were not done for some 
sinister respect, as those old Egyptians abstained from wine, because some 
fabulous poets had given out, wine sprang first from the blood of the giants, or- 
out of superstition, as our modern Turks, but for temperance, it being anim(B 
virus el vitiorumfomes, a plague itself, if immoderately taken. Women of old 
for that cause, ^in hot countries, were forbid the use of it ; as severely punished 
for drinking of wine as for adultery; and young folks, as Leonicus hath 
recorded, Yar. hist. I. 3. cap. 87, ^d>. out of Athenseus and others, and is still 
joractised in Italy, and some other countries of Europe and Asia, as Claudius 
Minoes hath well illustrated in his Comment on the 23. Emblem of Alciat. 
So choice is to be made of other diet. 

*' Nee minus erncas aptum est vitare salaces, I " Eringos are not good for to be taken, 
Et quicquid veneri coi-pora nostra parat." | And all lascivious meats must be forsaken." 

Those opposite meats which ought to be used are cucumbers, melons, purslain, 
water-lilies, rue, woodbine, ammi, lettuce, which Lemnius so much commen'^^.s, 
lib. 2. cap. 42. and Mizaldus, hort. med. to this purpose; vitex, or agnus castus 
before the rest, which, saith '^Magninus, hath a wonderful virtue in it. Those 
Athenian women, in their solemn feasts called Thesmopheries, were to abstain 
nine days from the company of men, during which time, saith -^lian, they laid 
a certain herb, named hanea, in their beds, which assuaged those ardent flames 
of love, and freed them from the torments of that violent passion. See more 
in Porta, Matthiolus, Crescentius, lib. 5. &c., and what every herbalist almost 
and physician hath written, cap. de Satyriasi et Pi-iapismo; Rhasis amongst 
the rest. In some cases again, if they be much dejected, and brought low in 
body, and now ready to despair through anguish, grief, and too sensible a feel- 
ing of their misery, a cup of wine and full diet is not amiss, and as Yalescus 
adviseth, cum alia honestd venerem scepe eocercendo, which Langius, epist. med. 
lib. 1. epist. 24. approves out of Rhasis {ad assiduationem coitus invitat) and 
Guianerius seconds it, cap. 16. tract. 16. as a ^very profitable remedy. 

tument tibi quum inguina, cum si 



Ancilla, aut verna prsesto est, tentigine rumpi 
Malis ? non ego uamque,' &c. 

^ Jason Pratensis subscribes to this counsel of the poet, Excretio enim aut tollit 
prorsus aut lenit cEgritudinem. As it did the raging lust of Ahasuerus, ^qui 
ad impatientiam amoris leniendam, per singulasfere nodes novas puellas devir- 
ginavit. And to be drunk too by fits ; but this is mad physic, if it be at all 
to be permitted. If not, yet some pleasure is to be allowed, as that which 
Vives speaks of, lib. 3. de anima. " ^ A lover that hath as it were lost himself 
through impotency, impatience, must be called home as a traveller, by music, 
feasting, good wine, if need be to drunkenness itself, which many so much 
commend for the easing of the mind, all kinds of sports and merriments, to see 
fair pictures, hangings, buildings, pleasant fields, orchards, gardens, groves, 
ponds, pools, rivers, fishing, fowling, hawking, hunting, to hear merry tales, 
and pleasant discourse, reading, to use exercise till he sweat, that new spirits 
may succeed, or by some vehement afifection or contrary passion to be diverted 
till he be fully weaned from anger, suspicion, cares, fears, &c., and habituated 
into another course." Semper tecum sit (as ^ Sempronius adviseth Calisto his 
lovc-sick master) qui sermones joculares 'moveat, condones ridiculas, dicteria 
/alsa, suaves historias, fabulas venustas recenseat, coram ludat, &c., still have a 

b Non minus si vinum bibissent ac si adulterium admisissent, GeTlius, lib. 10. e. 23. * Reg. San. part. 3. 
cap. 23. Mirabilem vim habet. d Cum muliere aliqua gratiosa s?epe coire erit ntilissimum. Idem. Lau- 
rentius, cap. 11. ^Hor. f Cap. 29. de morb. cereb. ^Beroaldus, orat. de amore. hAmatori, 

cujiis est pro impotentia mens amota, opus est ut paulatim animus velut a peregrinations domum revocetur 
per musicam, conviria, &c. Per auciipium, fabulas, et festivas narrationes, laborem usque ad sudorem, kc. 
i CalestiUce, Act. 2. Barthio interpret. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 1.] Ciirc of Lovc-Melcmclioly. 587 

pleasant companion to sing and tell merry tales, songs and facete histories, 
sweet discourse, &c. And as the melody of music, merriment, singing, dan- 
cing, doth augment the passion of some lovers, as ^ Avicenna notes, so it expel- 
leth it in others, and doth very much good. These things must be warily 
applied, as the parties' symptoms vary, and as they shall stand variously 
affected. 

If there be any need of physic, that the humours be altered, or any new 
matter aggregated, they must be cured as melancholy men. Carolus a Lorme, 
amongst other questions discussed for his degree at Montpelier in France, hath 
this. An amaiites et amentes iisdem remediis curentur? Whether lovers and 
madmen be cured by the same remedies'? he affirms it; for love extended is 
mere madness. Such physic then as is prescribed, is either inward or outward, 
as hath been formerly handled in the precedent partition in the cure of melan- 
choly. Consult with Yalleriola, ohservat. lib. 2. observ. 7. Lod. Mercatus, lib. 2. 
cap. 4, de mulier. affect. Daniel Sennertus, lib. 1. part. 2. cap. 10. ^Jacobus 
Eerrandus the Frenchman, in his Tract de amove Erotique, Forestus, lib. 10. 
observ. §9 and 30, Jason Pratensis and others for peculitir receipts. ^^ Amatus 
Lucitanus cured a young Jew, that was almost mad for love, with the syrup of 
hellebore, and such other evacuations and purges which are usually prescribed 
to black choler: '^Avicenna confirms as much if need require, and "° blood- 
letting above the rest," which makes amantes ne siid amentes^ lovers to come to 
themselves, and keep in their right minds. 'Tis the same which Schola Saler- 
nitana, Jason Pratensis, Hildesheim, &c., prescribe blood-letting to be used as 
a principal remedy. Those old Scythians had a trick to cure all appetite of 
burning lust, by ^letting themselves blood under the ears, and to make both 
men and women barren, as Sabellicus in his ^neades relates of them. Which 
Salmuth. Tit. 10. de Herol. comment, in Pancirol. de nov. report. Mercurialis 
var. lee. lib. 3. cap. 7. out of Hippocrates and Benzo say still is in use amongst 
the Indians, a reason of which Langius gives lib. 1. epist. 10. 

Hue faciunt medicamenta venerem sopientia, ut camphora piidendis alligata, 
et in hrachd gestata {quidam ait) membrum Jlaccidum reddit. Labor avithoi 
morbo virgo nobilis, cui inter ccstera prcescripsitmedicus, utlaminam plumbeam 
multisforaminibuspertusam ad dies viginti portaret in dorso ; adexiccandum 
vero spermajussiteamqiiam parcissime cibari, et manducare frequenter corian- 
drum prceparatum^ et semen lactuccE et acetosce, et sic earn ct morbo liberavit. 
Porro impediunt et remittunt coitum folia salicistritaet epota,et sifrequentius 
"usurpentur ipsa in totum auferunt. Idem prsestat Topatius annulo gestatus, 
dexterum lupi testiculum attritum, et oleo vel aqua rosata exhibitum veneris 
tsedium inducere scribit Alexander Benedictus: lac butyri commestum et 
semen canabis, et camphora exhibita idem prsestant. Verbena herba gestata 
libidinem extinguit, pulvisque ran^ decoUatEe et exiccatse. Ad extinguendum 
coitum, ungantur membra genitalia, et renes et pecten aqua in qua opium 
Thebaicum sit dissolutum; libidini maxime contraria camphora est, et corian- 
drum siccum frangit coitum, et erectionem virgse impedit ; idem efficit syna- 
pium ebibitum. Da verbenam in potu et non erigetur virga sex diebus; utere 
menthci siccd cum aceto, gerdtalia illinita succo hyoscyami aut cieutce, coitus 
appetitum sedant, Sfc. ]^. seminis lactuc. portulac. coriandri, ana 5j. menthcB 
siccce 5i5- sacchari alhiss. giiij. pulveriscentur omnia subtiliter, et post ea simul 
misce aqua nenupharis, f. confec. solida in morsulis. Ex his sumat mane 
unum quum surgat. Innumera fere his similia petas ab Hildishemo loco 
prsedicto, Mizaldo, Porta, cseterisque. 

kCap. de niishi. Multos hoc affectu sanat cantilena, Isetitia, musica; et quidam snnt qnos hJEC 
angunt. 1 This author came to my hands since the third edition of this hoolc. ^° Cent. 3. curat. 56. 

Syrapo helleborato et aliis quae ad atram hilem pertinent. " Purgetur si ejus dispositio venerit ad adust, 
humoris, et phlebotomizetur. " Amantium morbus ut pruritus solvitur, venaB sectione et cucurbitulis. 

P Cura U ven0B sectione per aures, unde semper steriles. 



588 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

SuBSECT. II. — Withstand the beginnings, avoid occasions, change his place: 
. fair and foul means, contrary passions, with witty inventions : to bring in 
another, and discommend the former. 

Other good rules and precepts are enjoined by onr physicians, which, if not 
alone, yet certainly conjoined, may do much; the first of which is obstare prin- 
cipiis, to withstand the beginning, ^Quisquis ifi primo obsliii, Pepuli'que 
amorem tutus ac victor fuit, he that will but resist at first, may easily be a 
conqueror at the last. Balthasar Castillo, I. 4. urgeth this prescript above 
the rest, "^when he shall chance (saith he) to light upon a woman that hath 
good behaviour joined with her excellent person, and shall perceive his eyes 
with a kind of greediness to pull unto them this image of beauty, and carry 
it to the heart : shall observe himself to be somewhat incensed with this 
influence, which moveth within : when he shall discern those subtle spirits 
sparkling in her eyes, to administer more fuel to the fire, he must wisely 
withstand the beginnings, rouse up reason, stupified almost, fortify his heart 
by all means, and shut up all those passages, by which it may have entrance." 
'Tis a precept which all concur upon, 

" s Oppi-iine dum nova sunt subiti mala semina morbi, I " Thy quick disease, whilst it is fresh to-day, 
Dum licet, in primo lumine siste pedem." | By all means crush, thy feet at first step stay." 

Which cannot speedier be done, than if he confess his grief and passion to 
some judicious friend ^{qui tacitics ardet magis uritiir, the more he conceals, 
the greater is his pain) that by his good advice may happily ease him on a 
sudden ; and withal to avoid occasions, or any circumstance that may aggra- 
vate his disease, to remove the object by all means; for who can stand by a 
fire and not burn? 

*' " Sussilite ohsecro et mittite istanc foras, 
Qu£e misero mihi amanti ebibit sanguinem." 

'Tis good therefore to keep quite out of her company, which Hierom so much 
labours to Paula, to Nepotian; Chrysost. so much inculcates in ser. in contu- 
hern. Cyprian, and many other fathers of the church, Siracides in his ninth 
chapter, Jason Pratensis, Savanarola, Arnoldus, Yalleriola, &c., and every 
physician that treats of this subject. Not only to avoid, as ^Gregory Tholo- 
sanus exhorts, " kissing, dalliance, all speeches, tokens, love-letters, and the 
like," or as Castillo, lib. 4. to converge with them, hear them speak, or sing, 
{tolerabilius est audire basiliscum sibilantem, thou hadst better hear, saith 
^Cyprian, a serpent hiss) "^ those amiable smiles, admirable graces, and 
sweet gestures," which their presence affords. 

" * Neu capita liment solitis morsiunculis, 
Et is papillarum oppressiunculis 
Abstineant : " 

but all talk, name, mention, or cogitation of them, and of any other women, 
persons, circumstance, amorous book or tale that may administer any occasion 
of remembrance. ^Prosper adviseth young men not to read the Canticles, 
and some parts of Genesis at other times ; but for such as are enamoured 
they forbid, as before, the name mentioned, &c., especially all sight, they 
must not so much as come near, or look upon them. 

" c Et fugitare decet simulacra et pabula amoris, 
Abstinere sibi atque alio convertere mentem." 

" Gaze not on a maid," saith Syracides, " turn away thine eyes from a beau- 
tiful woman," c. 9. v. 5. 7. 8. averte oculos, saith David, or if thou dost see 

1 ?eneca. '' Cum in mulierem inciderit, qnse. cum forma morum suavitatem conjunctani liabet, et jam 
oculos persenserit formas ad se imaginem cum aviditate quadam rapere cum eadem, &c. ^ Ovid. de rem. 
lib 1 t ^neas Silvius. ^ Plautus gurcu. " Remove and throw her quite out of doors, she who lias 

d-ank my love-sick blood." ^c^om. 2. lib. 4. cap. 10. Syntag. med. arc. Mira. vitentur oscula tactus, 

sermo, et scripta impudica, literse, &c. J Lib. de Singul. Cler. ^ Tam admirabilem splendorem declinet. 
gratiam, scintillas, amabiles risus, gestus suavissimos, &c. * Lipsius, hort. leg. lib. 3. antiq. lee. » i>io a. 
de vit. coelitus compar. cap. 6. ° Lucretius. " It is best to.shun the semblance and the food ot love, to 

abstain from it, and totally avert the mind from the object." 



Mem. 5. Subs. 2.] 



Cure of Love-Melancholy. 



58D 



them as Ficinus advisetli, let not thine eye be intentus ad libidinem, do not 
intend her more than the rest : for as ^Propertius holds, Lpse alimenta sibi 
maxima prcebet amor, love as a snowball enlargeth itself by sight : but as 
Hierome to Nepotian, aut cequaliter ama, aut cequaliter ignora, either see all 
alike, or let all alone; make a league with thine eyes, as ® Job did, and that is 
the safest course^ let all alone, see none of them. Nothing sooner revives, 
" f or waxeth sore again," as Petrarch holds, " than love doth by sight." " As 
pomp renews ambition; the sight of gold, covetousness ; a beauteous object 
sets on fire this burning lust," Et 'inidtum saliens incitat unda sitim. The 
sight of drink makes one dry, and the sight of meat increaseth appetite. 'Tis 
dangerous therefore to see. A ^young gentleman in merriment would needs 
put on his mistress's clothes, and walk abroad alone, which some of her suitors 
espying, stole him away for her that he represented. So much can sight 
enforce. Especially if he have been formerly enamoured, the sight of his 
mistress strikes him into a new fit, and makes him rave many days after. 



" i Infirmis causa pusilla nocet, 

Ut pene extinctum cinerera si sulphure tangas, 

Vivet, et ex minimo maximus ignis erit : 
Sic nisi vitabis qnicquid renovabit amorem, 

Flamma recrudescet, quae modo nulla fuit." 



" A sickly man a little thing offends, 

As brimstone dotli a fire decayed renew, 
And make it burn afresh, doth love's dead flames, 
If that the former object it review." 



Or, as the poet compares it to embers in ashes, which the wind blows, ^ut 
solet d, ventis, &c., a scald head (as the saying is) is soon broken, dry wood 
quickly kindles, and when tliey have been formerly wounded with sight, how 
can they by seeing but be inflamed 1 Ismenius acknowledgeth as much of 
himself, when he had been long absent, and almost forgotten his mistress, " ^ at 
the first sight of her, as straw in a fire, I burned afresh, and more than ever 
1 did before." ""^Chariclia was as much moved at the sight of her dear 
Theagines, after he had been a great stranger." ^Mertila, in Aristssnetus, 
swore she would never love Pamphilus again, and did moderate her passion, so 
long as he Wcis absent ; but the next time he came in presence, she could not 
contain, effase amplexa attrectari se sinit, &c., she broke her vow, and did pro- 
fusely embrace him. Hermotinus, a young man (in the said ° author) is all 
out as unstaid, he had forgot his mistress quite, and by his friends was well 
weaned from her love; but seeing her by chance, agnovit veteris vestigia 
Jtammce, he raved amain. Ilia tamen emergens veluti lucida stella cepit elucere, 
&c., she did appear as a blazing star, or an angel to his sight. And it is the 
common passion of all lovers to be overcome in this sort. For that cause belike 
Alexander discerning this inconvenience and danger that comes by seeing, 
"Pwhen he heard Darius's wife so much commended for her beauty, would 
scaxce admit her to come in his sight," foreknowing belike that of Plutarch, 
formosam videre periculosissimum, how full of danger it is to see a proper 
woman, and though he was intemperate in other things, yet in this superhe se 
gessit, he carried himself bravely. And so when as Araspus, in Xenophon, 
had so much magnified that divine face of Panthea to Cyrus, " ^by how much 
she was fairer than ordinary, by so much he was the more unwilling to see her." 
Scipio, a young man of twenty- three years of age, and the most beautiful of 
the Ramans, equal in person to that Grecian Charinus, or Homer's Nireus, at 
the siege of a city in Spain, when as a noble and most fair young gentlewoman 



d Lib. 3. eleg. 10. ^ Job xxxi. Pepigi fsedus cum oculis meis ne cogitarem de virgine. f Dial. 3. de 
contemptu mundi; nihil facilius recrudescit quam amor; ut pompa visa renovat ambitionem, auri species 
avaritiam, spectata corporis forma incendit luxuriam. & Seneca, cont. lib. 2. cont. 9. iOvid. kMet. 7. 
ut solet k ventis alimenta resumere, quasque Pavia sub inducta latuit scintilla favilla. Crescereet in veteres 
agitata resurgere flammas. 1 Eustathii 1. 3. aspectus amorem incendit, ut marcescentem in palea ignem 
ventus ; ardebam interea majore concepto incendio. ^ Heliodorus, 1. 4. inflammat mentem novus aspectas, 
perinde ac ignis materia admotus, Chariclia, &c. ^^ Epist. 15. 1. 2. » Epist. 4. 1 . 2. PCurtius, lib. 3. 
cum uxorem Darii laudatam audivisset, tantum cupiditati sux fr^num injecit, ut illam vix vellet intueri. 
^ Cyropnsdia. cum Panthese formam evexisset Araspus, tan to magis, inquit Cyrus, abstinere oportet, quauto 
piUchrior est. ... - 



590 Love-Melanchohf. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

was brougM unto him, " ""and he had heard she was betrothed to a lord, re- 
warded her, and sent her back to her sweetheart." St. Austin, as ^Gregory 
reports of him, ne cum sorore quidem sud putavit hahitandum, would not live 
in the house with his own sister. Xenecrates lay with Lais of Corinth all night, 
and would not touch her. Socrates, though all the city of Athens supposed 
him. to dote upon fair Alcibiades, yet when he had an opportunity ^solus cum 
solo to lie in the chamber with, and was wooed by him besides, as the said 
Alcibiades, ^'publicly confessed, yc>?*»^a/?^ sprevit et superbe contempsit, he scorn- 
fully rejected him. Petrarch, that had so magnified his Laura in several poems, 
when by the pope's means she was offered unto him, would not accept of her. 
" ^It is a good happiness to be free from this passion of love, and great dis- 
cretion it argues in such a man that he can so contain himself ; but when thou 
art once in love, to moderate thyself (as he saith) is a singular point of wisdom. 



"yNam vitare plagas in amoris ne jaciaiimr 
Non ita difficile est, quam captum retibus ipsis 
Exire, et validos Veneris perrumpere nodos." 



" To avoid such nets is no such mastery, 
But ta'en, escape is all the victory." 



But, forasmuch as few men are free, so discreet lovers, or that can contain 
themselves, and moderate their passious, to curb their senses as not to see 
them, not to look lasciviously, not to confer with them, such is the fury of this 
liead -strong passion of raging lust, and their weakness./e?'occ ille ardor a natura 
insitus, ^ 8iS he terms it, "such a furious desire nature hath inscribed, such 
unspeakable delight." 

" Sic Div£e Veneris furor, 
Insanis adeb mentihus incubat," 

which neither reason, counsel, poverty, pain, misery, drudgery, partus dolor, 
&c., can deter them from; we must use some speedy means to correct and 
prevent that, and all other inconveniences, which come by conference and the 
like. The best, readiest, surest way, and which all approve, is Loci mutatio, 
to send them several ways, that they may neither hear of, see, nor have an 
opportunity to send to one another again, or live together, soli cum sola, as so 
many Gilbertines. Elongatio a patrid, 'tis Savanarola's fourth rule, and Gor- 
donius' precept, distrahatur ad longinquas regiones, send him to travel. 'Tis 
that which most run upon, as so many hounds with full cry, poets, divines, 
philosophers, physicians, all, mutet patriam: Valesius: "as a sick man he 
must be cured with change of air, Tully, 4 Tuscul. The best remedy is to get 
thee gone, Jason Pratensis: change air and soil, Laurentius. 

" Fuge littus amatum. I " ° Ovid. I procul, et longas carpere perge vias. 
Virg. Utile finitimis al)stinuisselocis."b J sed fuge, tutus eris." 

Travelling is an antidote of love, 

"d Magnum iter ad doctas proficisci cogor Athenas, 
Ut me longa gravi solvat aniore via." 

For this purpose, saith ^Propertius, my parents sent me to Athens; time and 
patience wear away pain and grief, as fire goes out for want of fuel. Quantum 
oculis, animo tam procul ihit amor. But so as they tarry out long enough : a 
whole year ^Xenophon prescribes Critohulus, vix enim intra hoc tempus ab 
arnore sanari poteris : some will hardly be weaned under. All this ^Heinsius 
merrily inculcates in an epistle to his friend Primierus ; first fast, tlien tarry, 
thirdly, change thy place, fourthly, think of a halter. If change of place, con- 
tinuance of time, absence, will not wear it out with those precedent remedies, 

^ Livius. cum eam regulo cuidam desponsatam audivisset, muneribus cumulatam remisit. ^Ep. 39. lib. 7. 
t Et ea loqui posset quge soli amatores loqui solent. '^ Platonis Convivio. ^ Heliodorus, lib. 4. expertem esse 
amoris beatitude est; at quum captus sis, ad moderarionera revocave animum prudentia singularis. 
y Lucretius, 1. 4. ^Hffidus, lib. 1. de amor, contemnend. ^Loci mutatione tanquam non convalescens 
curandus est. cap. 11. b " Fly the cherished shore. It is advisable to withdraw from the places near it." 
^ Amorum, 1. 2. " Depart, and take a long journey— safety is in flight only." d Quisquis amat, loca nota 
nocent; dies segritudinem adimit, absentia delet. Ire licet procul hinc patri^eque relinquei'e fines. Ovid. 
^Lib. 3. eleg. 20. f Lib. 1. Socrat. memor. Tibi, O Ciitobule, consulo ut integrum annum absis, &c 

^rroximum est ut esurias. 2. ut nioram temporis opponas. 3. et locum mutes. 4. ut de laqueo cogited. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 2.] Cz^re of Love-3Ielanc1ioIy. 591 

it will hardly be removed : but these com.moiily are of force. Felix Plater, 
observ. lib. 1. had a baker to his patient, almost mad for the love of his maid, 
and desperate; by removing her from him, he was in a short space cured. 
Isseus, a philosopher of Assyria, was a most dissolute liver in his youth, palam 
lasciviens, in love with all he met ; but after he betook himself, by his friend's 
advice, to his study, and left women's company, he was so changed that he 
cared no more for plays, nor feasts, nor masks, nor songs, nor verses, fine 
clothes, nor no such love toys : he became a new man upon a sudden, tanquam 
si priores oculos amisisset (saith mine ^author), as if he had lost his former 
eyes. Peter Godefridus, in the last chapter of his third book hath a story out 
of St. Ambrose, of a young man that meeting his old love afterthat long absence, 
on whom he had extremely doted, would scarce take notice of her; she won- 
dered at it, that he should so lightly esteem her, called him again, lenibat dictis 
animum, and told him who she was, Ego sum, inquit: At ego non sum ego; 
but he replied, " he was not the same man :" proripuit sese tandem, as ^^neas 
fled from Dido, not vouchsafing her any farther parley, loathing his folly and 
ashamed of that which formerly he had done. ^Non sum stultus ut ante jam, 
Necera, " Kesera, put your tricks, and practise hereafter upon somebody else, 
you shall befool me no longer." Petrarch hath such another tale of a young 
gallant, that loved a wench with one eye, and for that cause by his parents 
was sent to travel into far countries, "after some years he returned, and meet- 
ing the maid for whose sake he was sent abroad, asked her how, and by what 
chance she lost her eye? no, said she, I have lost none, but you have found 
yours :" signifying thereby, that all lovers were blind, as Fabius saith, Amantes 
de forma jitdicare non possunt, lovers cannot judge of beauty, nor scarce of 
anything else, as they will easily confess after they return unto themselves, by 
some discontinuance or better advice, wonder at their own folly, madness, 
stupidity, blindness, be much abashed, " and laugh at love, and call it an idle 
thing, condemn themselves that ever they should be so besotted or misled ; 
and be heartily glad that they have so happily escaped." 

If so be (which is seldom) that change of place will not effect this alteration, 
then other remedies are to be annexed, fair and foul m.eans, as to persuade, 
promise, threaten, terrify, or to divert by some contrary passion, rumour, tales, 
news, or some witty invention to alter his affection, " 'by some greater sorrow 
to drive out the less," saith Gordonius, as that his house is on fire, his best 
friends dead, his money stolen. " "^That he is made some great governor, or 
hath some honour, office, some inheritance is befallen him." He shall be a 
knight, a baron: or by some false accusation, as they do such as have the 
hiccup, to make them forget it. S. Hierome, lib. 2. epist. 16. to Pusticus 
the monk, hath an instance of a young man of Greece, that lived in a monas- 
tery in Egypt, " ^that by no labour, no continence, no persuasion, could be 
diverted, bnit at last by this trick he was delivered. The abbot sets one of his 
convent to quarrel with him, and with some scandalous reproach or other to 
defame him before company, and then to come and complain first, the witnesses 
were likev/i se suborned for the plaintiff. The young man wept, and when all were 
against him, the abbot cunningly took his part, lest he should be overcome with 
immoderate grief: but what need many words'? by this invention he was cured, 

and alienated from his pristine love-thoughts lujuries, slanders, contempts, 

disgraces, spretceque injuria formce, " the insult of her slighted beanty," 

are very forcible means to withdraw men's affections, co?2^z«»2e/za affecti amatores 

t Philostratus de Tita Sophistarum. i Virg. 6. J£.n. k Buchanan. 1 Annnncientur valde tristia, ut 
major tristitia possit minorem obfuscare. "^ Aut quod sit factus senescallus, aut habeat honorem magnum. 
^ Adolescens GrEecus erat in Egyi'ti ccenobio qui nulla operis magnitudine, nulla persuasione flammam 
poterat sedare : monasterii pater hac arte servavit. Imperat cuidam e sociis, &c. Flebat ille, omr.es 
adversabantur ; solus pater callide opponere, ne abundantia tristitia absorberetur, quid multa? hoc invento 
curatus est, et h cogitationibus pristmis avocatus. 



592 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

amare desinunt, as °Liician saith, lovers reviled or neglected, contemned or 
misused, turn love to hate; ^redeam'^ Non si me ohsecret^ "I'll never love 
thee more." Egone ill am, quce ilium, quce me, qucB no7i? So Zephyrus hated 
Hyacinthiis because he scorned him, and preferred his co-rival Apollo {Pale- 
'phcetus fah. Nar.), he will not come again though he be invited. Tell him but 
how he was scoffed at behind his back ('tis the counsel of Avicenna), that his 
love is false, and entertains another, rejects him, cares not for him, or that 
she is a fool, a nasty quean, a slut, a vixen, a scold, a devil, or, which Italians 
commonly do, that he or she hath some loathsome filthy disease, gout, stone, 
strangury, falling sickness, and that they are hereditary, not to be avoided, he 
is subject to a consumption, hath the pox, that he hath three or four incurable 
tetters, issues; that she is bald, her breath stinks, she is mad by inheritance, 
and so are all the kindred, a hare-brain with many other secret infirmities, 
which I will not so much as name, belonging to women. That he is a her- 
maphrodite, an eunuch, imperfect, impotent, a spendthrift, a gamester, a fool, 
a gull, a beggar, a whoremaster, far in debt, and not able to maintain her, a 
common drunkard, his mother was a witch, his father hanged, that he hath a 
wolf in his bosom, a sore leg, he is a leper, hath some incurable disease, that 
he will surely beat her, he cannot hold his water, that he cries out or walks in 
the night, will stab his bed-fellow, tell all his secrets in his sleep, and that 
nobody dare lie with him, his house is haunted with spirits, with such fear- 
ful and tragical things, able to avert and terrify any man or woman living, Gordo - 
nius, cap. 20, part 2. hunc in modo consulit; Paretur aliquo. vetula turpissima 
aspectu,cum turpiet vili habitit: et jyortet subtus gremiumpannum menstrualem, 
et dicat quod arnica sua sit ehriosa, et quod mingat in lecto, et quod est epileptica 
et impudica; et quod in corpore sua sunt excrescentice enormes, cum foetore 
anhelitus,€t alice enormitates, quibus vetulce sunt edoctce : si nolit his persuader i, 
subitb extraliat°'p annum menstrualem, coram facie portando, exclamando, talis 
est arnica tua ; et si ex his non demiserit, non est homo, sed diabolus incarnaius. 
Idem fere, Avicenna, cap. 24, de cura Elishi, lib. 3, Fen. 1, Tract. 4. Nar- 
rent res irnmundas vetulce, ex quibus abominationem incurrat, et res ^sordidas, 
et hoc assiduent. Idem Arculanus, cap. 16. in 9. Hhasis, &c. 

"Withal as they do discommend the old, for the better efiecting a more speedy 
alteration, they must commend another paramour, alteram inducere, set him or 
her to be wooed, or woo some other that sliall be fairer, of better note, better 
fortune, birth, parentage, much to be preferred, " ^ Invenies alium si ie hie 
fastidit Alexis,'' by this means, which Jason Pratensis wisheth, to turn the 
stream of afiection another way, '^ /Successore novo truditur omnis amor;"" or, 
as Yalesius adviseth, by * subdividing to diminish it, as a great river cut into 
many channels runs low at last. " ^ Hortor et ut pariter binas habeatis 
arnicas'' &c. If you suspect to be taken, be sure, saith the poet, to have two 
mistresses at once, or go from one to another : as he that goes from a good 
fire in cold weather is loth to depart from it, though in the next room there be 
a better which will refresh him as much ; there is as much difierence of hcEC as 
hie ignis; or bring him to some public shows, plays, meetings, where he may 
see variety, and he shall likely loathe his first choice: carjy him but to the 
next town, yea peradventure to the next house, and as Paris lost (Enone's love 
by seeing Helen, and Cressida forsook Troilus by conversing with Diomede, 
he will dislike his former mistress, and leave her quite behind him, as ^ Theseus 
left Ariadne fast asleep in the island of Dia, to seek her fortune, that was erst 



OTom. 4. P Ter. 1 Hypatia Alexandrina quendam se adamantem prolatis muliebribus pannis, et in 
eum conjectis at) amoris insania libcravit. Siiidas et Eunapius. ''Savanarola, reg. 5. ^ Vii'g. Eel. 3. 
"You -vvill easily find another if this Alexis disdains you." t Distrihutio amoris fiat in plures, 

ad plures arnicas animum applicet. " Ovid. " 1 recommend you to have two mistresses." ^ Hyginus, 
eab. 43. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 2.] Cure of Love-Melancholy. 593 

'his loving mistress. ^ Nunc primum Dorida vetius amator contempsi, as he 
said, Doris is but a dowdy to this. As he that looks himself in a glass forgets 
his physiognomy forthwith, this flattering glass of love will be diminished by 
remove; after a little absence it will be remitted, the next fair object will 
likely alter it. A young man in ^Lucian was pitifully in love, he came to the 
theatre by chance, and by seeing other fair objects there, mentis sanitcUem 
recepit, was fully recovered, "'^and went merrily home as if he had taken a 
dram of oblivion." ^A mouse (saith an Apologer) was brought up in a chest, 
there fed with fragments of bread and cheese, though there could be no better 
meat, till coming forth at last, and feeding liberally of other variety of viands, 
loathed his former life : moralise this fable by thyself. Plato, in his seventh 
book De Legihus, hath a pretty fiction of a city under ground, ^ to which by 
little holes some small store of light came; the inhabitants thought there could 
not be a better place, and at their first coming abroad they might not endure 
the light, cegerriTne solem intueri; but after they were accustomed a little to 
it "^they deplored their fellows' misery that lived under ground." A silly 
lover is in like state, none so fair as his mistre&s at first, he cares for none but 
her; yet after a while, when he hath compared her with others, he abhors her 
name, sight, and memory. 'Tis generally true; for as he observes, ^ Prior em 
flcmiinam novus ignis extrudit; et ea mulierum natura, ut prcBsentes maxime 
ament, one fire drives out another; and such is women's weakness, that they 
love commonly him that is present. And so do many meu; as he confessed, 
he loved Amye, till he saw Floriat, and when he saw Cynthia, forgat them 
both : but fair Phillis was incomparably beyond them all, Cloris surpassed her, 
and yet when he espied Amaryllis, she was his sole mistress ; O divine Ama- 
ryllis : quam procera, cupressi ad instar, quani elegans, quam decens, &c. How 
lovely, how tall, how comely she was (saith Polemius) till he saw another, and 
then she was the sole subject of his thoughts. In conclusion, her he loves best 
he saw last. ^Triton, the sea god, first loved Leucothoe, till he came in 
presence of Milaene, she was the commandress of his heart, till he saw Galatea : 
but (as ^she complains) he loved another eftsoons, another, and another. 'Tis 
a thing, which by Hierom's report, hath been usually practised. "^Heathen 
philosophers drive out one love with another, as they do a peg, or pin with a 
pin. Which those seven Persian princes did to Ahasuerus, that they might 
requite the desire of Queen Yashti with the love of others." Pausanias in 
Eliacis saith, that therefore one Cupid was painted to contend with another, 
and to take the garland from him, because one love drives out another, 
" ^ Alterius vires subtraliit alter amor; and Tully, 3. ISfat. Dear, disputing with 
C Cotta, makes mention of three several Cupids all differing in office. Felix 
Plater, in the first book of his observations, boasts how he cured a widower in 
Basil, a jDatient of his, by this stratagem alone, that doted upon a poor servant 
his maid, when his friends, children, no persuasion could serve to alienate his 
mind : they motioned him to another honest man's daughter in the town, whom 
he loved, and lived with long after, abhorring the very name and sight of the 
first. After the death of Lucretia, ^ Euryalus would admit of no comfort, till 
the Emperor Sigismond married him to a noble lady of his court, and so in 
short space he was freed. 

y Petronius. ^ Lib. de salt. * E theatre egressus hilai-is, ac si phannacum oblivionis bibisset. 

b Mus in cista natus, &c. *' In quern ^ specu subten-aueo modicum lucis illabitur. d Deplorabimt 

eorum miseriam (iiii subterraneis illis locis yitam degunt. ^ Tatius, lib. 6. f Ari-toenetus, epist. 4, 

8 Caleagnin. Dial. Galat. Mox aliam pr^tulit, aliain prselatmnis quam primnm occasio arriseiit. h Epist. 
lib. 2. 16. Philosophi siEculi veterem amorem novo, quasi clavum clavo repellere, quodet A^sueroregi septera 
principes Persarum fecere, ut Vastae reginai desiderium amove compensarent. i Ovid. "One love 

extracts the influence of another." k Lugubri veste indutus, consolationes non admisit, donee CcBr^ar ex 

ducali sanguine, formosam virginem matrimonio conjanxit. ^neas Sylvius hist, de Euiyalo et Lucreiiu. 

2q 



594 Love-Melancholy, [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

SuBSECT. III. — By counsel and 2oer suasion, foulness of the fact, men^s, loomercs 
faults, miseries of marriage, events of lust, &c. 

As there be divers causes of this buruiiig lust, or heroical love, so there be 
many good remedies to ease and help; amongst which, good counsel and per- 
suasion, which I should have handled in the first place, are of great moment, 
and not to be omitted. Many are of opinion, that in this blind headstrong 
passion counsel can do no good. 

*' iQuse enim res in se neque consilium neque modum I " Wliich thing hath neither judgment, or an end, 
Hahet, ullo earn consilio regere non potes." | How should advice or counsel it amend ?' 

-" ^Quis enim modus adsit am ri V But, without question, good counsel 



and advice must needs be of great force, especially if it shall proceed from a 
•wise, fatherly, reverent, discreet person, a man of authority, whom the parties 
do respect, stand in awe of, or from a judicious friend, of itself alone it is able 
to divert and suffice. Gordonius, the physician, attributes so much to it, that 
lie would have it by all means used in the first place. Anioveatur ab ilia con- 
silio viri quern timet, ostendertdo pericida sceculi, judicium inferni, gaudia Para- 
disi. He would have some discreet men to dissuade them, after the fury of 
passion is a little spent, or by absence allayed ; for it is as intempestive at first 
to give counsel, as to comfort parents when their children are in that instant 
departed; to no purpose to prescribe narcotics, cordials, nectarines, potions, 
Homer's nepenthes, or Helen's bowl, &c. Non cessabit pectus tundere, she will 
lament and howl for a season : let passion have his course a while, and then he 
may proceed, by foreshowing the miserable events and dangers which will surelj 
happen, the pains of hell, joys of Paradise, and the like, which by their prepos- 
terous courses they shall forfeit or incur ; and 'tis a fit method, a very good 
means, for what ^Seneca said of vice, I say of love, Sine magistro discitur, 
vixsine magistro deseritur, 'tis learned of itself, but "hardly left without a tutor. 
'Tis not amiss therefore to have some such overseer, to expostulate and show 
them such absurdities, inconveniences, imperfections, discontents, as usually 
follow; which their blindness, fury, madness, cannot apply unto themselves, or 
will not apprehend through weakness; and good for them to disclose them- 
selves, to give ear to friendly admonitions. " Tell mo, sweetheart (saith Try- 
phena to a love-sick Cliarmides in ^Lucian), what is it that troubles thee? 
peradventure I can ease thy mind, and further thee in thy suit;" and so, 
without question, she might, and so mayest thou, if the patient be capable of 
good counsel, and will hear at least what may be said. 

If he love at all, she is either an honest woman or a whore. If dishonest, 
let him read or inculcate to him that 5. of Solomon's Proverbs, Ecclus. 26. 
Ambros. lib. 1. cap. 4. in his book of Abel and Cain, Philo Judgeus de mercede 
mer. Platinas, dial, in Amores, Espencseus, and those threes books of Pet. 
Hcedus de contem. Amoribus, ^neas Sylvius' tart Epistle, which he wrote to 
his friend Nicholas of Warthurge, which he calls medelam illiciti amor is, kc. 
"^Eor what's a whore," as he saith, "but a poler of youth, '•"ruin of men, a 
destruction, a devourer of patrimonies, a dovv^nfall of honour, fodder for the 
devil, the gate of death, and supplement of helU" ^ Talis amor est laqueus 
anirnce, &c., a bitter honey, sweet poison, delicate destruction, a voluntary mis- 
chief, coriimixtmn coenum, sterquilinium. And as ^Pet. Aretine's Lucretia, a 

1 Ter. ^ Virg. Eel. 2. " For what limit has love ? " » Lib. de heat. vit. cap. 14. ° Lmisro 

usu dieimns, longa desuetudine dedisceudum est, Petiavdi. epist.lib. 5. 8. ^ T?'P- ^- ''^''l'* 

iiieret. Fortasse etiam ipsa ad araorem istum iionnihii cutulero. iQuid enim meretrix nisi javentutis 

fXjiiiatrix, vironim rapiiia sea mors; patrimonii deviiiatrix, honoris pernicios, pal)ulum diaboli, januii 
moi-tis, mferjii supplementum ? ^'Sanguinem honiinum sorbent. ^ Coiitempiatione Idiota'., c. 34. 

liiscrimen vies:, mors biauda, mel sclleum, dulce venenum, pernicies delicata, malum spontaneum, .tc. 
t rornodidasc. Jial. Ital. gala, ira, invidia, superbia, sacriiegia, latrocinia, casdes, eo die nata sunt qno 
priniuui meretrix pri;fessionem fecit. Superbia maj,,r quam (;piilonti rustici, invidia quani lu.s venerciB , 
iniiuiutia nocent'or ludciucholla, avaritia in immensui!'! profundfu 



Mem. 5. Subs. 3.] Cu7'e of Love-Melctnchohj. 59-5 

notable quean, confesseth: "Gluttony, anger, enyy, pride, sacrilege, theft, 
slaugh ter, were all born that day that a whore began her profession ; for," as 
she follows it, " her pride is greater than a rich churl's, she is more envious 
than the pox, as malicious as melancholy, as covetous as hell. If from the 
beginning of the world any were mala, pejor, 2^Qssima, bad in the superlative 
degree, 'tis a whore; how many have I undone, caused to be wounded, slain ! 
O Antonia, thou seest ^what 1 am without, but within, God knows, a puddle 
of iniquity, a sink of sin, a pocky quean." Let him now that so dotes medi- 
tate on this; let him see the event and success of others, Samson, Hercales, 
Holofernes. &c. Those infinite mischiefs attend it : if she be another man's 
wife he loves, 'tis abominable in the sight of God and men; adultery is ex- 
pressly forbidden in God's commandment, a mortal sin, able to endanger his 
soul: if he be such a one that fears God, or have any religion, he will eschaw 
it, and abhor the loathsomeness of his own fact. If he love an honest maid, 
'tis to abuse or marry her : if to abuse, 'tis fornication, a foul fact (though 
some make light of it), and almost equal to adultery itself If to marry, let 
him seriously consider what he takes in hand, look before ye leap, as the pro- 
verb is, or settle his affections, and examine first the party, and condition of 
his estate and hers, whether it be a fit match for fortunes, years, parentage, 
and such other circumstances, an sit suce Veneris. AYhether it be likely to 
proceed : if not, let him wisely stave himself off at the first, curb in his inordi- 
nate passion, and moderate his desire, by thinking of some other subject, divert 
his cogitations. Or if it be not for his good, as ^neas, forewarned by Mer- 
cury in a dream, left Dido's love, and in all haste got him to sea, 

"^ Mnestea, Surgestumque vocat fortemque Cloanthem, 
Classem aptent taciti jubet " — 

and although she did oppose with vows, tears, prayers, and imprecation, 

"nullis ille movetur 



Fletibus, aut illas voces tractaMis audit ; " 7 

Let thy Mercury-reason rule thee against all allurements, seeming delights, 
pleasing inward or outward provocations. Thou mayest do this if thou wilt, 
2mter lion deperit filiam, nee frater soro^^em, a father dotes not on his own 
daughter, a brother on a sister ; and why 1 because it is unnatural, unlawl'ul, 
unfit. If he be sickly, soft, deformed, let him think of his deformities, vices, 
infirmities ; if in debt, let him ruminate how to pay his debts : if he be in any 
danger, let him seek to avoid it : if he have any law-suit, or other business, he 
may do well to let his love-matters alone and follow it, labour in his voca,tion 
whatever it is. But if he cannot so ease himself, yet let him wisely premedi- 
tate of both their estates; if they be unequal in years, she young and he old, 
what an unfit match must it needs be, an uneven yoke, how absurd and in 
decent a thing is it! as Lycinus in ^Lucian told Timolaus, for an old bald 
crook-nosed knave to marry a young wench ; how odious a thing it is to see an 
old lecher ! What should a bald fellow do with a comb, a dumb doter with a 
pipe, a blind man with a looking-glass, and thou with such a wife? How 
absurd it is for a young man to marry an old wife-for a piece of good. But 
put case she be equal in years, birth, fortunes, and other qualities correspond- 
ent, he doth desire to be coupled in marriage, which is an honourable estate, 
but for what respects? Her beauty belike, and comeliness of person, that is 
commonly the main object, she is a most absolute form, in his eye at least, Cui 
formam Faiyhia et Charites tribuere decorum; but do other men affirm as 
much? or is it an error in his judgment? 

" ^ Falliint nos oculi ragiqne sensus, 
Oppresia ratione mentiuntur," 



^ Qualis exti"a sum ^ades, qiialis intra novit Deus. ^ Vir^. " He calls Mnestheus, Surgestns, and the 

brave Cloanthus, and orders them silently to prep-ire the fleet." J" "Pie is moved by no tears, he cannot be 
induced to hear her words." ^Tom. 2. in votis. Calvus cum &is, nasum habcL: simum, &c. ^ Pctrun us. 



596 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

our eyes and other senses will commonly deceive us;" it maybe, to thee 
thyself upon a more serious examination, or after a little absence, she is not so 
fair as she seems. Qumdam videntur et non sunt ; compare her to another 
standing by, 'tis a touchstone to try, confer hand to hand, body to body, face 
to face, eye to eye, nose to nose, neck to neck, &c., examine every part by 
itself, then altogether, in all postures, several sites, aad tell me how thou 
likest her. It may be not she that is so fair, but her coats, or put another in 
her clothes, and she will seem all out as fair; as the ^poet then prescribes, 
separate her from her clothes : suppose thou saw her in a base beggar's weed, 
or else dressed in some old hirsute attires out of fashion, foul linen, coarse rai- 
ment, besmeared with soot, colly, perfumed with opoponax, sagapenum, assa- 
foetida, or some such filthy gums, dirty, about some indecent action or other; 
or in such a case as *^ Brassivola, the physician, found Malatasta, his patient, 
after a potion of hellebore, which he had prescribed : Manihus in terram depo- 
sitis, et ano versus ceelum elevato (ac si videretur Socraticus ille Aristophanes, 
qui Geometricas figuras in terra'm scribens, tubera colligere videbatur) atram 
hilem in album parietem injiciebat, adeoque totam cameram, et se deturpabat, ut, 
&c., all to bewrayed, or worse; if thou saw'st her (I say) would thou affect her 
as thou dost 1 Suppose thou beheldest her in a *^ frosty morning, in cold 
weather, in some passion or perturbation of mind, weeping, chafing, &c., 
riveled and ill-favoured to behold. She many times that in a composed look 
seems so amiable and delicious, tarn scituld forma, if she do but laugh or 
.smile, makes an ugly sparrow-mouthed face, and shows a pair of uneven, 
loathsome, rotten, foul teeth : she hath a black skin, gouty legs, a deformed 
crooked carcass under a fine coat. It may be for all her costly tires she is 
bald, and though she seem so fair by dark, by candle-light, or atar off at such 
a distance, as Gallicratides observed in ^Lucian, " If thou should see her near, 
or in a morning, she would appear more ugly than a beast;" ^si ditigenter 
consideres, quid per os et nares et cceteros corporis meatus egreditur, vilius ster- 
quilinium nunquam vidisti. Follow my counsel, see her undressed, see her, if 
it be possible, out of her attires, fartivis midatam coloribus, it may be she is 
like JEsop's ]?jy, or ^Pliny's can tharides, she will be loathsome, ridiculous, 
thou wilt not endure her sight: or suppose thou saw'st her, pale, in a con- 
sumption, on her death-bed, skin and bones, or now dead, Cujus erat gratissi- 
inus amplexus (whose embrace was so agreeable) as Barnard saitli, erit horribilis 
aspectus; JS on redolet, sed olet, quce redder e solet, " As a posy she smells 
sweet, is most fresh and fair one day, but dried up, withered, and stinks ano- 
ther." Beautiful Nireus, by that Homer so much admired, once dead, is more 
deformed than Thersites, and Solomon deceased as ugly as Marcolphus : thy 
lovely mistress that was erst ^ Charis charior ocellis, " dearer to thee than 
thine eyes," once sick or departed, is Vili vilior cestimata coeno, " worse than 
any dirt or dunghill." Her embraces were not so acceptable, as now her looks 
be terrible : thou hadst better behold a Gorgon's head, than Helen's carcass. 

Some are of opinion that to see a woman naked is able of itself to alter his 
affection ; and it is worthy of consideration, saith ^Montaigne the Frenchman 
in his Essays, that the skilfulest masters of amorous dalliance, appoint for a 
remedy of venerous passions, a full survey of the body; which the poet in- 
sinuates, 

•' k Ille qiibd obscsenas in aperto corpore partes I " The love stood stil, that ran in full career, 

Viderat, in cursu qui fuit, haesit amor." | When once it saw those parts should not appear." 

b Ovid. '^ In Catarticis, lih. 2. d Si ferveat deformis, ecce formosa est ; si frigeat formosa, jam sis 

informis. Th. Morus, Epigram. * Amorum dial. torn. 4. si quis ad auroram contempletur multas mulierea 

a nocie lecto surgentes, turpiores putabit esse hestiis. f Hugo de claustro Animse, lib. 1. c. I. " If you 

quietly reflect upon what passes through her mouth, nostrils, and other conduits of her body, you never saw 
viler stuff." SHist. nat. 11. cap. 35. A fly that hath golden wings but a poisoned budy. h Buchanan, 

liendecasyl. i Apol. pro Kern. Seb. k Ovid. 2. lem. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 3.] Cure of Love-Melanchjhj. 597 

It is reported of Seleiicus, king of Syria, tliat seeing his wifo S'ratonice's bald 
pate, as she was undressing her by chance, he could never affect her after. 
Remundus Lullius, the physician, spying an ulcer or cancer in his mistress' 
breast whom he so dearly loved, from that day following abhorred the looks of 
her. Philip the French king, as Neubrigensis, lih. 4. cap. 24. relates it, mar- 
ried the king of Denmark's daughter, " ^and after he had used her as a wife 
one nio-ht, because her breath stunk, they say, or for some other secret fault, 
sent her back again to her father." Peter Mattheus, in the life of Lewis the 
Eleventh, finds fault with our English "^chronicles, for writing how Margaret 
the kin Of of Scots' daughter, and wife to Louis the Eleventh, French king, was 
oh graveolentiam oris, rejected by her husband. Meiny such matches are made 
for by-respects, or some seemly comeliness, which after honeymoon's past, turn 
to bitterness : for burning lust is but a flash, a gunpowder passion ; and hatred 
oft follows in the highest degree, dislike and contempt. 

i " "^ Cum se cutis aricla laxat, 



Fiunt obsciu-i deutes ' 



when they wax old, and ill-favoured, they may commonly no longer abide them, 

Jam gravis es nobis, begone, they grow stale, fulsome, loathsome, 

odious, thou art a beastly filthy quean °/aciem Phoebe cacantis liabes, thou 

art Saturni podex, withered and dry, insipida et vetula ^ Te quia rugce 

turpant, et capitis nives (I say), begone, ^portce patent, jjrojlciscere. 

Yea, but you will affirm your mistress is complete, of a most absolute form 
in all men's opinions, no exceptions can be taken at her, nothing may be 
added to her person, nothing detracted, she is the mirror of women for her 
beauty, comeliness and pleasant grace, inimitable, merce delicice, meri lepores, 
she is Myrothetium Veneris, Gratiarum pixis, d. mere magazine of natural per- 
fections, she hath all the Veneres and Graces onille faces et mille figuras, 

in each part absolute and complete, ^Lceta genas, Iceta os roseum, vaga lumina 
Iceta : to be admired for her person, a most incomparable, unmatchable piece, 
aurea proles, ad simulaclirum alicujus numinis composita, a Phoenix, vernantis 
cetatidce Venerilla, a nymph, a fairy, ^like Yenus herself when she was a maid, 
nulli secunda, a mere quintessence, Jlo7'es spirans et amaracuin, foemince pro^ 
digium : put case she be, how long will she continue ? ^ Florem decoris singidi 
carpunt dies: " Every day detracts from her person," and this beauty is 
honum fragile, a mere flash, a Venice glass, quickly broken, 

" ^ Anceps fomaa bonum mortalibus, 
exigui donuni breve temporis," 

it will not last. As that fair flower ^Adonis, which we call an anemone, 
flourisheth but one month, this gracious all-commanding beauty fades in an 
instant. It is a jewel soon lost, the painter's goddess, /a^^rt veHtas, a mere 
picture. " Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vanity," Prov. xxxi. 30. 

•• y Vitrea geramula, flaxaque bulhila, Candida forma I " A brittle gem, bubble, is beauty pale, 

Nix, rosa, ros, fumus, ventus et aura, nihil, [est. | A rose, dew, snow, smoke, wind, air, nauglit at all.* 

If she be fair, as the saying is, she is commonly a fool : if proud, scornful, 
sequiturque superbia formarn, or dishonest, rara est concordia formce atque 
pudicitice, " can she be fair and honest too 1 " ^ Aristo, the son of Agasicles, 
married a Spartan lass, the fairest lady in all Greece next to Helen, but for her 
conditions the most abominable and beastly creature of the world. So that 

iPost unam noctem incertum unde offensam cepit, propter foetentem ejus splritum alii dicunt, vellafentem 
foeditatem repudiavit, rem faciens plane illicitam.et regige personaa multum indecoram. ™ Hall and 
Grafton belike. '^ Juvenal : " When the wiinkled skin becomes flabby, and the teeth bhick." <* Mart. 

PTully in Cat. " Because -wrinkles and hoary locks disfigure you." *1. Hor. ode. 13. lib. 4. ^Locheu.?. 
** Beautiful cheeks, rosy lips, and languishing eyes." ^ Qualis fuit Venus com fait virgo, balsamum 

spirans, &c. t Seneca. " Seneca, Hyp. " Beauty is a gift of dubious worth to mortals, and of brief 

dumtion." ^Camerarius, emb. 68. cent. !. flos omnium pulcherrlmus statim langaescit, formae typiis. 
y Bernar. Bauhusius, Ep, 1. 4. ^Pausanias, Lacon. lib. 3. uxorem diuit tipariai muiicrum omuiuiu post 

Helenam formosissimaiu, at ob mores oinuium tui'pissimam." 



598 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

I would wish thee to respect, with "" Seneca, not her person but qualities. 
" Will you say that's a good blade which hath a gilded scabbard, embroidered 
with gold and jewels 1 No, but that which hath a good edge and point, well 
tempered metal, able to resist." This beauty is of the body alone, and what 
is that, but as ^Gregory Nazianzen telleth us, " a mock of time and sick- 
ness?" or as Boethius, "°as mutable as a flower, and 'tis not nature so makes us, 
but most j)art the infirmity of the beholder," For ask another, he sees no such 
matter : Die mihi loer gratias qualis tihi videtur, " I pray thee tell me how 
thou likest my sweetheart," as she asked her sister in Aristsenetus, "^whom 
I so much admire, methinks he is the sweetest gentleman, the properest man, 
that ever I saw : But I am in love, I confess (nee pudet fateri), and cannot 
therefore well judge." But be she fair indeed, golden-haired, as Anacreon his 
Bathillus (to examine particulars), she have ^ Flammeolos oculos collaque lac- 
teola, a pure sangidne complexion, little mouth, coral lips, white teeth, soft and 
plump neck, body, hands, feet, all fair and lovely to behold, composed of all 
graces, elegancies, an absolute piece, 

" f Lvimina sint Melitee Janonia, dextra T\Tinevv£e, 
Mamillae Veneris, su^ a maris dominse," &c. 

Let ^her head be from Prague, paps out of Austria, belly from France, back 
from Brabant, hands out of England, feet from Bhine, buttocks from Switzer- 
land, let her have the Spanish gait, the Venetian tire, Italian compliment and 
endowments : 

" hCanclida sideriis ardescant lumina flammis, I Fulgeat, ac Venerem ccelesti corpore vincat, 

Student colla rosas, et cedat crinibus aurum, Forma dearum omnis," <fcc. 

Jilellea puryureum depromant ora ruborem ; | 

Let her be such a one throughout, as Lucian deciphers in his Imagines, as 
Euphanor of old painted Yenus, Aristsenetus describes Lais, another Helena, 
Chariclea, Leucippe, Lucre tia, Pandora ; let her have a box of beauty to repair 
herself still, such a one as Yenus gave Phaon, when he carried her over the 
ford ; let her use all helps art and nature can yield ; be like her, and her, and 
whom thou wilt, or all these in one ; a little sickness, a fever, small-pox, 
wound, scar, loss of an eye, a limb, a violent passion, a distemperature of 
heat or cold, mars all in an instant, disfigures all; child-bearing, old age, that 
tyrant time will turn Yenus to Erinnys ; raging time, care, rivals her upon a 
sudden; after she hath been married a small while, and the black ox hath 
trodden on her toe, she will be so much altered, and wax out of favour, thou 
wilt not know her. One grows too fat, another too lean, &c., modest Matilda, 
pretty pleasing Peg, sweet-singing Susan, mincing merry Moll, dainty dancing- 
Doll, neat Nancy, jolly Joan, nimble Nell, kissing Kate, bouncing Bess, with 
black eyes, fair Phillis, v/ith fine white hands, fiddling Prank, tall Tib, slender 
Sib, &c., will quickly lose their grace, grow fulsome, stale, sad, heavy, dull, 
sour, and all at last out of fashion. Uhijamvidtus argutia, suavis suavitatioy" 
hlandus risus, &c. Those fair sparkling eyes will look dull, her soft coral lips 
will be pale, dry, cold, rough, and blue, her skin rugged, that soft and tender 
superficies will be hard and harsh, her whole complexion change in a moment, 
and as ^ Matilda writ to King John, 

" I am not now as when thou saw'st me last, 
That favour soon is vanished and past : 
That rosy blush lapt in a lilly vale, 
Is' ow is with morphew overgrown and pale." 

*Epist. 76. gladium bonum dices, non cui deauratus est baltheus, nee cui vagina gemmis distinguitar, 
sed cui ad secandum subtilis acies et mucro munimentum omne rupturus, b pulchi-itudo corporis, 

temporis et morbi ludibrium. orat. 2. " Floium mutabilltatefngacior, nee sua natura formosas facit, sed 

spectantium infirmitas. d Epist. 1 1. Quem ego depereo juvenis mihi pulchenlnms videtur ; sed forsan 

amore percita de aniore non recte judico. ^Luc. Brugensis. " Bright eyes and snow-white neck." f Idem. 
" Let my Melita's eyes be like Juno's, her hand Minerva's, her breasts Venus', her leg Amphitiles'." 
S Bebelius adagiis. Ger. h Fetron. Cat. '* Let her eyes be as bright as the stars, her neck smell Jike 
the rose, her hair shine more than gold, her honied lips be ruby- coloured; let her beauty be resplendent, 
and superior to Venu.-?, let her in all respects be a deity," &c. i M, Draytun. 



Mem. 5. Sabs. 3.] Cure of Love-Melancholy. 599 

*Tis so in the rest, their beauty fades as a tree in winter, which Dejauira hath 
elegantly expressed in the poet, 



** k Deforme solis aspicis truncis neir.tis ? 
Sic noster longum forma percurreas iter, 
Deperdit aliquid semper, et falget minus, 
Malisque minus est quicquid in nobis fuit, 
Glim petitum cecidit, et partu labat, 
Materqiie multum rapuit ex ilia mini, 
^tas citato senior eripuit gradu." 



" And as a tree that in the green -wood grow% 
With fruit and leaver, an^l in the summer bloAvs, 
In winter like a stock deformed shows : 
Our beauty takes his race and journey goes, 
And doth decrease, and lose, and coine to nouglrt, 
AchTiir'd of old, to this by child-birth brought : 
And mother hath bereft me of my grace, 
And crooked old age coming on apace. " 

To conclude with Chrysostom, " ^When thou seest a fair and beautiful person, 
a brave Bonaroba, a bella donna, qu(E salivam moveat, lepidam puellam et 
quam tu facile ames, a comely woman, having bright eyes, a merry countenance, 
a shining lustre in her look, a pleasant grace, wringing thy soul, and increasing 
thy concupiscence; betliink with thyself that it is but earth thou lovest, 
a mere excrement, which s.o vexeth thee, that thou so admirest, and thy 
ragin^y soul will be at rest. Take her skin from her face, and thou shalt see 
all loathsomeness under it, that beauty is a superficial skin and bones, nerves, 
sinews : suppose her sick, now reviled, hoary-headed, hollow-cheeked, old ; 
within she is full of filthy phlegm, stinking, putrid, excremental stuff : snot 
and snivel in her nostrils, spittle in her mouth, water in her eyes, what filth in 
her brains," &c. Or take her at best, and look narrowly upon her in the 
light, stand near her, nearer yet, thou shalt perceive almost as much, and love 
less, as "^ Cardan well writes, minus amant qui acute vident, though Scaliger 
deride him for it : if he see her near, or look exactly at such a posture, who- 
soever he is, according to the true rules of symmetry and proportion, those 
I mean of Albertus Durer, Lomatius and Tasnier, examine him of her. If he 
be elegans formarum spectator, he shall find many faults in physiognomy, and 
ill colour : if form, one side of the face likely bigger than the other, or crooked 
nose, bad eyes, prominent veins, concavities about the eyes, wrinkles, pimples, 
red streaks, freckles, hairs, warts, neves, inequalities, roughness, scabredity, 
paleness, yellowness, and as many colours as are in a turkeycock's neck, many 
indecorums in their other parts ; est quod desideres, est quod am2')utes, one leers, 
another frowns, a third gapes, squints, &c. And 'tis true that he saith, 
^ Diligenter considerccnti raro fades ahsoluta, et quce vitio caret, seldom shall 
you find an absolute face vv^ithout a fault, as I have often observed; not in the 
lace alone is this defect or disproportion to be found, but in all the other 
parts, of body and mind; she is fair, indeed, but foolish; pretty, comely, and 
decent, of a majestical presence, but, peradA'-enture, imperious, dishonest, 
acerha, iniqua^ self-willed: she is rich, but deformed; hath a sweet face, but 
bad carriage, no bringing up, a rude and wanton flirt; a neat body she hath, 
but it is a nasty quean otherv/ise, a very slut of a bad kind. As flowers in a 
garden have colour some, but no smell, others have a fragrant smell, but are 
unseemly to the eye; one is unsavoury to the taste as rue, as bitter as worm- 
wood, and yet a most medicinal cordial flower, most acceptable to the stomach ; 
so are men and women ; one is well qualified, but of ill proportion, poor and 
base : a good eye she hath, but a bad hand and foot, feda pedes etfzda mayius, 
a fine leg, bad teeth, a vast body, &c. Examine all parts of body and mind, 
I advise thee to inquire of all. See her angry, merry, laugh, weep, hot, cold, 
sick, sullen, dressed, undressed, in all attires, sites, gestures, passions, eat her 
meals, &c., and in some of these you will surely dislike. Yea, not her only 
let him observe, but her parents how they carry themselves: for what 

b Sencc. act. 2. Here OEtteus. 1 Vides venustam mulierem, fulgidura habentem oculum, vultu hilari, 

coruscanrera eximium quendam aspectum et deconivn prte se ferentem, nreutem mentenr tuam, et concu- 
piscenriam acrenrera : coglta terrain esse id qnoJ aoias, et quod admiraris stercus, et quo^l te urit, &c., coj:ita 
illau) jam senescere, jam rugosam, cavis genis, jegrotam ; tantis sordibus intus plena est, pituita, stercore; 
repnta quid intra nares, oculos, cerebnuu gestat^ quas sordes, &c., &c ^^ Subtil. 13. "^Cardua 

subtil lib. 13, 



600 Love-MelancJiohj. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

deformities, defects, incumbrances of body or mind be in tbem at such an age, 
they will likely be subject to, be molested in like manner, they wi\\.patrizare 
or matrizare. And withal let him take notice of her companions, in convictu 
(as Quiverra prescribes), et quihuscum conversetur, whom she converseth with. 
Noscitur ex comite qui non cognoscitur ex se.^ According to Thucydides, she 
is commonly the best, de quo minimus foras hdbetur sermo, that is least talked 
of abroad. For if she be a noted reveller, a gadder, a singer, a pranker or 
dancer, then take heed of her. For what saith Theocritus 1 

•' At vos festivge ne ne saltate puellae, 
En maius hircus adest in vos sal tare paratus." P 

Young men will do it when they come to it, fauns and satyrs will certainly 
play wrecks, when they come in such wanton Baccho's Elenora's presence. 
JNow when they shall perceive any such obliquity, indecency, disproportion, 
deformity, bad conditions, &c., let them still ruminate on that, and as ^^Hoedus 
adviseth out of Ovid, earum mendas oiotenf, note their faults, vices, errors, and 
think of their imperfections; 'tis the next way to divert and mitigate love's 
furious headstrong passions; as a peacock's feet, and filthy comb, they say, 
make him forget his fine feathers, and pride of his tail ; she is lovely, fair, 
well favoured, well qualified, courteous and kind, " but if she be not so to me, 
what care I how kind she be?" I say with ^ Philostratus, ybrmosa aliis, mihi 
sujoerba, she is a tyrant to me, and so let her go. Besides these outward 
neves or open faults, errors, there be many inward infirmities, secret, some 
private (which I will omit), and some more common to the sex, sullen fits, evil 
qualities, filthy diseases, in this case fit to be considered; consideratio fseditatis 
mulierura, menstruse imprimis, quam immundse sunt, quam Savanarola pro- 
ponit regula septima penitus observandam; andPlatina, dial. SiVaovi^, fuse per- 
strinyit. Lodovicus Bonacsialus, mulieh. lib. 2. cap. 2. Pet. Hsedus, Albertus, 
et injiniti fere medici. ^A lover, in Calcagninus's Apologies, wished with 
all his heart he were his mistress's ring, to hear, embrace, see, and do 
I know not what : O thou fool, quoth the ring, if thou wer'st in my room, 
thou shouldst hear, observe, and see pudenda et pcenitenda, that which 
would make thee loathe and hate her, yea, peradventure, all women for her 
sake. 

I will say nothing of the vices of their minds, their pride, envy, inconstancy, 
weakness, malice, self-will, lightness, insatiable lust, jealousy; Ecclus. v. 14. 
"No malice to a woman's, no bitterness like to hers, Eccles. vii. 26, and as 
the same author urgeth, Prov. xxxi. 10. " Who shall find a virtuous woman? " 
He makes a question of it. Neque jus neque honum, neque cequum sciunt, melius 
pejus., prosit, obsit, nihil vident, nisi quod libido suggerit. " They know neither 
good nor bad, be it better or worse (as the comical poet hath it), beneficial or 
hurtful, they will do what they list." 

*' t Insidise humani generis, querimonia vitse, 
Exu\'ia3 noctis, durissima cura diei. 
Poena virfim, nex et juvenum," &c. 

And to that purpose were they first made, as Jupiter insinuates in the 

"poet; 

•• The fire that bold Prometheus stole from me. 
With plagues call'd women shall revenged be, 
On whose alluring and enticing face, 
Poor mortals doting shall their death embrace." 

o" Show me your company and I'll tell you who you are." P"Hark, you merry maids, do not 

dance so, for see the he-goat is at hand, ready to pounce upon you." «Lib. de centum amoribus. 

earum mendas volvant animo, seepe ante oculos constituant, sa?pe damnent. ^Irv deliciis. s Quum 

ainator annulum se aniicaj optaret, ut ejus amplexu frui poseet, &c. te miserum, ait annulus, si meas 
vices obires, videres, audires, &c. nihil non odio dignum observares. tLastheus. "Snares of the 

human species, tomients of life, spoils of the night, bitterest cares of the day, the torture of husbands, the 
ruin of youths." " See our English Tatius, lib. 1. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 3.] Cure of Love-Melanchohj, 601 

In fine, as Diogenes concludes in Nevisanus, iVi*?^ est fcemina quce 7ion habeat 
quid : they have all their faults. 

Every each of them hath some vices^ 
Jfone be full ofvillany. 
Another hath a liquorish eye. 
If one be full of uantonness, 
Another is a chidertssJ- 

"When Leander was drowned, the inhabitants of Sestos consecrated Hero's 
lantern to Anteros, Anteroti sacrum, -^and he that had good success in his 
lov^ should light the candle : but never any man was found to light it ; which 
I can refer to nought, but the inconstancy and lightness of women. 

"^ For in a thousand, good there is not. one ; J In their own lusts carried most headlong Wind, 

AU he so proud, untliankfal, and unkind. But more herein to speak I am forbidden : 

With flinty hearts, cai-eless of others' moan, J Sometimes for speakingtruth one may be chidden." 

I am not willing, you see, to prosecute the cause against them, and therefore 
take heed you mistake me not, ^'matronam nullam ego tango, I honour the sex, 
with all good men, and as I ought to do, rather than displease them, I will 
voluntarily take the oath which Mercurius Britannicus took, Viragin. descript. 
tib. d.fol. 95. 3Ie nihil unquam mali nobilissimo sexui, vel verba, vel facto 
vnachinaturum, &c., let Simonides, Mantuan, Platina, Pet. Aretine, and such 
women-haters bear the blame, if aught be said amiss ; I have not writ a tenth 
of that which might be urged out of them and others ; ^non possunt invectivm 
omnes, et satirce in fceminas scriptce, uno volumine comprehendi. And that 
which I have said (to speak truth) no more concerns them than men, though 
women be more frequently named in this tract (to apologise once for all) ; I am 
neither partial against them, or therefore bitter ; what is said of the one, 
mutato nomine, may most part be understood of the other. My words are hke 
Passus' picture in '^Lucian, of whom, when a good fellow had bespoke a horse 
to be painted with his heels upwards, tumbling on his back, he made him 
passant : now when the fellow came for his piece, he was very angry, and said, 
it was quite opposite to his mind ; but Passus instantly turned the picture 
upside down, showed him the horse at that site which he requested, and so 
gave him satisfaction. If any man take exception at my words, let him alter 
the name, read him for her, and 'tis all one in effect. 

But to my purpose : If women in general be so bad (and men worse than 
they) what a hazard is it to marry 1 where shall a man find a good wife : or a 
woman a good husband? A woman a man may eschew, but not a wife : wed- 
ding is undoing (some say), marrying marring, wooing woeing : " ^ a wife is a 
fever hectic," as Scaliger calls her, "and not to be cured but by death," as 
out of Menander, Athenseus adds, 

" In pelagus te jacis negotiorum, | " Thou wadest into a sea itself of woes; 

Hon Libyum, non ^geum, ubi extriginta nonpereunt 1 In Libyc and yEgean each man knows 

Tria navigia : ducens uxorem servatur prorsus nemo." Of thirty not three ships are cast aM-ay, 

I But on this rock not one escapes, I say." 

The worldly cares, miseries, discontents, that accompany marriage, I pray 
you learn of them that have experience, for I have none; ^ rocTdag syu Xoyovg 
iyiVT,(SuiJjT,v, liberi mentis liberi. For my part 111 dissemble with him, 

" Zste procul nymphse, fallax genus este puellfe, 
Vita jugata mco non facit ingenio : me jiivat, " f &c. 

many married men exclaim at the miseries of it, and rail at wives downright; 
I never tried, but as I hear some of them say, ^Mare haud mare, vos mare 
acerrimum, an Irish Sea is not so turbulent and raging as a litigious wife. 

*' h Scylla et Charybdis Sicula contorquens fi-eta, I " Scylla and Chary bdis are less dangerous, 

Minus est timenda, nulla non uielior fera est." [ There is no beast that is so noxious." 

^Chaucer, in Romaunt of the Rose. ^Qui se facilem in amore probarit, banc succendito. At qui 
succendat, ad hunc diem repertus nemo. Calcagninus. '^Ariosto. *Hor. bChristOph. 

lonseca. ^'Encom. Demosthen. d Febris hectica uxor, et non nisi morte avellenda. *Synesius, 

libros ego liberos genui ; Lipsius, antiq. Lect. lib. f " Avaunt, ye nymphs, maidens, ye are a deceitful race, 
no married life for me," &c. Ki'lautus, Asin. act. 1. hStnec. in Hertul. 



i602 Love -Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

Wliich made the devil belike, as most interpreters hold, when he had .taken 
away Job's goods, corporis etfortunce bona, health, children, friends, to perse^ 
cute him the more, leave his wicked wife, as Pineda proves out of Tertullian, 
Cyprian, Austin, Chrysostom, Prosper, Gaudentius, &c. ut novum calamitatis 
inde genus viro existeret, to vex and gall him worse, quam totus infernus, than 
all the fiends in hell, as knowing the conditions of a bad woman. Jupiter non 
tribuit homini pestilentius malum, ssiith. Simonides : "better dwell with a 
dragon or a lion, than keep house with a wicked wife," Ecclus. xxv. 18. 
** better dwell in a wilderness," Prov. xxi. 19. "no wickedness like to her,'* 
Ecclus. xxv. 22, "She makes a sorry heart, an heavy countenance, a wounded 
mind, weak hands, and feeble knees," vers. 25. "A woman and death are two 
the bitterest things in the world;" uxormihi ducenda est hodie, id mihivisus 
est dicere, abi domum et suspende te. Ter. And. 1. 5. And yet for all this we 
bachelors desire to be married ; with that vestal virgin, we long for it, ^Feli-- 
ces nuj^tce ! moriar, nisi nubere dulce est. 'Tis the sweetest thing in the world, 
I would I had a wife, saith he, 

"For fain would I leave a single life, 
If I could get me a good wife." 

Heigh-ho for a husband, cries she, a bad husband, nay, the worst that ever was 
is better than none : O blissful marriage, O most welcome marriage, and happy 
are they that are so coupled : we do earnestly seek it, and are never well till 
we have effected it. But with what fate 1 like those birds in the ^Emblem, 
that fed about a cage, so long as they could fly away at their pleasure liked 
well of it; but when they were taken and might not get loose, though they had 
the same meat, pined away for sullenness, and would not eat. So we commend 
marriage. 

' " donee miselli liberi 



Aspiciinus dominam; sed postquam heu janua clausa est, 
Fel Intus est quod mel fuit:" 

" So long as we are wooers, may kiss and coll at our ])leasure, nothing is so 
sweet, we are in heaven as we think ; but when we are once tied, and have 
lost our liberty, marriage is an hell," " give me my yellow hose again :" a 
mouse in a trap lives as merrily, we are in a purgatory some of us, if not hell 
itself. Dulce bellum inexpertis, as the proverb is, 'tis fine talking of war, and 
marriage sweet in contemplation, till it be tried ; and then as wars are most 
dangerous, irksome, every minute at death's door, so is, &c. When those wild 
Irish peers, saith ^ Stanihurst, were feasted by King Henry the Second (at 
what time he kept his Cliristmas at Dublin) and had tasted of his prince-like 
cheer, generous wines, dainty fare, had seen his °^massy plate of silver, gold, 
enamelled, beset with jewels, golden candlesticks, goodly rich hangings, brave 
furniture, heard his trumpets sound, fifee, drums, and his exquisite music in 
all kinds; when they had observed his majestical presence as he sat in purple 
robes, crowned, with his sceptre, &c., in his royal seat, the poor men were so 
amazed, enamoured, and taken with the object, that they were pertcesi domestici 
et pristini tyrotarchi,SiS weary and ashamed of their own sordidity and manner 
of life. They would all be English forthwith; who but English ! but when 
they had now submitted themselves, and lost their former liberty, they began 
to rebel some of them, others repent of what they had done, when it was too 
late. 'Tis so with us bachelors, when we see and behold those sweet faces, 
those gaudy shows that women make, observe their pleasant gestures and 
graces, give ear to their syren tunes, see them dance, &c., we think their con- 
ditions are as fine as their faces, we are taken with dumb signs, in amplexum 
ruimus, we rave, we burn, and would fain be married. But when we feel the 

i Seneca. k Amator. Emblem. 1 De rebus Hibemicis, 1. 3. ^Gemmea pocula, argentt-a vasa, 

crelata candelabra, aurea, &c. CoiichileataaulEea, buccinavum clangorem, tibiarum cantum, et symphoniso 
suavitateni, majestatemque principis coronati cum vidissent sella deaurata, <fcc. 



Perdatur ille pessime qui foeminam 

Duxit secundus, nam nihil primo imprecor ! 

Ignarus ut puto mali primus fuit." 



Mem. 5. SuL>s. 3.] Cure of Love-Melancholy. 603 

miseries, cares, woes, tliat accompany it, we make our moan many of us, cry 
out at length and cannot be released. If this be true now, as some out of 
experience will inform us, farewell wiving for my part, and as the comical poet 
merrily saith, 

Foul fall him that brought the second match to pass, 
The first I wi>h no harm, poor man, a'ia>! 
He knew not what he did, nor what it was." 

What shall I say to him that marries again and again, ^ Stulta maritali qui 
porrigit ora capisiro, I pity him not, for the first time he must do as he may, 
bear it sometimes by the head and shoulders, and let his next neighbour 
ride, or else run away, or as that Syracusian in a tempest, when all ponderous 
things were to be exonerated out of the ship, quia maximum pondus erat, fling 
his wife into the sea. But this I confess is comically spoken, "^and so I pray 
you take it. In sober sadness, ^ marriage is a bondage, a thraldom, a yoke, 
a hindrance to all good enterprises (" he hath married a wife, and cannot 
come"), a stop to all preferments, a rock on which mauy are saved, many im- 
pinge and are cast away : not that the thing is evil in itself or troublesome, 
but full of contentment and happiness, one of the three things which please 
God, " '^when a man and his wife agree together," an honourable and happy 
estate, who knows it not ? If they be sober, wise, honest as the poet infers, 

•' t Si commodos nanciscantur amoves, I " If fitly match'd he man and wife, 

Nullum iis abest voluptatis genus." | Ko pleasure's wanting to their life." 

But to undiscreet sensual persons, that as brutes are wholly led by sense, it is 
a feral plague, many times a hell itself, and can give little or no content, 
being that they are often so irregular and prodigious in their lusts, so diverse 
in their affections. Uxor nomen dignitatis non voluptatis, as ^he said, a wife 
is a name of honour, not of pleasure : she is fit to bear the oflice, govern a 
family, to bring up children, sit at a board's end and carve, as some carnal men 
think and say; they had rather go to the stews, or have now and then a snatch 
as they can come by it, borrow of their neighbours, than have wives of their 
own; except they may, as some princes and great men do, keep as many cour- 
tezans as they will themselves, fly out impune, ^ Permolere uxores alienas, that 
polygamy of Turks, Lex Julia, with Caesar once enforced in Kome (though 
I.evinus Torrentius and others suspect it), uti uxores quot et quas vellent liceret, 
that every great man might marry, and keep as many wives as he would, or 
Irish divorcement were in use : *^but as it is, 'tis hard and gives not that satis- 
faction to these carnal men, beastly men as too many are ; what still the 
same,^to be tied, ^ to one, be she never so fair, never so virtuous, is a thing they 
may not endure, to love one long. Say thy pleasure, and counterfeit as thou 
wilt, as ^Parmeno told Thais, Neque tu uno eris contenta, " one man will never 
please thee ; " nor one woman many men. But as ^Pan replied to his father 
Mercury, when he asked whether he was married, JVequaquam pater, amator 
enim sum, &c. " No, father, no, I am a lover still, and cannot be contented 
with one woman." Pythias, Echo, Menades, and I know not how many 
besides, were his mistresses, he might not abide marriage. Varietas delectaty 
'tis loathsome and tedious, what one still % which the satirist said of Iberina, 
is verified in most, 

" <' Unus Iberinas vir sufScit ? ocyus illud I " 'Tis not one man will serve her by her will, 

Extorquebis ut hsec oculo contenta sit uno." | As soon slie'll have one eye as one man still." 

As capable of any impression as materia prima itself that still desires new 

"Eubiilus in Crisil. Atherf^us, d}T)nosophist. 1. 13. c 3. <> Translated by my brother, llalph 

Burton. P Juvenal. "Who thrusts his foolish neck a second time into the baiter." <iHiEc in 

speciem dicta cave ut credas. ^ Bachelors always are the bravest men. Bacon. Seek eternity in 
memory, not in posterity, like Epaminondas, that, instead of children, left two great victories behind him, 
which he called his two daughters. ^Ecclus. xxviii. 1. t Euripides, Andromach. ^ Ji;hus Verus. 

imperator. Spar. vit. ejus. ^ Hor. J" Quod licet, inoratum est. ^For better for worse, for richer lor 
p(>orer, in sickness and in health, &c. 'tis duriis sermo to a sensual man. ''-Ter. act. 1. Sc. 2. Eunucli, 

bLucian. torn. 4. neque ctun uiia jiliaua rem liabeie contentus foiem. ^ JuveuaL 



604 Love Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

forms, like tlie sea tlieir affections ebb and flow. Husband is a cloak for some 
to hide tlieir villany ; once married she may fly out at her pleasure, the name 
of husband is a sanctuary to make all good. Eo ventum (saith Seneca) ut 
nulla viruin haheat, nisi ut irritet adulterum. They are right and straight 
as true Trojans as mine host's daughter, that Spanish wench in ^ Ariosto, as 
good wives as Messalina. Many men are as constant in their choice, and as 
good husbands as Nero himself, they must have their pleasure of all they see, 
and are in a word far more fickle than any woman. 

For either they he full of jealousy. 
Or masterfull, or loven novelty. 

Good men have often ill wives, as bad as Xantippe was to Socrates, Elevora to 
St. Lewis, Isabella to our Edward the Second ; and good wives are as often 
matched to ill-husbands, as Mariamne to Herod, Serena to Diocletian, Theodora 
to Theopliilus, and Thyra to Gurmunde, But I will say nothing of dissolute 
and bad husbands, of bachelors and their vices ; their good qualities are a 
fitter subject for a just volume, too well known already in every village, town 
and city, they need no blazon : and lest I should mar any matches, or disheartea 
loving maids, for this present I will let them pass. 

Being that men and women are so irreligious, depraved by nature, so wan- 
dering in their affections, so bratish, so subject to disagreement, so unobservant 
of marriage rites, what shall I say ? If thou beest such a one, or thou light 
on such a wife, what concord can there be, what hope of agreement ? 'tis not 
conjugium but conjurgimn, as the Heed and Fern in the ^Emblem, averse and 
opposite in nature : 'tis twenty to one thou wilt not marry to thy contentment : 
but as in a lottery forty blanks were drawn commonly for one prize, out of a multi- 
tude you shall hardly choose a good one : a small ease hence then, little comfort, 

" i Nee integnim unquam transiges Isetus diem." j " If he or she be such a one, 

I Thou had.it much belter be alone." 

If she be barren, she is not &c. If she have ^children, and thy state be 

not good, though thou be wary and circumspect, thy charge will undo the^ 

-foecundd domum tibi prole gravabit,* thou wilt not be able to bring them 

up, " ^and what greater misery can there be than to beget children, to whom 
thou canst leave no other inheritance but hanger and thirst V* ^cum fames 
dominatur, strident voces rogantium panem, penetrantes patris cor : what so 
grievous as to turn them up to the wide world, to shift for themselves ? No 
plague like to want : and when thou hast good means, and art very careful of 
their education, they will not be ruled. Think but of that old proverb, ^^wwi/ 
rsKva, -TrrnMarct, heroum filii noxce, great men's sons seldom do well; utinam 
aut ccdebs mansissem aut prole carerem ! " would that I had either remained 
single, or not had children," ^ Augustus exclaims in Suetonius. Jacob had 
his Heuben, Simeon, and Levi; David an Ammon,an Absalom, Adoniah; wise 
men's sons are commonly fools, insomuch that Spartian concludes, Neminem 
prope magnorum virorum optimum et utilem reliquisse filium : Hhey had been 
much better to have been childless. 'Tis too common in the middle sort; thy 
son's a drunkard, a gamester, a spendthrift ; thy daughter a fool, a whore ; 
thy servants lazy drones and thieves ; thy neighbom'S devils, they will make 
thee weary of thy life. " ™If thy wife be fro ward, when she may not have 
her will, thou hadst better be buried alive ; she will be so impatient, raving 
still, and roaring like Juno in the tragedy, there's nothing but tempests, all is 
an uproar." If she be soft and foolish, thou wert better have a block, she 

d Lib. 28. *Camerar. 82. cent. 3. fSimonides. 8 Children make misfortunes more bitter. Bacon. 
* •' She will sink your whole establishment by her fecundity." h Heinsius. Epist. Primiero. Nihil miseriusquam 
procreare liberos ad quos nihil ex hseieditate tua pervenii e videas prseter famem et sitim. i Chrys. Fon- 

eeca. kLiberi s.bi earcinomata. 1 Melius fuerat eos sine liberis difcessisse. ™ Lemnius, cap. 6. 

Kb. 1 . Si morosa, si non in omnibus obsequaris, omnia impacata in sedibus, omnia sursum misceri videas, 
laultse tempestates, &c. Lib. 2. numer. 101. sylv. nup. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 3.] Cute of Love-Melancholy. 605 

will shame thee and reveal thy secrets; if wise and learned, well qualified, 
there is as much danger on the other side, mulierem doctam ducere periculosis- 
sinium, saith IsTevisanus, she will be too insolent and peevish, ^ Mcdo Venusi- 
nam qiidm te, Cornelia mater. Take heed; if she be a slut, thou wilt loathe 
her; if proud, she'll beggar thee, "° she'll spend thy patrimony in baubles, all 
Arabia will not serve to perfume her hair," saith Lucian ; if fair and wanton, 
she'll make thee a cornuto ; if deformed, she will paint. " ^ Tf her face be 
filthy by nature, she will mend it by art," alienis et adscititiis iTuposturis, 
*' which who can endure 1 " If she do not paint, she will look so filthy, thou 
canst not love her, and that peradventure will make thee dishonest, Cromerus 
lib. 12. hist, relates of Casimirus, ^that he was unchaste because his wife 
Aleida, the daughter of Henry, Landgrave of Hesse, was so deformed. If she 
be poor, she brings beggary with her (saith Nevisanus), misery and discontent. 
If you marry a maid, it is uncertain how she proves, Rcec forsan veniet non 
satis apta tibi.^ If young she is likely wanton and untaught; if lusty, too 
lascivious ; and if she be not satisfied, you know where and when, Qiil nisi 
jurgia, all is an uproar, and there is little quietness to be had; if an old 
maid, 'tis a hazard she dies in childbed; if a ^rich widow, induces te in laqueum, 
thou dost halter thyself, she will make ull away beforehand, to her other 

children, &c. ^dominam quis possit ferre tonantem? she will hit thee 

still in the teeth with her first husband ; if a young widow, she is often insa- 
tiable and immodest. If she be rich, well descended, bring a great dowry, or 
be nobly allied, thy wife's friends will eat thee out ol house and home, dives 
ruinam cedibus inducit, she will be so proud, so high-minded, so imperious. 

For nihil est magis mtolerabile dite, "there's nothing so intolerable," 

thou shalt be as the tassel of a gos-hawk, " " she will ride upon thee, domineer 
as she list," wear the breeches in her oligarchical government, and beggar 
ihee besides. Uxores divites servitutem exigunt (as Seneca hits them, Declarn,. 
lib. 2. declam. 6.) Dotem accepi, imperium perdidi. They will have sovereignty, 
pro conjuge dominam arcessis, they will have attendance, they will do what 
they list. ^In taking a dowry thoulosest thy liberty, dos intrat, libertas exit, 
hazardest thine estate. 

" H£e sunt atque alise multse in matrnis dotitus 
Incommoditates, sumptusque intolerabiles," &c. 

" with many such inconveniences : " say the best, she is a commanding servant; 
thou hadst better have taken a good housewife maid in her smock. Since then 
there is such hazard, if thou be wise keep thyself as thou art, 'tis good to 
match, much better to be free. 

"y procreate liberos lepidissimmn, 

Hercle verb liberum esse, id multb est lepidius." 

** ^ Art thou young 1 then match not yet ; if old, match not at all.'* 

"Vis juvenis nubere? nondum venit tempns, 
Ingravescente setate jam terapus prEeteriit." 

And therefore, with that philosopher, still make answer to thy friends that 
importune thee to marry, adhuc irdempestivum, 'tis yet unseasonable, and ever 
wili be. 

Consider withal how free, how happy, how secure, how heavenly, in respect, 
a single man is, '"^as he said in the comedy, Et isti quod fortunatum esse autw- 

" Juvenal. "I would rather have a Venusinian wench than thee, Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi." <fec. 
® Tom. 4. Amores: omnem niariti opulentiam profundet, totam Arabiam capillis redolens. P Idem, et 

quis saniB mentis sustinere queat, <fec. ^Subegit ancillas quod uxor ejus deformior esser. ' " Perhap* 

she will not suit you." ^Sil. nup. 1. 2. num. 25. Dives inducit tempestatem, pauper curam; ducens* 

viduam se inducit in laqueum. t Sic quisque dicit, alteram ducit tamen. "Who can endure a virago fop 
a wife ? " '^ Si dotata eiit, imperiosa, continuoque viio inequitare conabitur. Petrarch. ^ If a 

woman nomish her husband, she is angry and impudent, and full of reproach. Ecclus. xxv. 22. Scilicet uxori 
nubere nolo mete. ypiautus. Mil. Glor. act. 3. sc. 1. "To be a father is very pleasant, but to be a 

freeman still more so." ''Stobseus, fer. G6. Alex, ah Alexand. lib. 4. cap. 8. ^ They shall attend 

the lamb in heaven, because tliey were not defiled with women, Apoc. iiv. 



606 Love-Melancholy, [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

mant, uxorem nunquam habui, and that wliicli all my neighbours admire and 
applaud me for, account so great a happiness, I never had a wife ; consider 
how contentedly, quietly, neatly, plentifully, sweetly, and how merrily he lives ! 
he hath no man to care for but himself, none to please, no charge, none to 
control him, is tied to no residence, no cure to serve, may go and come, when, 
whither, live where he will, his own master, and do what he list himself. 
Consider the excellency of virgins, ^ Virgo caelum meruit, marriage rej)len- 
isheth the earth, but virginity Paradise ; Elias, Eliseus, John Baptist, were 
bachelors: virginity is a precious jewel, a fair garland, a never-fading flower; 
^ for why wag Daphne turned to a green bay-tree, but to show that virginity 
is immortal 1 

" d Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis, I Sic virgo dum intacta manet, dum chara suis sed 

Iijcnolus pecori, nuUo contusus aratro, Cum Castum amisit," <&c -— — ' 

Quam mulcent aurse, firmat sol, educat imber, &c. | 

Virginity is a fine picture, as ® Bonaventure calls it, a blessed thing in itself, 
and if you will believe a Papist, meritorious. And although there be some incon- 
veniences, irksomeness, solitariness, &c., incident to such joersons, want of those 
comiorts, quce CEgro assideat et curet cegrotum, fomentum paret, roget medicum, 
<fec. embracing, dalliance, kissing, colling, &c., those furious motives and wanton 
pleasures a new-married wife most part enjoys; yet they are but toys in respect, 
easily to be endured, if conferred to those frequent incumbrances of marriage. 
Solitariness may be otherwise avoided with mirth, music, good company, 
business, employment; in a word, ^Gaudehit minus, et minus dolehit; for their 
good nights, he shall have good days. And methinks some time or other, 
amongst so many rich bachelors, a benefactor should be found to buildamonas- 
tical college for old, decayed, deformed, or discontented maids to live together 
in, that have lost their first loves, or otherwise miscarried, or else are willing 
howsoever to lead a single life. The rest I say are toys in respect, and suffi- 
ciently recompensed by those innumerable contentsand incomparable privileges 
of virginity. Think of these things, confer both lives, and consider last of all 
these commodious prerogatives a bachelor hath, how well he is esteemed, how 
heartily welcome to all his friends, quam mentitis obsequiis, as Tertullian 
observes, with what counterfeit courtesies they will adore him, follow him, pre- 
sent him with gifts, hamatis dorm; "it cannot be believed (saith ^Ammianu ) 
with what humble service he shall be worshipped," how loved and respected : 
" If he want children (and have means), he shall be often invited, attended on 
by princes, and have advocates to plead his cause for nothing," as ^Plutarch 
adds. Wift thou then be reverenced, and had in estimation 1 

"i dominus tamen et domini rex 

Si tu vis fieri, nullus tibi parvulus aula 

Luserit ^Eneas, nee filia dalcior ilia? 

Jucundum et char urn steiilis facit uxor ainicum." 

Live a single man, marry not, and thou shalt soon perceive how those TTfere- 
dipetse (ior so they were called of old) will seek after thee, bribe and flatter 
thee for thy favour, to be thine heir or executor : Aruntius and Aterius, those 
famous parasites in this kind, as Tacitus and ^ Seneca have recorded, shall 
not go beyond them. Periplectomines, that good personate old man, deliciitm 
senis, well understood this in Plautus; for when Pleusides exhorted him 

b Nuptial replent terram, virginitas Paradisum. Hier. ^ Daphne in laiimm semper virentem, immor- 

talem docet gloriam paratam virginibus pudicitiam servantibus. d Catul. car. nuptiali. " As the flower 

that grows in the secret inclosure of the garden, unknown to the flocks, unpressed by the plouglishare, which 
also the breezes refresh, the heat strengthens, the rain makes grow: so is a virgin whilst untouched, wliilst 
dear to her relatives, but when once she forfeits her chastity," &c. '^ Diet, saint, c. 22. pulcherrimum 

sertum intiniti precii, gemma, et pictura gpecicsa. f Mart. 8 Lib. 24. qua obsequiorum diversitate 

colantur homines sine libsris. b Huncalii ad coenam invitant, princeps huic fanmlatur, oratores gratis 

patrocinantur. Lib. de amore Prolis. 1 Anna!. 11. "If you wish to be master of your house, let no little 

ones play in youi- halls, nor any little daughter yet more dear, a barren wife makesa pleasaut and atfectionate 
compunion. " k 60 de benelic. 38. 



' Whilst I have kin, what need I brats to have? 
Now I live well, and as 1 will, most brave. 
And when I die, my goods I'll give away 
To them that do invite me every day, 
Tiiat visit me, and send me pretty toys, 
And strive who shall do me most courtesies." 



Mem. 5. Subs. 4.] Cure of Lovd-Melaiicholy, 607 

to marry that lie might have children of his own, he readily replied in this 
sort, 

"Quando habeo multos cognatos, quid opus mihi sit 

liberis ? 
Nunc bene vivo et fortunate, atque animo utlubet. 
Srea bona mea morte cognatis dicam interpartiaiit. 
llli apiid me edunt, me curant, visunt quid agam, 

ecqtiid velim, 
Qui mihi mittunt munera, ad prandium, ad coenam 

vocant." 

This respect thou shalt have in like manner, living as he did, a single man. 
But if thou marry once, ^ cogitato in omni vita te servumfore, bethink thyself 
what a slavery it is, what a heavy burden thou shalt undertake, how hard a 
task thou art tied to, (for as Hierome hath it, qui uxorem habet, debitor est, et 
nxoris servus alligatus,) and how continuate, what squalor attends it, what irk- 
someness, what charges, for wife and children are a perpetual bill of charges ; 
besides a myriad of cares, miseries, and troubles ; for as that comical Plautus 
merrily and truly said, he that wants trouble, must get to be master of a ship, 
or marry a wife; and as another seconds him, wife and children have undone 
me; so many and such infinite incumbrances accompany this kind of life. 
JFurthermore, uxor intumuit, &c., or as he said in the comedy, ^ Duxi uxorew^ 
quarm ihi miseriam vidi, nati Jilii, alia cura. All gifts and invitations cease, 
no friend will esteem thee, and thou shalt be compelled to lament thy misery, 
and make thy moan with "Bartholomseus Schersaus, that famous poet laureate, 
and professor of Hebrew in Wittenberg : I had finished this work long since, 
but that later alia dura et tristia qiice misero mihi pene terguni fregerunt (I 
use his own words), amongst many miseries which almost broke my back, 
Gv^vyta oh Xantipismum, a shrew to my wife tormented my mind above mea- 
sure and beyond the rest. So shalt thou be compelled to complain, and to 
cry out at last, with ° Phoroneus the lawyer, " How happy had I been, if I 
had wanted a wife !" If this which I have said will not suffice, see more in 
Lemnius, lib. 4. cap. 13, de occult, nat. mir. Espensseus de continentia, lib. 6. 
cap. 8. Kornman de virginitate, Platina in Amor. died. Practica artis amandij 
Barbaras de re uxoria, Arnisseus in polit. cap. 3. and him that is instar om- 
nium, Nevisanus the lawyer, Sylva nuptial, almost in every page. 

SuBSECT. IV. — Philters, Magical and Poetical Cures. 

Where persuasions and other remedies will not take place, many fly to 
unlawful means, philters, amulets, magic spells, ligatures, characters, charms, 
which as a wound with the spear of Achilles, if so made and caused, must so 
be cured. If forced by spells and philters, saith Paracelsus, it must be eased 
by characters, Mag. lib. 2. cap. 28. and by incantations. Pernelius, Path. lib. 
6. ca]). 13. ^ Skenkius, lib. 4. observ. med. hath some examples of such as 
have been so magically caused, and magically cured, and by witchcraft ; so 
saith Baptista Codronchus, lib. 3. cap. 9. de mor. ven. Malleus malef. cap. 6. 
'Tis not permitted to be done, I confess ; yet often attempted : see more in 
Wierus, lib. 3. cap. 18. de prcestig. de remediis per philtra. Delrio, torn. 2. lib. 2. 
qucest 3. sect. 3, disquisit. magic. Cardan, lib. 16. rap. 90. reckons up many 
magnetical medicines, as to piss through a ring, &c. Mizaldus, cent. 3. 30, 
Baptista Porta, Jason Pratensis, Lobelius, pag. 87, Matthiolus, &c., prescribe 
many absurd rem.edies. liadix mandragorce ebibitce, Annuli exungulis Asini, 
Stercus amatcB sub cervical positum, ilia nesciente, &c., quum odorem fo^ditatis 
sentit, amor solvitur. JS'octuce ovum abstemios facit comestum, ex consilio 

1 E Grseco. ^ Ter. Adelph. " I have married a wife ; what misery it has entailed upon me ! sons were 
■born, and other cares followed." "^ Itineraria in psalmos instructione ad lectorcm. » Bruson lib. 7. 22. cap. 
Si uxor deesset, nihil milii ad summam felicitatem defuisset. P Extinguitur virilitasex incantamentorum 
maleficiis ; neque enim fauula est, nonnulli reperti sunt, qui ex veneficiis amorc privati sunt, ut ex multia 
bistoriis patet. 



^08 Love-Melancholy, [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

JartJicB Indorum gymnosopMstce apud Philostratum, lib. 3. Sanguis amasice 
ehibitus omnem amoris sensum tollit: Faustinam Marci Aurelii uxorem, gladia- 
toris amove captam, ita penitus consilio Chaldceorum liberatam, refert Julius 
Capitolinus. Some of our astrologers will effect as much by characteristical 
images, ex siyillis Herinetis, Salomoriis, Chcelis, &c., rmdieris imago haben- 
tis crines sparsos, &c. Our old poets and fantastical writers have r&any 
fabulous remedies for such as are love-sick, as that of Protesilaus' tomb in 
Philostratus, in his dialogue between Phoenix and Venitor : Yenitor, upon 
occasion discoursing of the rare virtues of thai^ shrine, telling him that Prote- 
silaus' altar and tomb "^ cures almost all manner of diseases, consumptions, 
dropsies, quartan-agues, sore eyes : and amongst the rest, such as are love-sick 
shall there be helped." But the most famous is ^Leucata Petra, that renowned 
rock in Greece, of which Strabo writes, Geog. lib. 10. not far from St. Maures, 
saith Sands, lib. 1. from which rock if any lover flung himself down headlong, 
he was instantly cured. Venus, after the death of Adonis, " when she could 
take no rest for love," ^Cum vesana suas torreret flamina medullas, came to the 
temple of Apollo to know what she should do to be eased of her pain : Apollo 
sent her to Leucata Petra, where she precipitated herself, and was forthwith 
freed; and when she would needs know of him a reason of it, he told her 
again, that he had often observed * Jupiter, when he was enamoured on Juno, 
thither go to ease and wash himself, and after him divers others. Cephalus 
for the love of Protela, Degonetus' daughter, leaped down here, that Lesbian 
Sappho for Phaon, on whom she miserably doted. ^Cupidinis cestro percita e 
summo prceceps ruit, hoping thus to ease herself, and to be freed of her love 
pangs. 

" prither Deucalion came, when Pyrrha's love 
Tormented him, and leapt down to the sea, 
And had no hann at all, but hy and by 
His love was gone and chased quite away." 

This medicine Jos. Scaliger speaks of, Ausoniarum lectio^um lib. 18. Salmutz, 
in Pancirol. de 7. mundi mirac. and other writers. Pliny reports, that 
amongst the Cyzeni, there is a well consecrated to Cupid, of which if any lover 
taste, his passion is mitigated: and Anthony Yerdurius, I mag. deorum de 
Cupid, saith, that amongst the ancients there was ^ Amor Lethes, "he took 
burning torches, and extinguished them in the river ; his statue was to be seen 
in the temple of Yenus Eleusina," of which Ovid makes mention, and saith 
" that all lovers of old went thither on pilgrimage, that would be rid of their 
h)ve-pangs." Pausanias, in ^Phocicis, writes of a temple dedicated Veneri 
in speluncd, to Yenus in the vault, at Naupactus in Achaia (now Lepanto) in 
which your widows that would have second husbands, made their supplications 
to the goddess; all manner of suits concerning lovers were commenced, and 
their grievances helped. The same author, in Achaicis, tells as much of the 
river ^Senelus in Greece; if any lover washed himself in it, by a secret virtue 
of that water (by reason of the extreme coldness belike), he was healed of 
love's torments, ^Ainoris vulnus idem qui sanatfadt; which if it be so, that 
water, as he holds, is omni auro pretiosior, better than any gold. Where none of 
all these remedies will take place, 1 know no other but that all lovers must 
make a head and rebel, as they did in "" Ausonius, and crucify Cupid till he 
grant their request, or satisfy their desires. 

<l Curat omnes morbos, phthises, hydropes et ocnloinim morbos, et febre quartana laborantes et amore 
cantos, miris artibus eos demulcet. ^ " The moral is, vehement fear expels love." ° Catullus. 

t QuumJunonem deperiret Jupiter impotenter, ibi solitus lavare, &c. '^ Menander. ' Stricken by the 

cad-fly of love, rushed headlong from the summit." ^ Ovid. ep. 21. y Apud antiques amor Lethes olim 
fuit, is ardentes faces in profluentem inclinabat; hujusstatua Veneris Eleusinsetemplo visebatur, quo amantea 
confluebant, qui amicse memoriam deponere volebant. ^ Lib. 10. Vota ei nuncupant amatores, multis 

de causis, sed imprimis viduse mulieres, ut s^ibi alteras a dea nuptias exposcant. » Kodiginus,ant. lect. 

lib. 16. cap. 25, calls it Selenus. Omni amore liberat. b Seneca. "The rise and remedy of love the 

same." ** Cupido cioiclfixus: lepidum puema. 



^ Hie se Deucalion Pyrrhge succensus amore 
Mersit, et illasso corpore pressit aquas. 
Nee moia, fugit amor," &c. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 5.] Cure of Love- Melancholy, 609 

SuBSECT. Y. — The last and best cure of Love-Melancholy, is to let them have 

their Dedre. 

The last refuge and surest remedy, to be put in practice in the utmost place, 
when no other means will take effect, is to let them go together, and enjoy one 
another: potissima cura est ut heros amasia sua potiatur, saith Guianerius, 
cap. 15. tract. 15. ^sculapius himself to this malady cannot invent abetter 
remedy, quamut amanticedat amatum, ^ (Jason Pratensis) than that a lover 
have his desire. 

" Et paritfer toralo bini j'mgintur in iino, ] " And let them both be joined in a bed, 

Et pulchro detur ^Enese Lavinia conjux." | And let JEneas fair Lavinia wed ;" 

'Tis the special cure, to let them bleed in vena Hymencea, for love is a pleu- 

risy,andif itbepossible, soletit be optataquegaudia carpunt. ® Arculanus 

holds it the speediest and the best cure^ 'tis Savanarola's *'last precept^ a prin- 
cipal infallible remedy, the last, sole, and safest refuge. 

S " Julia sola potes nostras extinguere flammas, I " Julia alone can quench my desire, 

Non nive, non glacie, sed potes igue pari." | With neither ice nor snow, but with like fire." 

When you have all done, saith Avicenna, " ^ there is no speedier or safer course, 
than to join the parties together according to their desires and wishes, the 
custom and form of law ; and so we have seen him quickly restored to his 
former health, that was languished away to skin and bones ; after his desire 
was satisfied, his discontent ceased, and we thought it strange ; our opinion is 
therefore that in such cases nature is to be obeyed." Areteus, an old author, 
lib. 3. cap. 3. hath an instance of a young man, ^when no other means could 
prevail, was so speedily relieved. What remains then but to join them in 
man-iage 1 

" kTunc et basia morsiunculasiue 
Surreptim dare, mutuos fovere 
Amplexus licet, et licet jocari ; " 

" they may then kiss and coll, lie and look babies into one another's eyes." 
as their sires before them did, they may then satiate themselves with love's 
pleasures, which they have so long wished and expected ; 

" Atque uno simul in toro quiescant, 
Conjuncto simul ore suavientur, 
Et somnos agitent quiete in uaa." 

Yea, but hie labor, hoc opus, this cannot conveniently be done, by reason of 
m.any and several impediments. Sometimes both parties themselves are not 
agreed : parents, tutors, masters, guardians, will not give consent : laws, cus- 
toms, statutes, hinder : poverty, superstition, fear and suspicion : many men 
dote on one woman, semel et simul : she dotes as much on him, or them, and 
in modesty must not, cannot woo, as unvfilling to confess as willing to love : 
she dare not make it known, show her affection, or speak her mind. " And 
hard is the choice (as it is in Euphues) when one is compelled either by silence 
to die with grief, or by speaking to live with shame." In this case almost was 
the fair Lady Elizabeth, Edward the Fourth his daughter, when she was 
enamoured on Henry the Seventh, that noble young prince, and new saluted 
king, when she broke forth into that passionate speech, '• ^O that I were 
worthy of that comely prince ! but my father being dead, I want friends to 
motion such a matter ? What shall I say 1 I am all alone, and dare not open 
my mind to any. What if I acquaint my mother with it 1 br.shf ulness forbids 
What if some of the lords ? audacity wants. that I might but confer with 
him, perhaps in discourse I might let slip such a word that might discover 

d Cap. 19. de morb. cerebri. ^ Patiens potiatur re amata, si fieri po-sit, optima cura, cap. 16. in 9. Rhasis. 
f Si nihil aliud, nuptiae et copulatio ciim ea. S petrouius Catal. h Cap. de I.ishi. Non invenitur cara, 

nisi regimen connexionis inter eos, secundum modum jn'omis-ionis, et legis, et sic vidimus ad carnemrestitii- 
tum, qui jam venerat ad arefactionem ; evanuit c ira postqiam sensit, &c. i Kama est melancholicu'U 

queiidam ex amore insanabiliter se habentem, ubi puellte ss coujanxisset, restitutum, &c. kjoviaa. 

Toiitauus, Basi. lib. 1. 1 Specie's hist h M. S. Ber. Andreas. 

2 R 



610 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

mine intention !" How many modest maids may this concern, I am a poor 
servant, what shall I do ? I am a fatherless child, and want means, I am 
blithe and buxom, young and lusty, but I have never a suitor, Expectant stolidi 
ut ego illosrogatumveniam, as ™she said, A company of silly fellows look belike 

that I should woo them and speak first : fain they would and cannot woo " quce 

primum exordia sumcim ? being merely passive they may not make suit, with 
many such lets and inconveniences, which I know not; what shall we do in 

such a case? sing " Fortune my foe ?" 

Some are so curious in this behalf, as those old Romans, our modem Vene- 
tians, Dutch and French, that if two parties dearly love, the one noble, the 
other ignoble, they may not by their laws match, though equal otherwise in 
years, fortunes, education, and all good affection. In Germany, except they 
can prove their gentility by three descents, they scorn to match with them. 
A nobleman must marry a noblewoman : a baron, a baron's daughter; a knight 
a knight's ; a gentleman a gentleman's : as slaters sort their slates, do they 
degrees and families. If she be never so rich, fair, well qualified otherwise, 
they will make him forsake her. The Spaniards abhor all widows; the Turks 
repute them old women, if past five-and-twenty. But these are too severe 
laws, and strict customs, dandam aliquid amori, we are all the sons of Adam, 
'tis opposite to nature, it ought not to be so. Again : he loves her most impo- 
tently, she loves not him, and so e contra. " Pan loved Echo; Echo, Satyrus; 
Satyrus, Lyda. 

" Quantum ipsorum aliqnis amantem oderat, 
lantum ipsius amans odiosus erat." 

" They love and loathe of all sorts, he loves her, she hates him ; and is loathed 
of him on whom she dotes." Cupid hath two darts, one to force love, all of 

gold, and that sharp ^Quod/acit auratum est; another blunt, of lead, 

and that to hinder ; -fugat hoc, facit illud amorem, " this dispels, that 

creates love." This we see too often verified in our common experience. 
*> Choresus dearly loved that virgin Callyrrhoe ; but the more he loved her, the 
more she hated him. CEnone loved Paris, but he rejected her : they are stiff 
of all sides, as if beauty were therefore created to undo, or be undone. I give 
her all attendance, all observance, I pray and intreat, ^ Alma, precor, miserere 
mei, fair mistress pity me, I spend myself, my time, friends and fortunes to 
win her favour (as he complains in the ^Eclogue), I lament, sigh, weep, and 

make my moan to her, " but she is hard as flint" cautibus Ismariis im- 

onotior as fair and hard as a diamond, she will not respect, Despectus tibi 

sum, or hear me, 



fugit ilia vocantem 



Nil lachrymas miserata mc-as, nil flexa querelis." t 



What shall I do? 



" I wooed her as a yonng man shoiild do, 
But sir, she said, I love not you." 
•' " Durior at scopnlis mea Coelia, marmore, ferro, I " Rock, marble, heart of oak with iron Tjarr'd, 
Robore, rupe, antro, cornu, adamante, gelu." | Frost, flint or adamants are not so hard." 

I give, I bribe, I send presents, but they are refused, ^ Rusticus est CoridoUf 
nee munera curat Alexis. I protest, I swear, I weep, 

" y odioque rependit amores, 

Irrisu lachrymas" 

" She neglects me for all this, she derides me," contemns me, she hates me, 
" Phillida flouts me :" Caute, feris^ quercu durior Eurydice, stiff, churlish, 
rocky still. 

^Lucretia in Coelestina, act. 19. Barthio interpret. nvirg. 4 iEn. "How shall I begin?" 

OE Grgeclio Moschi. POvirt. Met. 1. " The efficacious one is gold..-n." ^Pausanias Achaicis, lib. 7. 

Perdile amabat Callyrhoen virgine'm, et quanto erat Choresi amoi- vehementior, tanto erat pueUse 
animus ab ejus amore alieiiior. ^ yirg. 6 Mx\. s Erasmus, Egi. Galatea. t" Having no compassion 

fbr my tears, she* avoids my prayers, and is inflexible to my plaints." " Angerianus, Erotopagnion. 

* Virg. y Lcecheus. 



Mem. 5. Sub.s. 5.] Care of Love- Melanchjhj. Gil 

And tis most true, many gentlewomen are ^o nice, tliey scorn all suitors, 
crucify their poor paramours, and think nobody good enough for them, as 
dainty to please as Daphne herself. 

"^Multi illam pstiere, ilia aspemante peteutes, I " Many did woo her, but she scorn'd them still, 

Nee quid Hymen, quid amor, quid sint coimubia curat," | And >aid she would not many by her will." 

One while they will not marry, as they say at least (when as they intend nothing 
less), another while not yet, when 'tis their only desire, they rave upon it. She 
will marry at last, but not him : he is a proper man indeed, and well qualified, 
but he wants means : another of lier suitors hath good means, but he wants wit; . 
cue is too old, another too young, too deformed, she likes not his carriage : a 
third too loosely given, he ia rich, but base born : she will be a gentlewoman, a 
lady, as her sister is, as her mother is : she is all out as fair, as well brought 
up, hath as good a portion, and she looks for as good a match, as Matilda or 
Dorinda : if not, she is resolved as yet to tarry, so apt are young maids to 
boggle at every object, so soon won or lost with every toy, so quickly diverted, 
so hard to be pleased. In the meantime, quot torsit amantes? one suitor pines 
away, languisheth in love, mori quot denique cogit ! another sighs and grieves, 
she cares not: and which '^Stroza objected to Ariadne, 



"Nee magis Euryali gemitn, lacrjTnisque moveris, 
Quam prece turb .ti tiectitur ora sali. 
Tu juvenem, quo non formosior alter in urbe, 
bpeniis, et insano co^is amore morL" 



"Is no more mov'd with those sad sighs and tears, 
Of her sweetheart, than raging sea with prayers ; 
Thuu scorn'st the fairest youth in all our city, 
And mak'st him almost mad for love to die :" 



They take a j)ride to prank up themselves, to make young men enamoured, 
•^captare vivos et spernere captos, to dote cm them, and to run mad for their 

""sed nullisilla movetur I "Whilst niggardly their favours they discover, 

Fletibus, aut voces uUas tractabihs audit." | They love to be belov'd, yet scorn the lover." 

All suit and service is too little for them, presents too base : Tormentis gaudet 

amantis et spoliis. As Atalanta they must be overrun, or not won. 

Many young men are as obstinate, and as curious in their choice, as tyranni- 
cally proud, insulting, deceitful, false-hearted, as irrefragable and peevish on 
the other side; Narcissus-like, 

" d Multi ilium juvenes, multas petiere puellse, I " Young men and maids did to hiin sue, 
Sed fuit in tenera tarn dira superbia forma, j But in his youth, so proud, so coy was he, 

Nalli ilium juvenes, null* petiere pudl*." j Young men and maids bade him adieu." 

Echo wept and wooed him b^'- all means above the rest, Love me for pity, or 
pity me for love, but he was obstinate, Ante ait emoriar quam sit tibi copii 
nostrt, "he would rather die than give consent." Psyche ran whining after 
Cupid, 

" ^ Formosum tua te Psyche foraiosa requirit, I " Fair Cupid, thy fair Psyche to thee sues, 

Et poscit te dia deum, puermnque puella ; " I A lovely lass a hue young gaUant woos ; " 

but he rejected her nevertheless. Thus many lovers do hold out so long, doting 
on themselves, stand in their own light, till in the end they come to be scorned 
and rejected, as Stroza's Gargiliana was, 

" Te juvenes, te odere senes, desertaque langues, I " Both yomig and old do hate thee scorned noAv, 
Quae fueras procerum publica cura prius." | That once was all their joy and comfort too." 

As Narcissus was himself, 

" Who despising many, 

Died ere he could enjoy tue love of any." 

They begin to be contemned themselves of others, as he was of his sliadow, and 
take up wT.th a poor curate, or an old serving-man at last, that might have had 
their choice of right good matches in their youth; like that generous mare in 
^Plutarch, which would admit of none but great horses, but when her tail was 
cut off and mane shorn close, and she now saw herself so deformed in the water, 
■when she came to drink, ab asino conscendi se x^cLssa, she was contented at last 

2 Ovid. Met 1. a-Erot. lib. 2. bT. II. "To captivate the men, but despise them when (.-aprive," 

k Virg. 4. Ma. dMetu^jhor. 3. ^ Fi acastorius, L»ial. de auim. filial. Am. 



y 



612 Love-2Ielanc1wly. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

to be covered by an ass. Yet tliis is a common humour, will not be left, and 
cannot be helped. 



Hanc volo quae non vult, illam quae vult ego nolo : 
Vincere vult animos, non satiare Venus." 



' I love a maid, she loves me not : full fain 
She would have me, but I not her again ; 
So love to crucify men's souls is bent: 
But seldom doth it please oi" give content." 



" Their love danceth in a ring, and Cupid hunts them round about; he dotes, 

is doted on again." Dumque petit' petitur, pariter que accedit et ardet, their 

affection cannot be reconciled. Oftentimes they may and will not, 'tis their 

own foolish proceedings that mar all, they are too distrustful of themselves, 

I too soon d^ected: say she be rich, tiiou poor: she young, thou old; she 

i lovely and fair, thou most ill-fa voared and deformed ; she noble, thou base : she 

I spruce and fine, but thou an ugly clown: nil desperandum, there's hope 

' enough yet : Mopso Nisa datur, quid non speremus amantes ? Put thyself 

forward once more, as unlikely matches have been and are daily made, see 

what will be the event. Many leave roses and gather thistles, loathe honey 

and love verjuice: our likings are as various as our palates. But commonly 

they omit opportunities, oscula qui sumpsit, &c., they neglect the usual means 

and times. 

"He that will not when he may, 
■U hen he will he shall have nay." 

They look to be wooed, sought after, and sued to. Most part they will and 
cannot, either for the above-named reasons, or for that there is a multitude of 
suitors equally enamoured, doting all alike; and where one alone must speed, 
what shall become of the rest ? Hero was beloved of many, but one did enjoy 
her ; Penelope had a company of suitors, yet all missed of their aim. In such 
cases he or they must wisely and warily unwind themselves, unsettle his 

affections by those rules above prescribed, ^quiii stultos excutit ignes, 

divert his cogitations, or else bravely bear it out, as Turnus did, Tua sit 
Lavinia conjux, when he could not get her, with a kind of heroical scorn he bid 
-^neas take hor, or with a milder farewell, let her go. Et Fhillida solus habeto^ 
" Take her to you, God give you joy, sir." The fox in the emblem would eat 
no grapes, but why? because he could not get them; care not then for that 
which may not be had. 

Many such inconveniences, lets, and hindrances there are, which cross their 
projects, and crucify poor lovers, which sometimes may, sometimes again cannot 
be so easily removed. But put case they be reconciled all, agreed hitherto, 
suj)pose this love or good liking be between two alone, both parties well 
pleased, there is m,utuus amor, mutual love and great affection : yet their parents, 
guardians, tutors, cannot agree, thence all is dashed, the match is unequal : 
one rich, another poor; durus pater, a hard-hearted, unnatural, a covetous 
father will not marry his son, except he have so much money, ita in auruin 
omnes insaniant, as ^Chrysostom notes, nor join his daughter in marriage, to 
save her dowry, or for that he cannot spare her for the service she doth him, 
and is resolved to part with nothing whilst he lives, not a penny, though he 
may peradventure well give it, he will not till he dies, and then as a pot of 
money broke, it is divided amongst them that gaped after it so earnestly. Or 
else he wants means to set her out, he hath no money, and though it be to the 
manifest prejudice of her body and soul's health, he cares not, he will take no 
notice of it, she must and shall tarry. Many slack and careless parents, iniqui 
paires, measure their children's affections by their own, they are now cold and 
decrepit themselves, past all such youthful conceits, and they will therefore 
starve their children's genius, have them a pueris^ illico nascisenes, they must 
not marry, nee earum affines esse rerum quas secuTii fert adolescentia : ex sud 

SAusonius. hOvid. Met. iHom. 5. in 1. epist Thess. cap. 4, ver. 1. kTer. 



Mem. 5. Sub^. 5.] Cure of Love-2Ielanchohj. 613 

lihidine moderatur quce est nunc, non quce oliiii fuit: as he said in the comedy: 
they will stilde nature, their young bloods must not participate of youthful 
pleasures, but be as they are themselves old on a sudden. And 'tis a general 
fault amongst most parents in bestowing of their children, the father wholly 
respects wealth, when through his folly, riot, indiscretion, he hath embezzled 
his estate, to recover himself, he confines and prostitutes his eldest soji's love 
and affection to some fool, or ancient, or deformed piece for money, 

"1 Plianaretee ducet filiam, rufam, illam virginem, 
Caisiam, sparso ere, adunco naso" 

and though his son utterly dislike, with Clitipho in the comedy, Non possuin 
jMter: if she be rich, Eia (he replies), ut elegans est, credas aniuiumibi esse? 
he must and shall have her, she is fair enough, young enough, if he look or 
hope to inherit his lands, he shall marry, not when or whom he Ioyq.^, A rconidis 
hujus filiam, but whom his father commands, when and where he likes, his 
affection must dance attendance upon him. His daughter is in the same pre- 
dicament forsooth, as an empty boat she must carry what, where, when, and 
whom her father will. So that in these businesses the father is still for 
the best advantage; now the mother respects good kindred, must part the son 
a proper woman. All which °^Livy exemplifies, dec. 1. lib. 4. a gentleman 
and a yeoman wooed a wench in Kome (contrary to that statute that the gentry 
and commonalty must not match together) ; the matter was controverted : the 
gentleman was preferred by the mother's voice, qucequam splendidissirtiis nup^ 
tiis jungi puellmn volebcit : the overseers stood for him that was most worth, 
&c. But parents ought not to be so strict in this behalf, beauty is a dowry of 
itself all sufficient, ^ Virgo formosa, etsi oppido paup)ery abimde dotata est, 
"Kachel was so married to Jacob, and Bona venture, ^m 4 sent, "denies that 
lie so much as venially sins, that marries a maid for comeliness of person." 
The Jews, Deut. xxi. 11, if they saw amongst the captives a beautiful woman, 
some small circumstances observed, might take her to wife. They should 
not be too severe in that kind, especially if there be no such urgent occasion, 
or grievous impediment. 'Tis good for a commonwealth. *^ Plato holds, that 
in their contracts "young men should never avoid the afiinity of poor folks, or 
seek after rich." Poverty and base parentage may be sufficiently recompensed 
by many other good qualities, modesty, virtue, religion, and choice bringing up, 
*'^I am poor, I confess, but am I therefore contemptible, and an object "? Love 
itself is naked, the graces; the stars, and Hercules clad in a lion's skin." 
Give something to virtue, love, wisdom, favour, beauty, person; be not all for 
money. Besides, you must consider that Amor cogi non potest, love cannot 
be compelled, they must affect as they may : ^ Fatinn est in partibus illis quas 
sinus abscondit, as the saying is, marriage and hanging goes by destiny, 
matches are made in heaven. 

" It lies not in our power to love or hate, 
For will in us is overrul'd by fate." _,_ 

A servant maid in '^Aristsenetu sieved her mistress's minion, it-hich when her 
dame perceived, furiosd cemulatione, in a jealous humour she dragged hei 
about the house by the hair of the head, and vexed her sore. The wench 
cried out, "^O mistress, fortune hath made my body your servant, but not my 
soul !" Affections are free, not to be commanded. Moreover it may be to 
restrain their ambition, pride, and covetousness, to correct those hereditary 
diseases of a family, God in his just judgment assigns and permits such 

iTer. Heaut. Seen. tilt. "He will marry the daughter of rich parents, a red-haired, blear-eyed, big- 
mouthed, crooked-nosed wench." '^ 1 kbeius et nobilis ambiebaut puellam, puellse certamen in partes 
venit, &c. ^ Apnleius Apol. ** Gen. xsvi. P ^on peccat venialiter qui mulierem ducit ob pulchrj- 
tudinem. <l Lib. 6. de leg. Ex usu reipub. est ut in nuptiis juvenes neque paupeiiim affinitatem fugiant, 
neque divitutn sectenlur. ^Philost. ep. Quoniara pa'.'per sum, idcircj conteraptior et abjectior tibi 
videar? Amor if se nudus est, gratise et astra ; Eercuk-s pelle leoniiia indutus. ^Juvenal. _tLib. 2, 
ep. 7. ^ iijulans inquit, non mentem una addixit niihi fortuna se^^•itute.^ ; 



614 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

matches to b3 made. For I am of Plato and ^Bodine's mind, that families 
have their bounds and periods as well as kingdoms, beyond which for extent 
or continuance they shall not exceed, six or seven hundred years, as they there 
illustrate by a multitude of examples, and which Peucer and ^Melaucthon 
approve, but in a perpetual tenor (as we see by many pedigrees of knights, 
gentlemen, yeomen) continue as they began, for many descents with little 
alteration. HoAvsoever let them, I say, give something to youth, to love ; they 
must not think they can fancy whom they appoint; ^Amoi' enim non impera- 
tur, affectus liber si quis alius et vices exigens, this is a free passion, as Pliny 
said in a panegyric of his, and may not be forced : Love craves liking, as the 
saying is, it requires mutual affections, a correspondency: invito non daturnec 
aufertur, it may not be learned, Ovid himself cannot teach us how to love, 
Solomon describe, Apelles paint, or Helen express it. They must not therefore 
compel or intrude; ^quis enim (as Fabius urgeth) amare alieno animo potest? 
but consider withal the miseries of enforced marriages; take pity upon youth : 
and such above the rest as have daughters to bestow, should be very careful 
and provident to marry them in due time. Syracides, cap. 7. vers. 25. calls it 
'•'a weighty matter to perform, so to marry a daughter to a man of understand- 
ing in due time:" Virgines enim tempestive locandce,2i% ^Lemnius admonish- 
eth, lib. 1. cap. 6. Yirgins must be provided for in season, to prevent many 
diseases, of which ^E-odericus ^ Castro de morbis mulierum, lib. 2. cap. 3. and 
Lod. Mercatus, lib. 2. de mulier. affect, cap. 4, de melanch. virginum et vidua- 
Tum, have both largely discoursed. And therefore as well to avoid these feral 
maladies, 'tis good to get them husbands betimes, as to prevent some other 
gross inconveniences, and for a thing that I know besides ; id)i nuptiarum 
tempus et cetas advenerit, as Chrysostom adviseth, let them not defer it ; they 
perchance will marry themselves else, or do worse. If Nevisanus the lawyer do 
not impose they may do it by right : for as he proves out of Curtius, and some 
other civilians, Sylvse, nup. lib. 2. numer. 30. "^Amaid past 25 years of 
age, against her parents' consent may marry such a one as is unworthy of, and 
inferior to her, and her father by law must be compelled to give her a competent 
dowry." Mistake me not in the meantime, or think that I do apologise here 
for any headstrong, unruly, wanton flirts. I do approve that of St. Ambrose 
(Comment in Genesis xxiv. 5\), which he hath written touching Rebecca's 
spousals, "A woman should give unto her parents the choice of her husband, 
^lest she be reputed to be malapert and wanton, if she take upon her to make 
her own choice ; ^for she should rather seem to be desired by a man, than to 
desire a man herself." To these hard parents alone I retort that of Curtius 
(in the behalf of modester maids), that are too remiss and careless of their due 
time and riper years. For if they tarry longer, to say truth, they are past 
date, and nobody will respect them. A woman with us in Italy (saitli 
^Aretine's Lucretia) 24 years of age, "is old already, past the best, of no 
account." An old fellow, as Lycistrata confesseth in ^Aristophanes, etsi sit 
canus, cito puellam virginem ducat uxorem, and 'tis no news for an old fellow 
to marry a young wench : but as he follows it, mulieris hrevis occasio est, etsi 
hoc non apprehenderit,nemo vult ducere uxorem, expectans vero sedet; who cares 
for an old maid? she may set, &c. A virgin, as the poet holds, lasciva et 
petulans puella virgo, is like a flower, a rose withered on a sudden. 

'' i Quam modb nascentem rutilus conspexit Eoiis, I " She that was erst a maid as fresh as May, 

Hanc rediens sero vespere vidit aiium." | Is now an old crone, time so steals awa}-." 

^ De repub. c. de period, rerumpnb. y Com. in car. Chron. ^Plin. in pan. apgdam. 306. 

b Puellis imprimis nulla danda occasio lapsus. Lemn. lib. 1. 54. de. vit. instit. ^ See more part. 1. 8. 

mem. 2. subs. 4. d Filia excedeiis annum 25. potest inscio patre nuberc, licet indignus sit maritus, et euin 
co&erc ad congrue dotandum. ^ Ne appetentia3 procacioris reputctur auctor. f Ex]'etita enim magls 

debet videri k viro quam ipsa virum rxpetisse. s jMuiier apud nos 24. annorum vetiila ect et projectitia. 

fa<Joiaa;d. Lycistrat. And. Divolnterpr. Ausonius, edy. 14, 



Mem. 5. Subs. 5' 



Cure of Love Melancholy. 



615 



Let them take time tlien while they may, make advantage of youth, and as he 
prescribes. 



k Collige virgo rosas dum flos novas et nova pubes, 
Et memor esto aerain sic properare tuum." 



■ Fair maids, go gather roses in the prime, 
Aad think that as a fiower so goes on time.' 



Ijet's all love, dum vires annique sinunt, while we are in the flower of years, 
fit for love matters, and while time serves : for 



■ 1 Soles occidere et ridere possunt, 
Koliis cum semel occidit brevis hix, 
Nox est perpetub una dormicnda." 



J^ Sims that set may rise again. 
But if once we lose this light, 
'Tis with us perpetual night." 



Volat irrevocabile tempus, time past cannot be recalled. But we need no such 
exhortation, we are all commonly too forward : yet if there be any escape, and 
all be not as it should, as Diogenes struck the father when the son swore, 
because he taught him no better, if a maid or a young man miscarry, I think 
their parents oftentimes, guardians, overseers, governors, neque vos (saith 
^'Chrysostom) a supplicio im mimes evadetis, sinon statini adnuptias, &c., are in 
as much fault, and as severely to be punished as their children, in providing 
for them no sooner. 

Now for such as have free liberty to bestoAV themselves, I could wish that 
good counsel of the comical old man were put in practice, 



• Opulentiores pauperiorum itt filias 
ln>lotas ducant uxores domum : 
Et multb fiet ci vitas concordior, 
Et invidia nos minore utemur, quam utiraur.' 



" That rich men would marry poor maidens some. 
And that without dowry, and so bring them home. 
So would much concord be in our city, 
Less envy should we have, much more pity." 



If they would care less for wealth, we should have much more content and 
quietness in a commonwealth. Beauty,good bringingup, methinks,isa sufficient 
portion of itself, "^ Dos est siia forma puel/is, " her beauty is a maiden's dower,'' 
a.nd he doth well that will accept of such a wife. Eubulides, in ^ Aristsenetus, 
married a poor man's child, facie non illcEtabili, of a merry countenance, and 
heavenly visage, in pity of her estate, and that quickly. Acontius coming to 
Delos, to sacrifice to Diana, fell in love with Cydippe,a noble lass, and wanting 
means to get her love, flung a golden apple into her lap, with this inscription 
upon it, 

" Juro tibi sane per mystica Facra Diarse, I " I swear by all the lites of Diana, 

Me tibi venturum comitem, sponsunique futtirum." | I'll come and be thy husband if I may." 

She considered of it, and upon small inquiry of his person and estate, Avas 
married unto him. 

" Blessed is the wooing, 
That is not long a doing." 

As the saying is ; when the j^arties are sufficiently known to each other, what 
needs such scrupulosity, so many circumstances? dost thou know her condi- 
tions, her bringing up, like her person 1 let her means be what they will, take 
her without any more ado. ^ Dido and -^neas were accidentally driven by a 
storm both into one cave, they made a match npon it ; Massinissa was married 
to that fair captive Sophonisba, King Syphax' wife, the same day that he saw 
her first, to prevent Scipio Lselius, lest they should determine otherwise of her. 
If thou lovest the party, do as much : good education and beauty is a compe- 
tent doAvry, stand not upon money. JErant ohm anrei homines (saith Theocri- 
tus) et adamaoites redamabant, in the golden world men did so (in the reign of 
^Ogyges belike, before staggering l^inus began to domineer), if all be true that 
is rej)orted : and some few now-a-days will do as much, here and there one; 
'tis well done methinks, and all happiness befall them for so doing. * Leon tins, 
a philosopher of Athens, had a fair daflghter called Athenais, multo corporis 
lepore ac Veiiere (saith mine author), of a comely carriage, he gave her no por- 

Ifldera. Catullus. "> Translated by M. B. Johnson. ^Hom. 5. in. K Thes. cap. 4. 1. "Plautus. 

POvid. lEpist. 12. 1. 2. Eligit conjugem pauperem, indotatam et subito deamavit, ex commiserarione 
ejus inopise. ^Virg. iEn. •* Fabius pictor : amor ipse conjunxit popi:los, <fcc. t Lipsms, polit. 

bebast. Jiayer. Select. Sect. 1. cap. 13. 



616 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

tion but her bringing up, occulta formce presagio, out of some secret fore- 
knowledge of her fortune, bestowing that little which he had amongst his other 
children. But she, thus qualified, was preferred by some friends to Constan- 
tinople, to serve Pulcheria, the emperor's sister of whom she was baptised 
and called Eudocia. Theodosius, the emperor, in short space took notice of her 
excellent beauty and good parts, and a little after upon his sister's sole com- 
mendation made her his wife : 'twas nobly done of Theodosius. ^ Rodophe 
was the fairest lady in her days in all Egypt; she went to wash her, and by 
chance (her maids meanwhile looking but carelessly to her clothes), an eagle 
stole away one of her shoes, and laid it in Psammeticus the King of Egypt's 
lap at Memphis: he wondered at the excellency of the shoe and pretty foot, 
but more Aquilce factum, at the manner of the bringing of it: and caused 
forthwith proclamation to be made, that she that owned that shoe should come 
presently to his court; the virgin came, and was forthwith married to the 
king. I say this was heroically done, and like a prince : I commend him for 
it, and all such as have means, that will either do (as he did) themselves, or 
so for love, &c. marry their children. If he be rich, let him take such a one 
as wants, if she be virtuously given; for as Syracides, cap. 7. ver 19. adviseth, 
" Eorego not a wife and good woman ; for her grace is above gold." If she 
have fortunes of her own, let her make a man. Danaus of Lacedsemon had a 
many daughters to bestow, and means enough for them all, he never stood 
inquiring after great matches as others used to do, but ^ sent for a company 
of brave young gallants home to his house, and bid his daughters choose every 
one one, whom she liked best, and take him for her husband, without any more 
ado. This act of his was much approved in those times. But in this iron age 
of ours, we respect riches alone (for a maid must buy her husband now with 
a great dowry if she will have him), covetousness and filthy lucre mars all good 
matches, or some such by-respects. Crales, a Servian prince (as ISTicephorus 
Gregoras, Rom. hist. lib. G. relates it), was an earnest suitor to Eudocia, the 
emperor's sister; though her brother much desired it, yet she could not "^ abide 
him, for he had three former wives, all basely abused; but the emperor still, 
Oralis amicitiam magni faciens, because he was a great prince, and a trouble- 
some neighbour, much desired his aflS.nity, and to that end betrothed his own 
daughter Simonida to him, a little girl fi.ve years of age (he being forty-five), 
and five ^ years older than the emperor himself: such disproportionable and 
unlikely matches can wealth and a fair fortune make. And yet not that alone, 
it is not only money, but sometimes vain-glory, pride, ambition, do as much 
harm as wretched covetousness itself in another extreme. If a yeoman have 
one sole daughter, he must overmatch her above her birth and calling, to a 
gentleman forsooth, because of her great portion, too good for one of her own 
rank, as he supposeth : a gentleman's daughter and heir must be married to a 
knight baronet's eldest son at least; and a knight's only daughter to a baron 
himself, or an earl, and so upwards, her great dower deserves it. And thus 
striving for more honour to their wealth, they undo their children, many dis- 
contents follow, and oftentimes they ruinate their families. ^ Paulus Jovius 
gives instances in Galeatius the Second, that heroical Duke of Milan, externas 
ajinitates decor as quidem regiofastu, sed sibi et posteris damnosas et fere exi- 
tiales qucesivit; he married his eldest son John Galeatius to Isabella the King 
of Prance his sister, but she was soc^'o tarn gravis ut ducentis millihus aureo- 
rum constiterit, her entertainment at Milan was so costly that it almost undid 

" Mayerus, select, sect. 1. c. 14. et ^.lian. 1. 13. c. 33. cum famulse lavantis vestes incuriosius custodirent, &c. 
mandavit per universam .^Egyptnin ut foeminaTqufereretur, cujus is calceus esset; earaque sic inventam in 
matrimonium accepit. ^ rausanias, lib. 3. de Laconicis. Dimisit qui nunciarunt, &c. optionem puellis 

dedit, ut earura qutelibet eutn sibi virum deligeret, cujus maxime esset fonna complacita. ^ Illius 

coiijugiura abominabitur. ^Socero quinque circiter annos natu minor. *Vit. Galeat, secundi. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 5.] Cure of Love-Melancholy. 617 

him. His daughter Yiolanta was married to Lionel Duke of Clarence, the 
youngest son to Edward the Third, King of England, but, ad ejus adventum 
tcintce opes tarn admirabili liberalitate profusce sunt, ut opulentissimorum reguiii 
splendorein superdsse videretur, he was welcomed with such incredible magnifi- 
cence, that a king's purse was scarcely able to bear it ; for besides many rich 
presents of horses, arms, plate, money, jewels, &c., he made one dinner for 
him and his company, in which were thirty-two messes and as much provision 
left, ut r electee a mensa dapes decern millibus ho7)iinum sufficerent, as would 
serve ten thousand men : but a little after Lionel died, novce nuptce et inteni- 
pestivis coiiviviis operam dans, &c., and to the duke's great loss, the solem- 
nity was ended. So can titles, honours, ambition, make many brave, but 
unfortunate matches of all sides for by-respects (though both crazed in body 
and mind, most unwilling, averse, and often unfit), so love is bauished, and we 
feel the smart of it in the end. But I am too lavish perad venture in this 
subject. 

Another let or hindrance is strict and severe discipline, laws and rigorous 
customs, that forbid men to marry at set times, and in some places ; as appren- 
tices, servants, collegiates, states of lives in copyholds, or in some base inferior 
ofBces, ^Velle licet in such cases, potirinon licet, as he said. They see but as 
prisoners through a grate, they covet and catch, but Tantalus a lahris, &c. 
Their love is lost, and vain it is in such an estate to attempt, ^Gravissimum 
est adamare nee potiri, 'tis a grievous thing to love and not enjoy. They may, 
indeed, I deny not, marry if they will, and have free choice, some of them ; but 
in the meantime their case is desperate, Lupmn auribus tenent, they hold a 
wolf by the ears, they must either burn or starve. 'Tis cornutwin sophismaj 
hard to resolve, if they marry they forfeit their estates, they are undone, and 
starve themselves through beggary and want : if they do not marry, in this 
heroical passion they furiously rage, are tormented, and torn in pieces by their 
predominate affections. Every man hath not the gift of continence, let him 
^pray for it then, as Beza adviseth in his tract de Divortiis, because God hath 
so called him to a single life, in taking r.way the means of marriage. ®Paul 
would have gone from Mysia to Bithynia, but the spirit suflfered him not, and 
thou wouldst peradventure be a married man with all thy will, but that pro- 
tecting angel holds it not fit. The devil too sometimes may divert by his ill 
suggestions, and mar many good matches, as the same ^Paul w^as willing to 
see the Romans, but hindered of Satan he could not. There be those that 
think they are necessitated by fate, their stars have so decreed, and therefore 
they grumble at their hard fortune, they are Avell inclined to marry, but one 
rub or other is ever in the way ; I know what astrologers say in this behalf, 
what Ptolemy quadripartit. Tract. 4. cap. 4. Skoner, lib. 1. cap. 12. what 
Leovitius, genitur. exenipl. 1. which Sextus ab Heminga takes to be the horo- 
scope of Hieronymus Wolfius, what Pezelius, Origanaus and Leovitius his illus- 
trator Garceus, cap. 12. what J unctine, Protanus, Campanella, what the rest, 
(to omit those Arabian conjectures a parte conjugii, ci parte lascivice, triplici- 
fates veneris, &c., and those resolutions uj^on a question, an amicd potiatur, &c.) 
determine in this behalf, viz. an sit natus conjugem habiturus, facile an difficul- 
ter sit sponsam impetratarus, quot conjuges, quo temp)ore, quales decernantur 
nato uxores, de mutuo amore conjugem, both in men's and women's genitures, 
by the examination of the seventh house the almutens, lords and planets there, 
a (X '^e^ ^ &c., by particular aphorisms, *S'/ dominus 7°"* in 7™* vel secunda, 
nobilem decernit uxorem, servam aut ignobileni si duodecimd. Si Venus in 
12"*'', with many such, too tedious to relate. Yet let no man be troubled, 

l> Apulciusin Catel. nobis cupido velle dat, posse abnegat. ^'Anacreon. 56. dContinentias donnm 

ex tide post ulct quia cer turn sit eumvocari ad coelibatum cui demis, &c. «Act. xvl. 7. f Kym. 1. 13^ 



618 Love Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

or find himself grieved with such predictions, as Hier. Wolfius well saith in 
his astrological ^ ditilogue, 7ion suntprcetoriana decreta, they be but conjectures, 
the stars incline, but not enforce, 

"Sidera corporibus praesunt coelestia nostris, 
Sant ea de vili condita namque luto : 
Cogere sed nequeunt animum ratione fruentem, 
Quippe sub iniperio solius ipse dei est." h 

wisdom, diligence, discretion, may mitigate if not quite alter such decrees, 
Fortuna sua d, cujusque fingitur morihus, ^ Qui cauti, prudentes, voti compoteSf 
kc, let no man then be terrified or molested with such astrological aphorisms, or 
be much moved, either to vain hope or fear, from such predictions, but let every 
man follow his own free will in this case, and do as he sees cause. Better it 
is indeed to marry than burn, for their soul's health, but for their present for- 
tunes, by some other means to pacify themselves, and divert the stream of this 
fiery torrent, to continue as they are, ^ rest satisfied, lugentes virginitatis florem 
sic aruisse, deploring their misery with that eunuch in Libanius, since thei'e is 
no help or remedy, and with Jephtha's daughter to bewail their virginities. 
Of like nature is superstition, those rash vows of monks and friars, and such 
as live in i-eligioiis orders, but far more tyrannica,l and much worse. Nature, 
youth, and his furious passion forcibly inclines, and rageth on the one side ; 
but their order and vow checks them on the other. ^Votoque suo sua forma, 
repugnat. What merits and indulgences they heap unto themselves by it, what 
commodities, I know not; but I am sure, from such rash vows, and inhuman 
manner of life, proceed many inconveniences, many diseases, many vices, mas- 
tupration, satyriasis, "^priapismus, melancholy, madness, fornication, adultery, 
buggery, sodomy, theft, murder, and all manner of mischiefs : read but Bale's 
Catalogue of Sodomites, at the visitation of abbeys here in England, Henry 
Stephan. his Apol. for Herodotus, that which Ulricus writes in one of his epi- 
stles, " " that Pope Gregory when he saw 6000 skulls and bones of infants taken 
out of a fishpond near a nunnery, thereupon retracted that decree of priests' 
marriages, which was the cause of such a slaughter, was much grieved at it, 
and purged himself by repentance." Bead many such, and then ask what is 
to be done, is this vow to be broke or not? jSTo, saith Bellarmine, cap. 38. lib. 
de Monach. melius estscortari et uri quam de voto codihatus adnuptias transire, 
better burn or fly out, than to break thy vow. And Coster in his Enchirid. de 
ccelibat. sacerdotum, saith it is absolutely gravius peccatum, "°a greater sin for 
a priest to marry, than to keep a concubine at home." Gregory de Valence, 
cap. 6. de ccelibat. maintains the same, as those Essei and Montanists of old. 
Insomuch that many votaries, out of a small persuasion of merit and holiness in 
this kind, will sooner die than marry, though it be tothesavingof their lives. 
^ Anno 1419. Pius 2, Pope, James Bossa, nephew to the King of Portugal, 
and then elect Archbishop of Lisbon, being very sick at Florence, "^when 
his physicians told him, that his disease was such, he must either lie with a 
wench, marry, or die, cheerfully chose to die." Now they commended him 
fur it : but St. Paul teacheth otherwise, "Better marry than burn," and as 
St. Hierome gravely delivers it, Alice sunt leges Ccesarum, alice Christi, aliud 
Popinianus, aliud Faulus nosier prcecipit, there's a difference betwixt God's 
ordinances and men's laws : and therefore Cyprian, Ejust. 8 boldly denounceth, 
impium est, adulterum est, sacrilegum est, quodcwnque humano furore statuituVf 

ff Praefix. gen. Leovitii. h " The stars in tbe skies preside over our persons, for they are made of humble 
matter. They cannot bind a rational mind, for that is under the control of God only." i Idem Wolflus, 
dial. k "That is, make the best of it, and take his lot as it faUs." i Ovid. 1. Met " Their beauty is 

inconsistent with tlieir vows." niMercurialis de Priapi«mo. i^Memorabile quod Ulricus epistola refert 
Gregorium quum ex piscina quadam allata plus quam sex mille infantum capita vidisset, ingemuisse et 
decretum de coehbatu tantam caeclis causam confessus, condiguo illud poenitentiae fructu purg isse. Kemmsius 
ex concil. Trident, part. 3. de coelibatu sacerdotum. <> Si nubat, quam si domi concubinam alat. 

P Alphonsus Cicaonius, lib. de gest, pontificum. 1 Cum medici suadereut ut aut nuberet aut coitu uteretur, 
sic mortem vitari posse, mortem potius intrepidus expectavit, &c. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 5.] 



Cure of Love- Melancholy, 



619 



ut disiiositio divina violetur, it is abominable, impious, adulterous, and sacri- 
legious, what men make and ordain after their own furies to cross God's laws. 
^"Georgius Wiceliiis, one of their own arch divines {Inspect, eccles. pay. 18) 
exclaims against it, and all such rash monastical vows, and would have such 
persons seriously to consider what they do, whom they admit, "tw in posterum 
querantur cle inanihus stupris, lest they repent it at last. For either, as he 
follows it, ^you must allow them concubines or suffer them to marry, for scarce 
shall you find three priests of three thousand, qui per cetatem non anient, that 
are not troubled with burning lust. Wherefore I conclude, it is an unnatural 
and impious thing to bar men of this Christian liberty, too severe and inhu- 
man an edict. 



t The silly wren, the titmouse also, 
The little redbreast have their ckction, 
They fly I saw and together crone, 
Whereas hem list, about environ 
As they of kinde have inclination. 
And as nature impress and guide. 
Of everything list to provide. 



Bvt man alone, alas the har-d stond, 
Full cruellu by kinds ordinance 
Constrained is, and by statutes bound, 
And debarred from all sucli pleasance : 
What meaneth this, what is tliis j^relence 
Of laws, I wis, against all right of kinde. 
Without a cause, so narrow men to Oindef 



Many laymen repine still at priests' marriages above the rest, and not at 
clergymen only, but of all the meaner sort and condition, they would have none 
marry but such as are rich and able to maintain wives, because their parish 
belike shall be pestered with orphans, and the world full of beggars : but 
'^ these are htard-heai-ted, unnatural, monsters of men, shallow politicians, they 
do not ^consider that a great part of the world is not yet inhabited as it ought, 
how many colonies into America, Terra Australis incognita, Africa, may be 
sent 1 Let them consult with Sir William Alexander's Book of Colonies, 
Orpheus Junior's Golden Fleece, Captain Whitburne, Mr. Hagthorpe, &c. and 
they shall surely be otherwise informed. Those politic Romans were of another 
mind, they thought their city and country could never be too populous. -^Adrian 
the emperor said he had rather have men than money, malle se hominnni 
adjectione ampliare imperiuni, quctni pecunid. Augustus Csesar made an 
oration in Rome ad ccelihes, to persuade them to marry ; some countries com- 
pelled them to marry of old, as ^Jews, Turks, Indians, Chinese, amongst the 
rest in these days, who much wonder at our discipline to suffer so many idle 
persons to live in monasteries, and often marvel how they can live honest. 
^In the isle of Maragnan, the governor and petty king there did wonder at 
the Frenchmen, and admire how so many friars, and the rest of their company 
could live without wdves, they thought it a thing impossible, and would not 
believe it. If these men should but survey our multitudes of religious houses, 
observe our numbers of monasteries all over Europe, 18 nunneries in Padua, 
in Venice 34 cloisters of monks, 2d> of nuns, &c. ex ungue leonem, 'tis to this 
proportion, in all other provinces and cities, what would they think, do they 
live honest ? Let them dissemble as they will, I am of Tertullian's mind, that 
few can continue but by compulsion. " ^0 chastity (saith he) thou art a rare 
goddess in the world, not so easily got, seldom continuate : thou may est now 
and then be compelled, either for defect of nature, or if discipline persuade, 
decrees enforce :" or for some such by-respects, sullenness, discontent, they 
have lost their first loves, may not have whom they will themselves, want of 
means, rash vows, &c. But can he willingly contain 1 I think not. There- 
fore, either out of commiseration of human imbecility, in policy, or to prevent 



^ Epist. 30. 8 Vide vitam ejus edit. 1623, ty D. T. James. tLid?rate, in Chaucer's Flower of Curtesie. 
^ Tis not multitude but idleness which causeth beggary. ^ Or to set them awork, and bring them up in 
some honest trades. y Dion. Cassius, lib. 56, ^Sardns. Bustorphius. acjaude Albaville in his hi.-,t 
of the Frenchmen to the Isle of Maragnan, An. 1614. b Rara quidem dea tu es, chastitas, in his tcnis, 

nee facile perfecta, rarius perpetua, cogi nonnunquam potest, ob naturae defectum, velsi disciphna pei-vaserit, 
censui-a compresserit, 



620 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

a far worse inconvenience, for they hold some of them as necessary as meat 
and drink, and because vigour of youth, the state and temper of most men's 
bodies do so furiously desire it, they have heretofore in some nations liberally 
admitted polygamy and stews, a hundred thousand courtezans in Grand Cairo 
in Egypt, as "fladzivilus observes, are tolerated, besides boys: how many at 
Fez, Rome, Naples, Florence, Yenice, &c., and still in many other provinces 
and cities of Europe they do as much, because they think young men, church- 
men, and servants amongst the rest, can hardly live honest. The consideration 
of this belike made Vibius, the Spaniard, when his friend ^Crassus, that rich 
Eoman gallant, lay hid in the cave, ut voluntatis quam cetasilla desiderat copiam 
faceret, to gratify him the more, send two ^ lusty lasses to accompany him all 
tliat while he was there imprisoned. And Surenus, the Parthian general, 
when he warred against the Eomans, to carry about with him 200 concubines, 
as the Swiss soldiers do now commonly their wives. But, because this course 
is not generally approved, but rather contradicted as unlawful and abhorred, 
^in most countries they do much encourage them to marriage, give great 
rewards to such as have many children, and mulct those that will not marry, 
Jus trium liberorum, and in Agellius, lib. 2. cap. 15. Elian, lib. 6. cap 5. 
Valerius, lib, 1. cap. 9. ^We read that three children freed the father from 
painful offices, and five from all contribution. "A woman shall be saved by 
bearing children." Epictetus would have all marry, and as ^ Plato will, 6 de 
legibus, he that marrieth not before 35 years of his age, must be compelled 
and punished, and the money consecrated to ^Juno's temple, or applied to 
public uses. They account him, in some countries, unfortunate that dies with- 
out a wife, a most unhappy man, as ^Boetius infers, and if at all happy, yefc 
infortunio felix, unhappy in his supposed happiness. They commonly deplore 
his estate, and much lament him for it : O, my sweet son, &c. See Lucian, 
de Luctu, Sands fol. 83, &c. 

Yet notwithstanding, many with us are of the opposite part, they are mar- 
ried themselves, and for others, let them burn, fire and flame, they care not, so 
they be not troubled with them. Some are too curious, and some too covetous, 
they may marry when they will both for ability and means, but so nice, that 
except as Theophilus the emperor v*^as presented, by his mother Euprosune, 
with all the rarest beauties of the empire in the great chamber of his palace 
at once, and bid to give a golden apple to her he liked best. If they might 
so take and choose whom they list out of all the fair maids their nation affords, 
they could happily condescend to marry: otherwise, &c., why should a man. 
marry, saith another epicurean rout, what's matrimony but a matter of money ? 
why should free nature be entrenched on, confined or obliged, to this or that 
man or woman, with these manacles of body and goods'? &c. There are those 
too that dearly love, admire and follow women all their lives long, sponsi 
Penelopes, never well but in their company, wistly gazing on their beauties, 
observing close, hanging after them, dallying still with them, and yet dare not, 
will not marry. Many poor people, and of the meaner sort, are too distrustful 
of God's providence, " they will not, dare not for such worldly respects," fear 
of want, woes, miseries, or that they shall light, as "^Lemnius saith, on a 
scold, a slut, or a bad wife." And thereforcj ^Tristem Juventam venere 
deserta colunt, they are resolved to live single, as "Epaminondas did, '* ° Nil ait 

^J Peregrin. HierosoL d Plutarch, vita ejus, adolescentia? medio constitutus. «Ancillas duas egregia 
forma et setatis flore. f Alex, ab Alex. 1. 4. c. 8. stjcs tilii patrem ab excubiis, quinque ab omnibus 
oflBciis liberabant. h Pracepto primo, cogatur nubere aut mulctetur et pecunia templo Junonis dedicetur 
et publica fiat. i Consol. 3. pros. 7. k Nic. Hill. Epic, pliilos. IQuise capistro matrimonii alligari 
non patiuntur, Lemn. lib. 4. 13. de occTilt. nat. Abhorrent multi a matrimonio, ne morosam, queralam, 
acerbam, amaram uxorem preferre cogantur. ™ Senec. Hippol. ^ Caelebs enim vixerat nee ad 

uxorem ducendam unquam induci potuit. " Senec. Uip. " Tliore is nothing better, nothing preferable 

to a single life." 



Mem. 5. Pubs. 5.] Cure of Love-Melancholy. 621 

essepi'ius, melius nil coelihe vita'^ and readywitli Hippolitus to abjure all women 
^ Detestor omnes, horreo,fugio, execrorj &c. But, 

" u Hippolite, nescis quod fugis Vitffi bonum, 
Hippolite, nescis" 

"alas, poor Hippolitus, tliou knowest not what tliou sayest, 'tis otherwise, Hip- 
politus." ^ Some make a doubt, a7i uxor literato sit ducenda, whether a scholar 
should marry, if she be fair she wdll bring him back fi"om his grammar to his 
horn book, or else with kissing and dalliance she will hinder his study; if 
foul with scolding, he cannot well intend to both, as Philippus Beroaldus, that 
great Bononian doctor, once writ, impediri enim stadia literarum, &c., but he 
recanted at last, and in a solemn sort with true conceived words he did ask the 
world and all women forgiveness. But you shall have the story as he relates 
himself, in his Commentaries on the sixth of Apuleius. For a long time I 
lived a single life, et ah uxore ducenda semper abhorrui, nee quicquam libero 
lecto censui jucundius. 1 could not abide marriage, but as a rambler, erraticus 
ac volaticus amator (to use his own words) per inuUiplices amoves discurrebanif 
I took a snatch where I could get it; nay more, I railed at marriage down- 
right, and in a public auditory, when I did interpret that Sixth Satire of Juvenal, 
out of Plutarch and Seneca, I did heap up all the dicteries I could against 
women; but now recant with ^tesichovus, palinodia77i cano, necpoenitet censeri 
in ordine maritorum, I approve of marriage, I am glad I am a ^'married man, 
I am heartily glad I have a wife, so sweet a wife, so noble a wife, so young, 
so chaste a wife, so loving a wife, and I do wish and desire all other men to 
marry; and esjDecially scholars, that as of old Martia did by Hortensius, 
Terentia by Tullius, Calphurnia to Plinius, Pudentilla to Apuleius, ^hold the 
candle whilst their husbands did meditate and write, so theirs may do them, 
and as my dear Camilla doth to me. Let other men be averse, rail then and 
scoff at women, and say what they can to the contrary, vir sine uxore malorum, 
expers est, &c., a single man is a happy man, &c., but this is a toy. ^J^ec 
dulces amores sperne, puer, neque tu choreas ; these men are too distrustful 
and much to blame, to use such speeches, ^ Par cite paucovum diffundere 
crimen in omnes. " They must not condemn all for some." As there be 
many bad, there be some good wives ; as some be vicious, some be virtuous. 
Bead what Solomon hath said in their praises, Prov. xiii. and Syracides, cap. 
26 et 30, " Blessed is the man that hath a virtuous wife, for the number of his 
days shall be double. A virtuous woman rejoiceth her husband, and she shall 
fulfil the years of his life in peace. A good wife is a good portion (and xxxvi. 
24), an help, a pillar of rest," columna quietis, ^Qui capit uxorem, fratrem 
capit atque sororem. And 30, "He that hath no wife wandereth to and fro 
mourning." Mvnuuntur atrce conjuge curce, women ^re the sole, only joy, and 
comfort of a man's life, born ad usum et lusum hominum.JirmamentafamilicBf 

" y Delitise humani generis, solatia vitse, 
Blanditije noctis, placidissiina cnra die!, 
Vota viium, juvenvim spes," &c 

" ^ A wife is a young man's mistress, a middle age's companion, an old man's 
niu'se :" Particeps Icetorum et tristium, a prop, a help, &c. 

" » Optima \-iri possessio est uxor benevola, 1 " Man's best possession is a loving wife, 

Mitigansiram et aveitens animam ejus atristitia." | She tempers anger and diverts all strife." 

There is no joy, no comfort, no sw^eetness, no pleasure in the world like to that 
of a good wife, 

" Qukm cum chara domi conjux, fidusque maritus 
Unanimes degunt" b 

PHor. 1 yEneas Sylvius de dictis Sigismundi. Hensius, Primiero. ^Habco uxorem ex animi sententia, 
Canjillam Paleotti Jurisconsult! tiliam. ^L^^gentibus et meditantibus candelas et candelabrum tenuerunt. 
tllor. "Neither despise agreeable love, nor mirthful pleasure." "Ovid. ^Apluanius. "He who 
cl'.ooses a wife, takes a.brother and a sister." yLocheus. "The delight of mankind, the solace of life, 
ihe blandishments of night, delicious cares of day, the wishes of older men, the hopes of young." zg^j-Qj^'g 
Essays. » Euripides. b " iJow harmoniously do a lo^-ing wife and constant husband lead their lives.'* 



622 Love-Melanclioly. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

saith our Latin Homer, slie is still the same in sickness and in health, his eye, 
his hand, his bosom friend, his partner at all times, his other self, not to be 
separated by any calamity, but ready to share all sorrow, discontent, and as the 
Indian women do, live and die with him, nay more, to die presently for him. 
Admetus, king of Thessaly, when he lay upon his death-bed, was told by 
Apollo's Oracle, that if he could get any body to die for him, he should live 
longer yet, but when all refused, his parents etsi decrepiti, friends and followers 
forsook him, Alcestus, his wife, though young, most willingly undertook it ; 
what more can be desired or expected ? And although on the other side there 
be an infinite number of bad husbands (I shouldrail downright against some of 
them), able to discourage any woman; yet there be some good ones again, and 
those most observant of marriage rites. An honest country fellow (as Fulgosus 
relates it) in the kingdom of Naples, ^at plough by the sea-side, saw his wife 
carried away by Mauritanian pirates, he ran after in all haste, up to the chin 
first, and when he could wade no longer, swam, calling to the governor of the 
ship to deliver his wife, or if he must not have her restored, to let him follow as a 
prisoner, for he was resolved to be a galley-slave, his drudge, willing to endure 
any misery, so that he might but enjoy his dear wife. The Moors seeing the 
man's constancy, and relating the whole matter to their governors at Tunis, 
set them both free, and gave them an honest pension to maintain themselves 
during their lives. T could tell many stories to this efiect ; but put case it often 
prove otherwise, because marriage is troublesome, wholly therefore to avoid it, 
is no argument ; " ^ He that will avoid trouble must avoid the world." (Euse- 
bius prcepar. Evangel. 5. cap. 50.) Some trouble there is in marriage I deny 
not, Etsi grave sit matrimonium, saith Erasmus, edulcatur tamen multis, &c., 
yet there be many things to ® sweeten it, a pleasant wife, plaeens uxor, pretty 
children, dulces nati, delicicejiliorum hominum, the chief delight of the sons of 
men ; Eccles. ii. 8. &c. And howsoever though it were all troubles, ^utilitatis 
puhlicce causa devorandum, grave quid libenter suheundum, it must willingly 
be undergone for public good's sake, 



*• 8 Audite (populus) hsec, inquit Susarion, 

Malse sunt mulieves, veruntamen O populates, 
Hoc sine malo domum inhabitare non licet." 



'Hear me, O my countrymen, saith Susairon, 
Women are naught, yet no life without one." 



^ Malum est mulier, sed necessarium malum. They are necessary evils, and 
for our own ends we must make use of them to have issue, ^ Supplet Venus ac 
restituit humanuoyi genus, and to propagate the church. For to what end is a 
man born 1 why lives he, but to increase the world 1 and how shall he do that 
well, if he do not marry ? Matrimonium humano generi imtnortalitatem tribuit, 
saith Nevisanus, matrimony makes us immortal, and, according to ^ Tacitus, 
^tia Jirmissimum imperii Qnunimentum, the sole and chief prop of an empire. 
^ Indigne vivit per quern non vivit et alter, "^ which Pelopidas objected to Epa- 
minondas, he was an unworthy member of a commonwealth, that left not a child 
after him to defend it, and as ^ Trismegistus to his son Tatius, " have no 
commerce with a single man ;" Holding belike that a bachelor could not live 
honestly as he should, and with Georgius Wicelius, a great divine and holy 
man, who of late by twenty-six arguments commends marriage as a thing most 
necessary for all kind of persons, most laudable and fit to be embraced : and 
is persuaded withal, that no man can live and die religiously, as he ought, 
without a wife, persuasus neminem posse neque pie river e, neque bene Tnoi'i 
ciira uxorem, he is false, an enemy to the commonwealth, injurious to himself, 

•" Cum juxta mare agrum coleret ; Omnis enim miseriae immemorem conjugalis amor eum fecerat Non 
. sine ingenti admiratione, tanta hominis charitate motus rex liberos esse jussit, &c. d Qui vult viiare 

molestias, vitet mundum. ® lihe. /3lo9 -riOe' Tepnvov cnep xpvcrr}^ u^poS/rnr. Quid vita est quseso quidve est sine 
Cypride dulce ? Mimner. fErasmus. KE Stobeo. hMenander. iSeneca.Hyp. lib. 3. num. 1. 

k Hist. lib. 4. 1 Palmgenius. " He lives contemptibly by whom no other lives." ^ Bruson. lib. 7. 

cap. 23. ^ Noli societatem habere, &c. 



Mem, 5. Subs. 5.] Cure of Love-Melancholy. 623 

destructive to the world, an apostate to nature, a rebel against heaven and 
earth. Let our wilful, obstinate, and stale bachelors ruminate of this, "If we 
could live without wives," as Marcellus Numidicus said in "Agellius, "we 
would all want them ; but because we cannot, let all marry, and consult rather 
to the public good, than their own private pleasure or estate." It were an 
happy thing, as wise ^ Euripides hath it, if we could buy children with gold 
and silver and be so provided, sine mulieruni congressuy, without women's 
company; but that may not be: 

" lOrbus jacebit squallido turpis situ, 1 " Earth, air, sea, land eftsoon would come to nought, 

Vanum sine uUiiis classibus stabit mare, The world itself should be to ruin brought." 

Alesque coelo deerit et sylvis fera." | 

Necessity therefore compels us to marry. 

But what do I trouble myself to find arguments to persuade to, or commend 
marriage 1 behold a brief abstract of all that which I have said, and much 
more, succinctly, pithily, pathetically, perspicuously, and elegantly tlelive red in 
twelve motions to mitigate the miseries of marriage, by ^Jacobus de Voragine, 

1. Res es' ? hcihes quce tueatur et augeat. — 2. Non est? habes quce qucerat. 
— 3. SecundcB res sunt? felicitas duplicatur. — 4. Adversce sunt? Cotisolatur, 
adsidet, onus participat ut tolerahile fiat. — 5. Domi es? soUtudinis tcedium 
pellit. — 6. Foras? Discedentem visa prosequitur, absentem desiderat, redeun- 
tern Iceta excipit. — 7. Nihil jucunduin absque societate : Nulla societas matri- 
'inonio suavior. — 8. Vinculum conjugalis char itatis adamantinum. — 9. Accres- 
cit dulcis afiinium turba, duplicatur numerus parentum, frairum, sororuTn, 
nepotum. — 10. Pulchra sis prole parens. — 11. Lex Afosis sterilitatera matri- 
monii execratur, qiianto atnplius ccelibatum? — 12. Si natura pcenam non 
effugit, ne voluntas quidem effugiet. 

1. Hast thou means? thou hast none to keep and increase it, — 2. Hast 
none? thou hast one to help to get it. — 3. Art in prosperity? thine happiness 
is doubled. — 4. Art in adversity ? she'll comfort, assist, bear a part of thy 
burden to make it more tolerable. — 5. Art at home? she'll drive away melan- 
choly. — 6. Art abroad ? she looks after thee going from home, wishes for thee 
in thine absence, and joyfully welcomes thy return. — 7. There's nothing 
delightsome without society, no society so sweet as matrimony. — 8. The band 
of conjugal love is adamantine. — 9. The sweet company of kinsmen increaseth, 
the number of parents is doubled, of brothers, sisters, nephews. — 10. Thou 
art made a father by a fair and happy issue. — 11. Moses curseth the barren- 
ness of matrimony, how much more a single life? — 12. If nature escape not 
punishment, surely thy will shall not avoid it. 

All this is true, say you, and who knows it not ? but how easy a matter is it 
to answer these motives, and to make an Antiparodia quite opposite unto it? 
To exercise myself I will essay : 

I. Hast thou means? thou hast one to spend it. — 2. Hast none? thy beg- 
gary is increased. — 3. Art in prosperity ? thy happiness is ended. — 4. Art in 
adversity? like Job's wife she'll aggravate thy misery, vex thy soul, make thy 
burden intolerable. — 5. Art at home? she'll scold thee out of doors. — 6. Art 
abroad? If thou be wise keep thee so, she'll perhaps graft horns in thine 
absence, scowl on thee coming home. — 7. Nothing gives more content than 
solitariness, no solitariness like this of a single life. — 8. The band of marriage 
is adamantine, no hope of loosing it, thou art undone. — 9. Thy number in- 
creaseth, thou shalt be devoured by thy wife's friends. — 10. Thou art made a 
cornuto by an unchaste wife, and shalt bring up other folks' children, instead 
of thine own. — 11. Paul commends marriage, yet he prefers a single life. — 12. 
Is marriage honourable? What an immortal crown belongs to virginity? 

^ Lib. 1. cap. 6. Si, inqait, Quirites, sine uxore esse po^semus, omr.es careremus ; Sed quoniam sic est 
saluti potius publico quam voliiptati consulendum. P Beatum foret si liberos auro et argento mercari, &c. 
** Seneca. Hyp. '"Gen. ii. Adjutorium simile, &c. 



624 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 2. 

So Siracides himself speaks as much as may be for and against women so 
doth almost every philosopher plead pro and con, every post thus argues the 
case: (though what cares vulgus hominum what they say?) so can I conceive 
peradventure, and so canst thou : when all is said, yet since some be o-ood 
some bad, let's put it to the venture. I conclude therefore with Seneca, 

' " cur Toro viduo jaces ? 

Tristem juA-entam solve : nunc luxus rape, 
Effunde habenas, optimos vitse dies 
Eflfluere prohibe. 

" Why dost thou lie alone, let thy youth and best days to pass away?" Marry 
whilst thou mayest, donee viventi canities ahest morosa, whilst thou art yet able, 
yet lusty, ^Elige cui dicas, tu mifii sola places, make thy choice, and that freely 
forthwith, make no delay, but take thy fortune as it falls. 'Tis true, 

" t calamitosus est qui inciderit 

In malam uxorem, felix qui in bonam," 

'Tis a hazard both ways I confess, to live single or to marry, ^JVam et uxorem 
ducere, et non ducere malum est, it may be bad, it may be good, as it is a cross 
and calamity on the one side, so 'tis a sweet delight, an incomparable happi- 
ness, a blessed estate, a most unspeakable benefit, a sole content, on the other, 
'tis all in the proof Be not then so wayward, so covetous, so distrustful, so 
curious and nice, but let's all marry, mutuos foventes amplexus; " Take me to 
thee, and thee to me," to-morrow is St. Valentine's day, let's keep it holiday for 
Cupid's sake, for that great god Love's sake, for Hymen's sake, and celebrate 
^Venus' vigil with our ancestors for company together, singing as they did, 



' Let those love now who never loved before, 
And those who always loved now love the more ; 
Sweet loves are born with every opening spring; 
Birds from the tender boughs their pledges sing," 
&c. 



'♦Cras amet qui nunquam atnavit, quique amavit, 
eras aniet, 
Ver novum, ver jam canorum, ver natus orbis est, 
Vere concordant amores, vere nubuat alites, 

Etnemus coma resolvit, &c. 

Cras amet," &c. 

Let him that is averse from marriage read more in Barbarus de re uxor. lib. 1. 
cap. 1. Lemnius de institut. cap. 4. P. Godefridus de Amor. lib. 3. cap. 1. 
^N^evisanus, lib. S.Alex, ab Alexandro, lib. 4. cap. 8. Tunstall, Erasmus' tracts 
in laudem matrimonii, &c.,and I doubt not but in the end he will rest satisfied, 
recant with Beroaldus, do penance for his former folly, singing some peniten- 
tial ditties, desire to be reconciled to the deity of this great god Love, go a 
pilgrimage to his shrine, offer to his image, sacrifice upon his altar, and be as 
willing at last to embrace marriage as the rest : There will not be found, I 
hope, " JSTo, not in that severe family of Stoics, who shall refuse to submit his 
grave beard, and supercilious looks to the clipping of a wife, or disagree from 
his fellows in this point." "For what more willingly (as ^Yarro holds) can a 
proper man see than a fair wife, a sweet wife, a loving wife ? " can the world 
afford a better sight, sweeter content, a fairer object, a more gracious aspect? 
Since then this of marriage is the last and best refuge, and cure of heroical 
love, all doubts are cleared, and impediments removed; I say again, what 
remains, but that according to both their desires, they be happily joined, since 
it cannot otherwise be helped? God send us all good wives, every man his 
wish in this kind, and me mine ! 

'b And God that all this world hath y wrought, 
Send him his Love that hath it so d^ere bought. 

If all parties be pleased, ask their banns, "tis a match. ^Pruitur Rhodanthe 
sponsa, sponso Dosicle ; Rhodanthe and Dosicles shall go together, Clitiphon 

8 Ovid. "Find her to whom you may say, ' thou art ray only pleasure.' " t Euripides. "Unhappy the 
man who has met a bad wife, happy who foun I a sfood one." " E Grcsco Valerius, hb. 7. cap. 7. "To 

marry, and not to inarry, are equally base." ^ Pervigilium Veneris e vetere poeta. y Domas non potest 
consistere sine uxore. If evisanus, lib. 2. num. 18. ^ Nemo in severissima Stoiconim familia qui non barbara 
quoque et superciUum amplexibusuxoris submiserit, aut in ista pai'te ^ reliquis dissenserit. Hensius Primiero 
* Quid libentius homo masculus videre debet quaiu bellam uxorem ? b Chaucer. '^ Conclasio Theod. 

Prodro. mi. 9. 1. Amor. 



Mem. 5. Subs. 5.] Cure of Love- Melancholy. 625 

and Leucippe, Theagines and Chariclea, Poliarclius hath his Argenis, Lysan- 
der Calista (to make up the mask), ^Potiturque sua puer Iphis lanihi. 

And Troilus in lust and in quiet 
Is with Creseid, his own heart sweet. 

And although they have hardly passed the pikes, through many difficulties 
and delays brought the match about, yet let them take this of ® Aristsenetus 
(that so marry) for their comfort : " ^ after many troubles and cares, the mar- 
riages of lovers are more sweet and pleasant." As we commonly conclude a 
comedy with a ^ wedding, and shaking of hands, let's shut up our discourse, 
and end all with an ^^ Upithalamium. 

Feliciter nuptis, God give them joy together. ^ Hymen Hymenoie, Hymen 
ades Hymencee ! Bonum factum, 'tis well done, Haud equidcm sine rnente 
reor, sine oiumine Divum, 'tis a happy coDJunction, a fortunate match, an 
even couple, 

" Ambo animis, ambo prsestantes viribus, ambo 
Florentes annis," ■ — 

"they both excel in gifts of body and mind, are both equal in years," youth, 
vigour, alacrity, she is fair and lovely as Lais or Helen, he as another Cha- 
rinus or Alcibiades, 

" k ludite ut lubet et brevi I " Then modestly go sport and tor, 

Liberos date." | And let's have every year a boy." 

*• ^ Go give a sweet smell as incense, and bring forth flowers as the lily : " that 
we may say hereafter, Scitus Mecastor natus est Pamphilo puer. In the 
meantime I say, 

" "'^Ite, agite, juvenes, ^non murmura vestra columbse, " Gentle youths, go sport yourselves betimes, 
Brachia, non hederas, neque vlncant oscu!a conchte." Let not the doves outpass your murmurings, 

Or ivy-clasping arms, or oyster kissings." 

And in the morn betime, as those ^ Lacedaemonian lasses saluted Helena and 
Menelaus, singing at their windows, and wishing good success, do we at yours : 



" Salve O sponsa, salve felix, det vobis Latona 
Felicem sobolem, Venus dea det asqualem amorem 
Inter vos mutub ; Saturnus durabiles divitias, 
Dormire in pectora mutud amorem in&piantes, 
Et desiderium ! " 



" Good morrow, master bridegroom, and mistress 
Many fair lovely bernes to you betide! [biide 
Let Venus to you mutual love procure. 
Let Saturn give you riches to endiii-e. 
Long may yon sleep in one another's arms. 
Inspiring sweet desire, and fiee from harms." 



" Concordes quoniam vixere tot annos, 

Auferat hora duos eadem, nee conjugis usquam 
Bustasuse videat, nee sit tumulaudus ab ilia." 



Even all your lives long, 

" P Contingat vobis turturum concordia, 1 " The love of turtles hap to you, 

CornicuUe vivacitas" | And ravens' years still to renew." 

Let the Muses sing, (as he said;) the Graces dance, not at their weddings 
only, but all their days long ; " so couple their hearts, that no irksomeness 
or anger ever befal them: let him never call her other name than my joy, 
my light, or she call him otherwise than sweetheart. To tliis happiness of 
theirs, let not old age any whit detract, but as their years, so let their mutual 
love and comfort increase." And when they depart this life, 

' Because they have so SAveetly liv'd together, 
Let not one "die a day before the other, 
He bury her, she him, with even fate, 
One hour their souls let jointly separa'.e." 
" Fortunati ambo si quid mea carmlna possant, 
iS'uUa dies unquam memori vos eximet jevo." 1 

Atque hsec de amore dixisse sufficiat, sub correctione, ^ quod ait ille, cujusque 
melius sentientis. Plura qui volet de remediis amoris, legat Jasonem Praten- 
sem, Arnold uTii, Montaltum, Savanarolam, Langium, Valescum, Crimisonum, 

d Ovid. ^ Epist. 4. 1. 2. Jucundiores multo et suaviores longe post molestas turbas amantium nupti.B 
f Olim meminisse juvabit. s Quid expectatis, intus hunt nupti«, the music, guests, and all the good cheer 
is within. h The conclusion of Chaucer's poem of Troilus and Creseid. i Catullus. k Catullus. 

J. Secundus Sylvar. lib. Jam virgo thalamum subibit unde ne virgo redeat, marite, cura. 1 Ecclus. 

xxxix. 14. ^^ Galeni Epithal. ^ O noctem quater et quater beatam. '^ Theocritus, idyl. 18. P Erasm. 
Epithal. P. iEgidij. ISTec saltent modo sed duo charissima pectora indissolubili mutuse benevolentise nodo 
corpulent, ut nihil unquam eos incedere possit ir^e vel tredii. Ilia perpetuo nihil audiat nisi, mea lux : ille 
vicissim nihil nisi, anime mi : atque huic jucunditau ne senectus detrahat, imo potius aliquid adaugcut. 
^ " Happy both, if my verses have any charms, nor shall time ever detract from the memorable example ol 
youi- Uvea." ^ Kornmannus de Lnea amoris. 

2s ■ 



626 Love-Mdanchohj. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

Alexandrum Benedictum, Laurentium, Valleriolam, e Poetis Nasonem, e 
nostratibus Chaucerum, kc, with wliom I conclude. 

s For my words here and every part, 
I speak hem all under correction, 
Of you that feeling have in love's artf 
And put it all in your discretion, 
To intreat or make diminution. 
Of my language, that I you beseech: 
But now to purpose of my rather speech. 



SECT. III. MEMB. I. 



SuBSECT. I. — Jealousy, its Equivocations, Name, Definition, Extent, several 
kinds; of Princes, Parents, Friends. In Beasts, Men: before marriage^ 
as Co-rivals; or after, as in this place. 

Yalescus de Tarantd, caj). de Melancliol. ^lian Montaltus, Felix Platerus, 
Guianerius, put jealousy for a cause of melancholy, others for a symptom; 
because melancholy persons amongst these passions and perturbations of the 
mind, are most obnoxious to it. JBut methinks for the latitude it hath, and 
that prerogative above other ordinary symptoms, it ought to be treated of as 
a species apart, being of so great and eminent note, so furious a passion, and 
almost of as great extent as love itself, as ^ Benedetto Yarchi holds, " no love 
without a mixture of jealousy," qui non zelat, non amat. For these causes I 
will dilate, and treat of it by itself, as a bastard-branch or kind of love melan- 
chol}', which, as heroical love goeth commonly before marriage, doth usually 
follow, torture, and crucify in like sort, deserves therefore to be rectified alike, 
requires as much care and industry, in setting out the several causes of it, prog- 
nostics and cures. Which I have more willingly done, that he that is or hath 
been jealous, may see his error as in a glass; he that is not, may learn to detest, 
avoid it himself, and dispossess others that are anywise affected with it. 

Jealousy is described and defined to be " ^ a certain suspicion which the 
lover hath of the party he chiefly loveth, lest he or she should be enamoured 
of another;" or any eager desire to enjoy some beauty alone, to have it proper 
to himself only : a fear or doubt, lest any foreigner should participate or share 
with him in his love. Or (as ^ Scaliger adds) " a fear of losing her favour 
whom he so earnestly afiects." Cardan calls it " a ^ zeal for love, and a kind 
of envy lest any man should beguile us." ^ Ludovicus Yives defines it in 
the very same words, or little difiering in sense. 

There be many other jealousies, but improperly so called all; as that of 
parents, tutors, guardians over their children, fiiends whom they love, or 
such as are left to their wardship or protecfcion. 

" Storax non rediit hac nocte a coena JEschinns. 
Neque servulorum quispiam qui adversuia ierant?" 

A.S the old man in the comedy cried out in a passion, and from a solicitous 
fear and care he had of his adopted son ; " ^ not of beauty, but lest they 
should miscany, do amiss, or any way discredit, disgrace (as Yives notes) or 
endanger themselves and us." ^ ^geus was so solicitous for his son Theseus 
(when he went to fight with the Minotaur), of bis success, lest he should be 
foiled, ^ Prona est timori semper in pejus fides. We are still apt to suspect 
the worst in such doubtful cases, as many wives in their husbands' absence, 

s Finis 3 book of Troilus and Cresseid. t In his Oration of Jealonsy, put out by Fr. Sansavin. 

" Benedetto Varchi. ^ Exercitat. 317. Cum metuimus ne amatas rei exturbemur possessione. ^ Zelus 
de forma est invidentite species ne quis forma qnam amamus iruatuv. ^ 3 de Anuna. ^ " Has 

nnt every one of the slaves that went to meet him returned this night frora the supper ?" bR. dg Anima. 
lungimur zelotypia de pupiUis, liberis charisque cm'iB nostr£BConcreditis, non de tbrma, sedne male sit iis, 
aut ne nobis sibique parent ignominiam. ** Plutarch. d Senec. in Here. fui*. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Jealousy of Princes. 627 

fond mo tilers in tlieir children's, lest if absent tliey sbould be misled or sick, 
and are continually expecting news from them, how they do fare, and what is 
become of them, they cannot endure to have them long out of their sight : oh 
my sweet son, O my dear child, &c. Paul was jealous over the Church of 
Corinth, as he confesseth, 2 Cor. xi. 12. " With a godly jealousy, to present 
them a pure virgin to Christ ; " and he was afraid still, lest as the serpent be- 
guiled Eve, through his subtilty, so their minds should be corrupt from the 
simplicity that is in Christ. God himself, in some sense, is said to be jealous, 
"^I am a jealous God, and will visit:" so Psalm Ixxix. 5. "Shall thy 
jealousy burn like fire for ever?" But these are improperly called jealousies, and 
by a metaphor, to show the care and solicitude they have of them. Although 
some jealousies express all the symptoms of this wliich we treat of, fear, sorrow, 
anguish, anxiety, suspicion, hatred, &c., the object only varied. That of some 
fathers is very eminent, to their sons and heirs; for though they love them 
dearly being children, yet now coming towards man's estate they may not well 
abide them, the son and heir is commonly sick of the father, and the father 
again may not well brook his eldest son, inde simultates, plerumque contentiones 
et inimicitice; but that of princes is most notorious, as when they fear co-rivals, 
(if I may so call them) successors, emulators, subjects, or such as they have 
offended. ^ Omnisque potestas impatiens consortis erit: "they are still suspicious 
lest their authority should be diminished," ^as one observes; and as Comineus 
hath it, " ^it cannot be expressed what slender causes they have of their grief 
and suspicion, a secret disease, that commonly lurks and breeds in princes* 
families." Sometimes it is for their honour only, as that of Adrian the emper- 
or, "Hhat killed all his emulators." Saul envied David; Domitian Agricola, 
because he did excel him, obscure his honour, as he thought, eclipse his fame. 
Juno turned Prsetus' daughters into kine, for tha,t they contended with her for 
beauty; ^Cyparissse, king Eteocles' children, vfere envied of the goddesses for 
their excellent good parts, and dancing amongst the rest, sa,ith^ Constantine, 
" and for that cause flung headlong from heaven, and buried in a pit, but the 
earth took pity of them, and brought out cypress trees to preserve their memo- 
ries." °^Niobe, Arachne, and Marsyas, can testify as much. But it is most 
grievous when it is for a kingdom itself, or matters of commodity, it produceth 
lamentable effects, especially amongst tyrants, in despotico Imperio, and such 
as are more feared than beloved of their subjects, that get and keep their 
sovereignty by force and fear. ^ Quod civihus tenere te invitis scias, &c., as 
Phalaris, Dionysius, Periander held theirs. For though fear, cowardice, and 
jealousy, in Plutarch's opinion, be the common causes of tyranny, as in Nero, 
Caligula, Tiberius, yet most take them to be symptoms. For "° what slave, 
what hangman (as Bodine well expresseth this passion, /. 2. c. 5. de rep.) can 
so cruelly torture a condemned person, as this fear and suspicion? Fear of 
death, infamy, torments, are those furies and vultures that vex and disquiet 
tyrants, and torture them day and night, with perpetual terrors and affrights, 
envy, suspicion, fear, desire of revenge, and a thousand such disagreeing pertur- 
bations, turn and affright the soul out of the hinges of health, and more griev- 
ously wound and pierce, than those cruel masters can exasperate and vex their 
apprentices or servants, w^ith clubs, whips, chains, and tortures." Many terrible 
examples we have in this kind, amongst the Turks especially, many jealous 



®Exod. XX. f Lucan. ^Danffius Aphoris. polit. semper metmmt ne eorum auctoritas minuatur. 

h Belli Neapol. lib. 5. i Did non potest quara tenues et infirmas caiisas habent maroiis et suspicionis, et 
hie e^t morbiis occTiltus, qui in familiis pvincipum regnat. kQmnes a?malos interfecit. Lamprid. 

ICoiistaiit. agricult. lib. 10. c. 5. Cypavissce Eteoclis filife, saltantes ad emulationem dearum in piiteum 
deniolitje sunt, sed terra miserata, cupressos inde produxit. ™ Ovid. Met. ^Seneca. ^ Quis 

autem carnifex addictum supi>lici(5 erudelius affici:it, quam metus ? Metus inquam mortis, infami??, cruciatus, 
sunt illaa ultrices furiai qufe tj'rannos exagitant, &c. Hiulto acerbius sauciant et pungunt, quam crudeles 
omini servos vinctos fustibus ac tormentis exulcerare possunt. 



628 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

outrages ; ^Selimus killed Korniitns his youngest brother, five of liis nephews, 
Mustapha Bassa, and divers others. *^Bajazet the second Turk, jealous of the 
valour and greatness of Achmet Bassa, caused him to be slain. ^Solyman 
the Magnificent murdered his own son Mustapha ; and 'tis an ordinary thing 
amongst them, to make away their brothers, or any competitors, at the first 
coming to the crown : 'tis all the solemnity they use at their fathers' funerals. 
"What mad pranks in his jealous fury did Herodof old commit in Jewry, when he 
massacred all the children of a year old? ^ Valens the emperor in Constan- 
tinople, when as he left no man aiive of quality in his kingdom that had his 
name begun with Theo ; Theodoti, Theognosti, Theodosii, Theoduli, &c. They 
went all to their long home, because a wizard told him that name should 
succeed in his empire. And what furious designs hath * Jo. Basilius, that 
Muscovian tyrant, practised of late ? It is a wonder to read that strange 
suspicion, which Suetonius reports of Claudius Csssar, ^nd of Domitian, they 
were afraid of every man they saw : and which Herodian of Antonius and 
Geta, those two jealous brothers, the one could not endure so much as the 
other's servants, but made away him, his chiefest followers, and all that be- 
longed to him, or were his well-wishers. "Maximinus "perceiving himself to 
be odious to most men, because he was come to that height of honour out 
of base beginnings, and suspecting his mean parentage would be objected to 
him, caused all the senators that were nobly descended, to be slain in a jealous 
humour, turned all the servants of Alexander his predecessor out of doors, and 
slew many of them, because they lamented their master's death, suspecting 
them to be traitors, for the love they bare to him," When Alexander in his 
fury had made Clitus his dear friend to be put to death, and saw now (saith 
^Curtius) an alienation in his subjects' hearts, none durst talk with him, he 
began to be jealous of himself, lest they should attempt as much on him, 
" and said they lived like so many wild beasts in a wilderness, one afraid of 
another." Our modern stories afibrd us many notable examples. ^ Henry the 
Third of France, jealous of Henry of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, anno 1588, 
caused him to be murdered in his own chamber. ^ Louis the Eleventh was 
so suspicious, he durst not trust his^hildrer), every man about him he suspected 
for a traitor : many strange tricks Comineus telleth of him. How jealous was 
our Henry the ^Fourth of King Bichard the Second, so Jong as he lived, after 
he was deposed? and of his own son Henry in his later days? which the 
prince well perceiving, came to visit his father in his sickness, in a watchet 
velvet gown, full of eyelet holes, and with needles sticking in them (as an 
emblem of jealousy), and so pacified his suspicious father, after some speeches 
and protestations, which he had used to that purpose. Perpetual imprison- 
ment, as that of Bobert ^Duke of Normandy, in the days of Henry the First, 
forbidding of marriage to some persons, with such like edicts and prohibitions, 
are ordinary in all states. In a word (''as he said) three things cause jealousy, 
a mighty state, a rich treasure, a fair wife ; or where there is a cracked title, 
much tyranny, and exactions. In our state, as being freed from all these 
fears and miseries, we may be most secure and happy under the reign of our 
fortunate prince : 



"dHis fortune hath indebted him to none 
But to all his people universally ; 
And not to them but for their love alone, 
Which they account as placed worthily. 



He is so set, he hath no cause to be 
Jealous, or dreadful of disloyalty ; 
The pedestal whereon his greatness stands, 
Is held of all our hearts, and all our hands." 



P Lonicerus, To. 1. Turc. hist. c. 24. 1 Jovius vita ejus. ^Knowles. Busbequius. Sand. fol. ^2. 

B Nicephorus, lib. 11. c. 45. Socrates, lib. 7. cap. 35. Neque Valens alicui pe; ercit qui Theo cognomme 
vocaretur. t Alexand. Gaguin. Muscov. hist, descrip. c. 5. " D. Fletcher, timet omnes ne insidiai essent. 
Herodot. 1. 7. Maximinus invisum se sentiens, quod ex infimo loco in tantam fortiinam venisset moiibus 
ac genere barbarus, metuens ne natalium obscuritas objiceretui-, omnes Alexandri prffidecessoiis ministros 
ex aula ejecit, pluribus interfectis, quod mousti essent ad mortem Alexandri, insidias inde metuens. ^ Lib. 
8. tanquam feras solitudine vivebant, terrentes alios, timentes. ^ Serves, fol. .i6. ^ Neap, belli, lib. 5. 

nulli prorsus homini fidebat, omnes insidiari sibi putabat. ^ Camden's Remains, b Mat. Paris. ^ K. T. 
notis in blason jealousie. d Daniel, in his Panegyric to the king. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] 



Jealousy of Beasts. 



629 



But T rove, I confess. These equivocations, jealousies, and many such, which 
crucify the souls of men, are not here properly meant, or in this distinction of 
ours included, but that alone which is for beauty, tending to love,'and wherein 
they can brook no co-rival, or endure any participation : and this jealousy 
belongs as well to brute beasts, as men. Some creatures, saith ® Vives, swans, 
doves, cocks, bulls, &c., ai'e jealous as well as men, and as much moved, for 
fear of communion. 



'f Grege pro toto bella jnvenci. 
Si conjugio timuere suo, 
Poscunt timidi pr^lia cervi, 
Et mugitus dant concept! signa fm'oris.' 



"In Venus' canse what mighty battles roake 
Your raving bulls, and stirs for their herd's sake ; 
And harts and bucks that are so timorous, 
Will fight and roar, if once they be but jealous." 



In bulls, horses, goats, this is most apparently discerned. Balls especially, 
alium in pascids non admittit, he will not admit another bull to feed in the 
same pasture, saith ^'Oppian : which Stephanus Bathoriiis, late king of Poland, 
used as an impress, with that niotto, Regnum non capit duos. R. T. in his 
Blason of Jealousy, telleth a story of a swan about Windsor, that finding a 
strange cock with his mate, did swim I know not how many miles after to kill 
him, and when he had so done, came back and killed his hen ; a certain truth, 
he saith, done upon Thames, as many watermen, and neighbour gentlemen, 
can tell. Fideni suam liberet; for my part, I do believe it may be true ; for 
swans have ever been branded with that epithet of jealousy. 

i^ The jealous sioanne against his death that singeeh, 
And eke the owle that of death bode bringeth. 

^Some say as much of elephants, that they are more jealous than any other 
creatures whatsoever;, and those old Egyptians, as ^Pierius informeth us, 
express in their hieroglyphics, the passion of jealousy by a camel; ^becausa 
that fearing the worst still about matters of venery, he loves solitudes, that he 
may enjoy his pleasure alone, et in quoscunque ohvios insurgit, Zelotypice 
stimuli's agitafus, he will quarrel and fight with whosoever comes next, man 
or beast, in his jealous fits. I have read as much of ^^ crocodiles ; and if Peter 
Martyr's authority be authentic, legat. Babylonicce, lib. 3. you shall have a 
strange tale to that purpose confidently reslated. Another story of thes 
jealousy of dogs, see in Hieron. Fabricius, Tract. 3. cap. 5. de loqueld 
animalium. 

But this furious passion is most eminent in men, and is as well amongst, 
bachelors as married men. If it appear amongst bachelors, we commonly call 
them rivals or co-rivals, a metaphor derived from a river, rivales a ^^rivo; for as 
a river, saith Acron in Hor. Art. Poet, and Donat. in Ter. Eunuch, divides a 
common ground between two men, and both participate of it, so is a woman 
indifferent between two suitors, both likely to enjoy her; and thence comes 
this emulation, which breaks out many times into tempestuous storms, and 
produceth lamentable effects, murder itself, with much cruelty, many single 
combats. They cannot endure the least injury done unto them before their 
mistress, and in her defence will bite off one another's noses; they are most 
impatient of any flout, disgrace, lest emulation or participation in that kind. 
" ° Laceral lacertum Largi mordax Memnius. Memnius the Koman (as Tully 
tells the story, de oratore, lib. 2.), being co-rival with Largus Terracina, bit 
him by the arm, which fact of his was so famous, that it afterwards grew to a 
proverb in those parts. ^Phsedria could not abide his co-rival Thraso; for 
when Parmeno demanded, numquid aliud imperas? whether he would com- 
mand him any more sei-vice : " No more (saith he) but to speak in his behalf, 



** 3. de anima, cap. de zel. Animalia qusedam zelotypia tanguntur, ut olores, cohimbse, galll, tauri, &c. ob 
metura communiunis. f Seneca. SLib. 11. Cynoget. h Chaucer, in his Assembly cf Fowls, 

i Alderovand. k Lib. 12. 1 Sibi timens circa res venereas, solitudines amat quo solus sola foemina 

I'ruatur. ^Crocodili zelotypi et uxorum amantissimi, &c. '^Qui dividit agrum communem ; inda 

deducitur ad amantes. ojirasmus, chil. 1. cent. 9. adag. 99. P Ter. Eun. Act. 1. sc. 1. Munus nostrum 
oruato verbis, et istum eemulum, q..oad poteris, ab ea pellito. 



'Tu mihi vel ferro pectus, vel perde veneno, 
A domina tantum te modo tolle mea : 

Te socium vitai te corporis esse licebit, 
Te dominum admitto rebus amice meis. 

Lecto te solum, lecto te deprecor uno, 
Eivalem possum uon ego ferre Jovem." 



630 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

and to drive away his co-rival if lie could." Constantine, in the eleventh 
book of his husbandry, cap. 11, hath a pleasant tale of the pine-tree; "^slie 
was once a fair maid, whom Pineus and Boreas, two co-rivals, dearly sought ; 
bnt jealous Boreas broke her neck, &c. And in his eighteenth chapter he 
telleth another tale of '^Mars, that in his jealousy slew Adonis. Petronius 
calleth this passion amantium furiosam cemulationem, a furious emulation ; 
and their symptoms are well expressed by Sir Geoffrey Chaucer in his first 
Canterbury Tale. It will make the nearest and dearest friends fall out ; they 
will endure all other things to be common, goods, lands, moneys, participate 
of each pleasure, and take in good part any disgraces, injuries in another 
kind ; but as Propertius well describes it in an elegy of his, in this they will 
suffer nothing, have no co-rivals. 

" Stab me with sword, or poison strong 

Give me to work my bane : 
So thou court not my lass, so thou 

From mistress mine refrain. 
Command myself, my body, purse, 

As thine own goods take all. 
And as my ever dearest friend, 

I ever use thee shall. 
spare my love, to have alone 

Her to myself I crave, 
Na.v, Jove himself I'll not endure 

My rival for to have." 

This jealousy, which I am to treat of, is that which belongs to married men, 
in respect of their own v/ives; to whose estate, as no sweetness, pleasure, hap- 
piness can be compared in the world, if they live quietly and lovingly together ; 
so if they disagree or be jealous, those bitter pills of sorrow and grief, disas- 
trous mischiefs, mischances, tortures, gripings, discontents, are not to be sepa- 
rated from them. A most violent passion it is where it taketh place, an 
unspeakable torment, a hellish torture, an infernal plague, as Ariosto calls it, 
" a fury, a continual fever, full of suspicion, fear, and sorrow, a martyrdom, a 
mirth-marring monster. The sorrow and grief of heart of one woman jealous 
of another, is heavier than death, Ecclus. xxviii. 6. as *Peninnah did Hannah, 
vex her and upbraid her sore." 'Tis a main vexation, a most intolerable 
burden, a corrosive to all content, a frenzy, a madness itself; as "Benedetto 
Yarchi proves out of that select sonnet of Giovanni de la Casa, that reverend 
lord, as he styles him. 

SuBSECT. II. — Causes of Jealousy. Who are most apt. Idleness, melancholy, 
impotency, long absence, beauty, wantonness, naught themselves. Allure- 
ments from time, place, persons, bad usage, causes. 

Astrologers make the stars a cause or sign of this bitter passion, and out 
of every man's horoscope will give a probable conjecture whether he will be 
jealous or no, and at what time, by direction of the significators to their several 
promissors : their aphorisms are to be read in Albubator, Pontanus, Schoner, 
Junctine, &c. Bodine, cap. 5. meth. hist, ascribes a great cause to the country 
or clime, and discourseth largely there of this subject, saying that southern 
men are more hot, lascivious, and jealous, than such as live in the north; they 
can hardly contain themselves in those hotter climes, but are more subject to 
prodigious lust. Leo Afer telleth incredible things almost, of the lust and 
jealousy of his countrymen of Africa, and especially such as live about Car- 
thage, and so doth every geographer of them in ^Asia, Turkey, Spaniards, 
Italians. Germany hath not so many drunkards, England tobacconists, France 
dancers, PloUand mariners, as Italy alone hath jealous husbands. And in 
^Italy some account them of Piacenza more jealous than the rest. In ^Ger- 

<l Pinus puella quondam fuit, etc. ^ Mars zelot3T)us Adonidem interfecit. s r. t. 1 1 Sam. i. *-*. 

" Blazon of Jealousy. ^ Mulierum conditio misera ; nnllam honestam credunt nisi domo conclusa 

vivat. y Tines Morison. ^ js^^omen zelotypiaj apud istos locum non habet. lib. 3. e. 8. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Causes of Jealousy. 631 

many, France, Britain, Scandia, Poland, Muscovy, they are not so troubled 
with this fenil malady, although Damianus ^ Goes, which I do much wonder at, 
in his topography of Lapland, and Herbastein of Russia, against the stream of 
all other geographers, would fasten it upon those northern inhabitants. Alto- 
marius Poggius, and Munster in his description of Baden, reports that men 
and women of all sorts go commonly into the baths together, without all suspi- 
cion, " the name of jealousy (saith Munster) is not so much as once heard of 
among them." In Friesland the women kiss them they drink to, and are kissed 
again of those they pledge. The virgins in Holland go hand in hand with 
young men from home, glide on the ice, such is their harmless liberty, and 
lodge together abroad without suspicion, which rash Sansovinus an Italian 
makes a great sign of unchastity. In France, upon small acquaintance, it is 
usual to court other men's wives, to come to their houses, and accompany them 
arm in arm in the streets, without imputation. In the most northern countries 
young men and maids familiarly dance together, men and their wives, '^ which, 
Siena only excepted, Italians may not abide. The "^ Greeks, on the other side, 
have their private baths for men and women, where they must not come near, 
nor so much as see one another: and as '^Bodine observes, lib. 5. de repub. 
" the Italians could never endure this," or a Spaniard, the very conceit of it 
would make him mad : and for that cause they lock iip their women, and will 
not suffer them to be near men, so much as in the ^church, but with a parti- 
tion between. He telleth, moreover, how that " when he was ambassador in 
England, he heard Mendoza the Spanish legate finding fault with it, as a filthy 
custom for men and vv^omen to sit promiscuously in churches together : but 
Dr. Dale the master of the requests told him again, that it was indeed a filthy 
custom in Spain, where they could not contain themselves from lascivious 
thoughts in their holy places, but not with us." Baronius in his Annals, out of 
Eusebius, taxeth Licinius the emperor for a decree of his made to this effect, 
Jubens ne viri simul cum mulieribus in ecclesid interesseni : for being prodi- 
giously naught himself, aliorum naturam ex sua vitiosd me7ite spectavit, he so 
esteemed others. But we are far from any such strange conceits, and will 
permit our wives and daughters to go to the tavern with a friend, as Aubanus 
saith, modo absltlascivia, and suspect nothing, to kiss coming and going, which, 
as Erasmus v/rites in one of his epistles, they cannot endure. England is a 
paradise for women, and hell for horses : Italy a paradise for horses, hell for 
women, as the diverb goes. Some make a question whether this headstrong 
passion rage more in women than men, as Montaigne, 1. 3. But sure it is more 
outrageous in women, as all other melancholy is, by reason of the weakness of 
their sex. Scaliger, PoeL lib. cap. 13. concludes against women: "® Besides 
their inconstancy, treachery, suspicion, dissimulation, supersti.ion, pride (for 
all women are by nature proud), desire of sovereignty, if they be great women 
(he gives instance in Juno), bitterness and jealonsy are the most remarkable 
affections. 

** Seel neque fulvus aper media tarn fulvus in ira est, I *' Tiger, boar, bear, viper, lioness, 

Fulmineo lapidos dum rotat ore canes, A woman's fury cannot express." 

iJec leo," &c I 

^Some say red-headed women, pale-coloured, black-eyed, and of a shrill 
voice, are most subject to jealousy. 

*'8 Higli colour m a vroman choler shows, 
jS'aug'ht are they, peevish, proud, malicious; 
But worst of all, red, shrill, and jealous." 

* Fines Moris, part. 3. cap. 2. b Busbequi'js. Sands. ^ Pros amore et zelotj'pia saspius insaniunt. 

d Australes ne sacra quidera publica fieri patiuntur, nisi uterque sexus pariete medio dividatur : et quum in 
Angliam inquit, legationis causa profectus essem, audivi Mendozam legatum Hispaniarum dicentem turpe 
esseviroset foeminas in, &c. ®Ideo : mulieres prfeterquam quod sunt infidee, suspicaces, inconstantes, 
insidiosag, simuLitrices, superstitiosaj, et si potentcs, intolerabilcs, amore zelotypse supra modum. Ovid. '^. 
deart. fBartello. SR.T. 



632 Love- Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

Comparisons are odious, I neither parallel tliem with others, nor debase them 
any more : men and women are both bad, and too subject to this pernicious 
infirmity. It is most part a symptom and cause of melancholy, as Plater and 
Valescus teach us: melancholy men are apt to be jealous, and jealous apt to 
be melancholy. 



"Pale jealousy, child of insatiate love, 
Of heart-sick thoughts which melancholy bred, 
A hell-tormenting fear, no faith can move, 
By discontent with deadly poison fed ; 



"With heedless youth and error vainly led. 
A mortal plague, a virtue-drowning flood, 
A hellish tire not quenched but with blood." 



If idleness concur with melancholy, such persons are most apt to be jealous; 
'tis ^Kevisanus' note, "an idle woman is presumed to be lascivious, and often 
jealous." Mulier cum sola cogitat, male cogitat: and 'tis not unlikely, for they 
have no other business to trouble their heads with. 

More particular causes be these which follow. Impotency first, when a man 
is not able of himself to perform those dues which he ought unto his wife : for 
though he be an honest liver, hurt no man, yet Trebius the lawyer may make 
a question, an suum cuiqve tribiiat, whether he give every one their own ; and 
therefore when he takes notice of his wants, and perceives her to be more 
craving, clamorous, insatiable and prone to lust than is fit, he begins presently 
to suspect, that wherein he is defective, she will satisfy herself, she will be 
pleased by some other means. Cornelius Gallus hath elegantly expressed this 
humour in an epigram to his Lychoris. 

" Jamque alios juvenes aliosque requirit amores, 
Me vocat imbellem decrepitumque senem," &c.i 

For this cause is most evident in old men, that are cold and dry by nature, and 
married sued loleyds, to young wanton wives; with old doting Janivere in 
Chaucer, they begin to mistrust all is not well, 

She was young and he was old, 

And therefore he feared to be a cuckold. 

And how should it otherwise be? old age is a disease of itself, loathsome, full 
of suspicion and fear ; when it is at best, unable, unfit for such matters. ^ Tain 
cpta nuptiis quam bruma messibus, as welcome to a young woman as snow in 
harvest, saith Nevisanus: Et si capisjuvenculum, faciei tibi cornua: marry a 
lusty maid and she will surely graft horns on thy head. "^All Avomen are 
slippery, often unfaithful to their husbands (as^neas Sylvius, epist 38. seconds 
him), but to old men most treacherous : they had rather mortem amplexarier, 
lie with a corse than such a one : "^ Oderunt ilium pueri, co7demnunt mulieres. 
On the otlier side many men, saith Hieronymus, are suspicious of their wives, 
"if they be lightly given, but old folks above the rest. Insomuch that she did 
not complain without a cause in ^ Apuleius, of an old bald bedridden knave she 
had to her good man: "Poor woman as I am, what shall I do? I have an 
old grim sire to my husband, as bald as a coot, as little and as unable as a 
child," a bedful of bones, " he keeps all the doors barred and locked upon me, 
woe is me, what shall I do?" He was jealous, and she made him a cuckold 
for keeping her up : suspicion without a cause, hard usage is able of itself to 
make a woman fly out, that was otherwise honest, 

" P plerasque bonas tractatio pravas 

Esse facit," 

*•' bad usage aggravates the matter." Nam quando mulieres cognoscunt mari- 
turn hoc advertere,licentiuspeccant, ^asNevisanus holds, when a woman thinks 
her husband watcheth her, she will sooner offend, "^ Liberius peccant, et pudor 

h Lib. 2. num. 8. mulier otiosa facile pra;sumitur luxuriosa, et ssepe zelotypa. i " And now she requires 
other vouths and other loves, calls me an imbecile and decrepit old man." k T.ib. 2. num. 4._ i Quum 
omnibus infideles fceminje, senibus infidelissim^e. "^ Mimnernus. "^ Vix ahqua non impudica, et 

quam non suspectam merito qiiis habeat. <> Lib. 5. de aur. asino. At ego raisera patre meo seniorem 

maritum nacta sum, eundem cucurbita calviorem et quovis puero pumiliorem, cunctam domum sens et 
catenis obdltam custodientem. P Chaloner. *1 Lib. 4. n. 80. ^ Ovid. 2. de art. amandi. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Causes of Jealousy. 633 

omnis abest, rough handling makes them worse : as the good wife of Bath in 
Chaucer brags, 

In his own grease I made Mmfrie 
For anger and for very jealousie. 

Of two extremes, this of hard usage is the worst. 'Tis a great fault (for some 
men are uxorii) to be too fond of their wives, to dote on them as '^Senior Deliro 
on his Fallace, to be too effeminate, or as some do, to be sick for their wives, 
breed children for them, and like the ^Tiberini lie in for them, as some birds 
hatch eggs by turns, they do all women's offices : Cselius Ehodiginus, a7it. led. 
lib. 6. cap. 24. makes mention of a fellow out of Seneca, "that was so besotted 
on his wife, he could not endure a moment out of her company, he wore her 
scarf when he went abroad next his heart, and would never drink but in that 
cup she began first. We have many such fondlings that are their wives' pack- 
horses and slaves, (?^a??^ ^raz^e malum uxor super a?is virum suu?n,a,s the comical 
poet hath it, there's no greater misery to a man than to let his wife domineer) 
to carry her muff, dog, and fan, let her wear the breeches, lay out, spend, and 
do what she will, go and come whither, when she will, they give consent. 

" Here, take my muif, and, do you hear, good man; I " ^poscit pallam, redimicula, inaures; 

!Now give me pearl, and carry you ray fan," &c. Curre, quid hie cessas ? vulgo vult ilia viderl, 

I Tu pete lecticas" 

many brave and worthy men have trespassed in this kind, multosforas claros 
domestica hcec destruxit infamia, and many noble senators and soldiers (as 
•^PHny notes) have lost their honour, in being uxorii, so sottishly overruled 
by their wives; and therefore Cato in Plutarch made a bitter jest on his 
fellow-citizens, the Romans, " we govern all the world abroad, and our wives 
at home rule us." These offend in one extreme ; but too hard and too severe, 
are far more offensive on the other. As just a cause may be long absence of 
either party, when they must of necessity be much from home, as lawyers, 
physicians, mariners, by their professions; or otherwise make frivolous, im- 
pertinent journeys, tarry long abroad to no purpose, lie out, and are gadding 
still, upon small occasions, it must needs yield matter of suspicion, when 
they use their wives unkindly in the meantime, and never tarry at home, it 
cannot use but enofender some such conceit. 



♦' 2 Uxor si cessas amare te cogitat 

Aut tete amari, aut potare, aut animo obsequi, 
Et tibi bene esse soli, quum sibi sit male." 



" If thou be absent long, thy wife then thinks, 
Th' art drunk, at ease, or with some pretty minx, 
"lis well with thee, or else beloved of soir.e, 
Whilst she, poor soul, doth fare full ill at home." 



Hippocrates, the physician, had a smack of this disease ; for when he was to 
go home as far as Abdera, and some other remote cities of Greece, he writ to 
his friend Dionysius (if at least those ''^Epistles be his) " ''to oversee his wife in 
his absence (as Apollo set a raven to watch his Coronis), although she lived 
in his house with her father and mother, who he knew would have a care of 
her; yet that would not satisfy his jealousy, he would have his special friend 
Dionysius to dwell in his house with her all the time of his peregrination, and 
to observe her behaviour, how she carried herself in her husbands' absence, 
and that she did not lust after other men. '^For a woman had need to have an 
overseer to keep her honest ; they are bad by nature, and lightly given all, and 
if they be not curbed in time, as an unpruned tree, tliey will be full of wild 
branches, and degenerate of a sudden." Especially in their husband's absence : 
though one Lucretia were trusty, and one Penelope, yet Clytemnestra made 
Agamemnon cuckold; and no question there be too many of her conditions. If 

^ Every Man out of his Humour. t Calcagninus, Apol. Tiberini ab uxorum partu earum \ices subeunt, 
litaves per vices incubant, <tc. '•^Exiturus fascia uxoris pectus alligabat, nee raomento prtesentia ejus 

carere poterat, potumque non hauriebat nisi pr^egustatum labris ejus. ^Chaloner. JTanegyr. Trajano. 
^Ter. Adelph. act. 1. see. 1. '^Fab. Calvo. Ravennate interpiete. bDum rediero domum racam 

habitabis, et licet cum parentibus liabitet ac mea peregrinatione; earn tamen et ejus mores observabis uti 
absentia viri sui probe degat, nee alios viros cogitet aut quierat. ^ Fceniina semper custode eget qui se 

.pudicam contineat ; suapte enim natiu^a nequitias insitas habet, quas nisi indies comprimat, ut arbores 
stolones emittunt, &c. 



634 Love-Melancholy. . [Pcirt. 3. Sec. 3. 

their Imsbands tarry too long abroad upon unnecessary business, well they may 
suspect : or if they run one way, their wives at home will fly out another, Quid 
pro quo. Or if present, and f>;ive them not that content which they ought, 
^Frimum ingratce, max invisce nodes quce per somnu7)% transiguntur, they 
cannot endure to lie alone, or to fast long. ^ Peter Godefridus, in his second 
book of Love, and sixth chapter, hath a story out of St. Anthony's life, of a 
gentleman, who, by that good man's advice, would not meddle with his wife in 
the passion week, but for his pains she set a pair of horns on his head. Such 
another he hath out of Abstemius, one persuaded a new married man " ^to 
forbear the three first nights, and he should all his lifetime aftei* be fortunate in 
cattle," but his impatient wife would not tarry so long : well he might speed 
in cattle, but not in children. Such a tale hath Heinsius of an impotent and 
slack scholar, a mere student, and a friend of his, that seeing by chance a fine 
damsel sing and dance, would needs marry her, the match was soon made, for 
he was young and rich, genis gratus, cor pore glabellus, arte multiscius, et for- 
tund opulentus, like that Apollo in ^ Apuleius. The first night, having liber- 
ally taken his liquor (as in that country they do) my kind scholar was so fuzzled, 
that he no sooner was laid in bed, but he fell fast asleep, never waked till 
morning, and then much abashed, purpureisformosa rosis cum Aurora ruberet, 
wlien the fair morn with purple hue 'gan shine, he made an excuse, I know not 
what, out of Hippocrates Cous, &c., and for that time it went current : but 
wlien as afterward he did not play the man as he should do, she fell in league 
with a good fellow, and whilst he sat up late at his study about those criticisms, 
mending some hard places in Festus or Pollux, came cold to bed, and would tell 
her still what he had done, she did not much regard what he said, &c. " ^She 
would have another matter mended much rather, which he did not conceive 
was corrupt : " thus he continued at his study late, she at her sport, alibi enim 
fcstivas noctes ogitabat., hating all scholars for his sake, till at length he began 
to suspect, and turned a little yellow, as well he might; for it was his own 
fault; and if men be jealous in such cases (^as oft it falls out) tl^e mends is 
in their own hands, they must thank themselves. Who will pity them, saith 
Neander, or be much offended with such wives, si deceptce p)rius vir-os decipiant, 
et cornutos reddant, if they deceive those that cozened them first. A lawyer's 
wife in ^Aristaenetus, because her husband was negligent in his business, 
qiiando lecto danda opera, threatened to cornute him : and did not stick to tell 
Philinna, one of her gossips, as much, and that aloud for him to hear : " If 
he follow other men's mattei^ and leave his own, I'll have an orator shall 
plead my cause, I care not if he know it." 

A fourth eminent cause of jealousy may be this, when he that is deformed, 
and as Pindarus of Yulcan, sine gratiis natus, hirsute, ragged, yet virtuously 
given, will marry some fair nice piece, or light housewife, begins to misdoubt 
(as well he may) she doth not affect him. ^Lis est cumformd magna pudici- 
tice, beauty and honesty have ever been at odds. Abraham was jealous of his 
wife because she was fair : so was Yulcan of his Yenus, when he made her 
creaking shoes, saith ™ Philostratus, ne moecharetur, sandalio scilicet deferente^ 
that he might hear by them when she stirred, which Mars indigneferre, ^was 
not well pleased with. Good cause had Yulcan to do as he did, for she was no 



d Heinsius. e Uxor cnjnsciam nobilis quum debitura maritale sacra passionis hebdomada non obtineret, 
alterum adiit. f Ne tribus prioribus noctibus rem haberet cum ea, ut esset in pecoribus fortunatus, ab 

iixore morae impatiente, &c. STotam noctem bene et pudice nemini molestus dormiendo transegit; 

mane autem quum nullius conscius facinoris sibi esset, et inertiis puderet, audisse se dicebat cum dolore 
calculi soleve earn conflictari. Duo praecepta juris una nocte expressit, neminem lajserat et honeste vixerat, 
sed an suum cuique reddidisset, quairipGterat. Mutius opinor et Trebatius hoc negassent, lib. 1. h Alterius 
loci emendationem serio optabat, quein corruptura esse ille non invenit. i Such another tale is in Neander 
de Jocoseriis, his first tale, k Lib. 2. Ep. 3. Si pergit alienis nea-utiis operam dare sui neglijiens, erit alius 
mihi orator qui rem meam agat. iOvid. rara est concordia fonnai atque pudicitiie^ ™Epist. 

" Quod stridoret ejus calceaiaentunj. 



Rlem. 1. Subs. 2.] . Causes of Jealousy. 635 

honester tlian she should be. Your fine faces have commoulj this fault ; and 
it is hard to find, saith Francis Philelphus in an epistle to Saxola his friend, 
a rich man honest, a proper woman not proud or unchaste. " Can she be fair 
and honest too?" 

" Ssepe etenirn oculuit picta sese hydra sub herba, 
Sub specie form«, incauto se saepfe marito 
Nequam animus vendit," 

He that marries a \vife that is snowy fair alone, let him look, saith ^Barbaras, 
for no better success than Yulcan had with Yenus, or Claudius with Messalina. 
And 'tis impossible almost in such cases the wife should contain, or the good 
man not be jealous : for when he is so defective, weak, ill-proportioned, un- 
pleasing in those parts which women most afi*ect, and she most absolutely fair 
and able on the other side, if she be not very virtuously given, how can she 
love him? and although she be not fair, yet if he admire her and think her 
so, in his conceit she is absolute, he holds it impossible for any man living not to 
dote as he doth, to look on her and not lust, not to covet, and if he be in com- 
pany with her, not to lay siege to her honesty : or else out of a deep appre- 
hension of his infirmities, deformities, and other men's good parts, out of his 
own little worth and desert, he distrusts himself, (for what is jealousy but 
distrust?) he suspects she cannot affect him, or be not so kind and loving as 
she should, she certainly loves some other man better than himself 

^^JSTevisanus, lib. 4. num. 72, will have barrenness to be a main cause of 
jealousy. If her husband cannot play the man, some other shall, they will 
leave no remedies unessayed, and thereupon the good man grows jealous; I 
could give an instance^ but be it as it is. 

I find this reason given by some men, because they have been formerly 
naught themselves, they think they may be so served by others, they turned 
up trump before the cards were shuffled ; they shall have therefore legem talio- 
nis, like for like. 

♦' ^ Ipse miser docui, quo posset ludere pacto j " Wretch as I was, I taught her bad to be, 

Custodes, eheu nunc premor arte mea." | And now mine own sly tricks are put upon me." 

Mala meris^ malus animus, as the saying is, ill dispositions cause ill suspicions. 

" ^ There is none jealous, I durst pawn my life. 
But he that hath defiled another's wife. 
And for that he himself hath gone astray, 
He straightway thinks his wife will tread that way." 

To these two above-named causes, or incendiaries of this rage, I may very well 
annex those circumstances of time, place, persons, by which it ebbs and flows, 
the fuel of this fury, as *Yives truly observes; and such like accidents or 
occasions, proceeding from the parties themselves, or others, which much ag- 
gravate and intend this suspicious humour. Eor many men are so lasciviously 
given, either out of a depraved nature, or too much liberty, which they do 
assume unto themselves, by reason of their greatness, in that they are noble 
men (for licentia peccandi, et multitudo peccantium are great motives) though 
their own wives be never so fair, noble, virtuous, honest, wise, able, and well 
given, they must have change. 

*"^ Qui dum legitimi junguntur focdere lecti, 
Virtute egregiis, facieque domoque puellis, 
Scorta tamen, fcedasque lupas in fornice quEcrunt, 
Et per adulterium nova carpere gaudia tentant." 

Quod licet, ingratum est, that which is ordinary, is unpleasant. Nero (saith 
Tacitus) abhorred Octavia his own wife, a noble virtuous lady, and loved Acte, 
a base quean in respect. ^Cerinthus rejected Sulpitia, a nobleman's daughter, 
and courted a poor servant maid. tanta est aliend in messa voluptas, for 

° Hor. epist. 15. " Often has the serpent lain hid beneath the coloured grass, under a beautiful aspect, 
and often has the evil inclination effected a sale without the husband's priv ty." P De re uxoria, lib. 1 . 

cap. 5. 1 Cum steriles sunt, ex mutatione viri se putaut concipere. ^'TibuHus, eleg. 6. ^ Wither's Sat. 
1 3 de Anima. Crescit ac decrescit zelotypia cum personis, locis, temporibus, negotiis. ^ AlaruUus. 

* Tibullus, Epig. 



" Who being match'd to wives most virtuous, 
Noble, and fair, fly out lascivious." 



636 Love-Melancholy, [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

that ''"^stolen waters be more pleasant:" or as Yitellius tlie emperor was 
wont to ^dij^Jiicundiores amoves, qui cumpericulo habentur,like stolen venison, 
still the sweetest is that love which is most difEicultlj attained : they like better 
to hunt bj stealth in another man's walk, than to have the fairest course 
that maj be at game of their own. 

*' 2 Aspice ut in coelo modo sol, modo luna ministret, I " As sun and moon in heaven change their coarse, 
Sic etlam nobis una puella parum est." | So tliey change loves, though often to the worse." 

Or that some fair object so forcibly raoves them, they cannot contain themselves, 
be it heard or seen they will be at it. ^ISTessus, the centaur, was by agree- 
ment to carry Hercules and his wife over the river Evenus ; no sooner had 
he set Dejanira on the other side, but he would have offered violence unto 
her, leaving Hercules to swim over as he could : and though her husband was 
a spectator, yet would he not desist till Hercules, with a poisoned arrow, shot 
him to death. ^Neptune saw by chance that Thessalian Tyro, Eunippius' 
wife, he forthwith, in the fury of his lust, counterfeited her husband's habit, 
and made him cuckold. Tarquin heard Collatine commend his wife, and was 
so far enraged, that in the midst of the night to her he went. ^Theseus stole 
Ariadne, vi rapuit thdit Trazenian Anaxa, Antiope, and now being old, Helen, 
a girl not yet ready for a husband. Great men are most part thus affected all, 

" as a horse they neigh," saith Jeremiah, after their neighbours' wives, ut 

visa pullus adhinnit equd : and if they be in company with other women, though 
in their own wives' presence, they must be courting and dallying with them. 
Juno in Lucian complains of Jupiter that he was still kissing Ganymede before 
her face, which did not a little offend her : and besides he was a counterfeit 
Amphitryo, a bull, a swan, a golden shower, and played many such bad pranks, 
too long, too shameful to relate. 

Or that they care little for their own ladies, and fear no laws, they dare 
freely keep whores at their wives' noses. 'Tis too frequent with noblemen to 
be dishonest; Pietas, probitas, fides, privata bona sunt, as ®he said long since, 
piety, chastity, and such like virtues are for private men: not to be much 
looked after in great courts : and which Suetonius of the good Princes of his 
time, they might be all engraven in one ring, we may truly hold of chaste 
potentates of our age. For great personages will familiarly run out in this 
kind, and yield occasion of offence. ^ Montaigne, in his Essays gives instance 
in Caesar, Mahomet the Turk, that sacked Constantinople, and Ladislaus, king 
of Naples, that besieged Florence: great Dien, and great soldiers, are com- 
monly great, &c., probatum est, they are good doers. Mars and Yenus are 
equally balanced in their actions, 

•' 8 Militis in galea nidum fecere columbfe, I " A dove within a head-piece made her nest, 

Apparet Marti quam sit arnica Venus." | 'Twixt Mars and V^enus see an interest." 

Especially if they be bald, for bald men have ever been suspicious (read more 
in Aristotle, Sect. 4. prob. 19.), as Galba, Otho, Domitian, and remarkable 
Cfesar amongst the rest. ^ Urbani servate uxores, mcechum calvum adducimus; 
besides, this bald Csesar, saith Curio in Sueton, was omnium mulierum vir ; 
he made love to Eunoe, queen of Mauritania; to Cleopatra; to Posthumia, wife 
to Sergius Sulpitius ; to Lollia, wife to Gabinius ;• to Tertulla, of Crassus ; to 
Mutia, Pompey's wife, and I know not how many besides : and well he might, 
for, if all be true that I have read, he had a license to lie with whom he list. 
Inter alios honores Ccesari decretos (as Sueton. cap. 52, de Julio, and Dion, 
lib. 4:L relsite) jus illi datum, cum quibuscunque fceminis se jungendi. Every 
private history will yieldsuchvariety of instances: otherwise good, wise, discreet 
men, virtuous and valiant, but too faulty in this. Priamus had fifty sons, but 

y Prov. ix. 17. ^ rropert. eleg. 2. » Ovid. lib. 9. Met. Pausanias Strabo, quam crevit imbribtis 

hvemalibus." Deianiram suscipit, Herculem nando sequi jubet. b Lucian, torn. 4. ^ Plutarch. 

d"t'ap. V. 8. e Seneca. f Lib. 2. cap. 23. sPetronius, Catal. h sueton. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Causes of Jealousy. 637 

seventeen alone lawfully begotten. ^Philippus Bonus left fourteen bastards. 
Lorenzo de Medici, a good i)rince and a wise, but, saitli Machiavel, ^prodigi- 
ously lascivious, None so valiant as Castruccius Castrucanus, but, as the said 
author hath it, ^none so incontinent as he was. And 'tis not only predominant 
in grandees this fciult : but if you will take a great man's testimony, 'tis fami- 
liar with every base soldier in France (and elsewhere, I think). " This vice 
C^saith mine author) is so common with us in France, that he is of no account, 
a mere coward, not worthy the name of a soldier, that is not a notorious 
whoremaster." In Italy he is not a gentleman, that besides his wife hath not 
a courtezan and a mistress. 'Tis no marvel, then, if poor women in such cases 
be jealous, when they shall see themselves manifestly neglected, contemned, 
loathed, unkindly used : their disloyal husbands to entertain others in their 
rooms, and many times to court ladies to their faces: other men's wives to 
wear their jewels : how shall a poor woman in such a case moderate her pas- 
sion 1 ^ Qids tibi nunc Dido cernenti talia sensus ? 

How, on the other side, shall a poor man contain himself from this feral 
malady, when he shall see so manifest signs of his wife's inconstancy? when, 
as Milo's wife, she dotes upon every young man she sees, or, as ° Martial's 

Sota, deserto sequitur Cliium marito^ " deserts her husband and follows 

Clitus." Though her husband be proper and tall, fair and lovely to behold, 
able to give contentment to any one woman, yet she will taste of the forbidden 
fruit : Juvenal's Iberina to a hair, she is as well pleased with one eye as one 
man. If a young gallant come by chance into her presence, a fastidious brisk, 
that can wear his clothes well in fashion, with a lock, jingling spur, a feather; 
that can cringe, and withal compliment, court a gentlewoman, she raves upon 
him, '' what a lovely proper man he was," another Hector, an Alexander, a 
goodly man, a demi-god, how sweetly he carried himself, with how comely a 
grace, sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic era ferehat, how neatly he did wear his 
clothes! ^ Quam sese ore ferens^ quam forti pectore et armis, how bravely did 
he discourse, ride, sing, and dance, &c., and then she begins to loathe her 
husband, repugnans oscuhUuo', to hate him and his filthy beard, his goatish 
complexion, as Doris said of Polyphemus, ^totus qui saniem,totu^ ut hircus olet, 
he is a rammy fulsome fellow, a goblin-faced fellow, he smells, he stinks, Et 

ccepas siniul alliumque ructaf si quando ad thalamum, &c., how like a 

dizzard, a fool, an ass, he looks, how like a clown he behaves himself ! '^she 
will not come near him by her own good will, but wholly rejects him, as Yen us 
did her fuliginous Yulcan, at last, Nee Dens hunc mensd, Dea nee dignata 
cubili est} So did Lucretia, a lady of Senee, after she had but seen Euryalus, 
in Eurialum tota ferebatur, domum reversa, &c., she would not hold her eyes 
off him in his presence, — —^tantum egregio decus enitet ore, and in his absence 
could think of none but him, odit virum, she loathed her husband forthwith, 
might not abide him : 

" ^ Et conjugalis negligens tori, viro I *' All against the laws of matrimony, 

Prsesente, acerbo nauseat fastidio ; " | Slie did abhor her husband's phis'nomy ; " 

and sought all opportunity to see her sweetheart again. Now when the good 
man shall observe his wife so lightly given, " to be so free and familiar with 
every gallant, her immodesty and wantonness," (as ^Camerarius notes) it must 
needs yield matter of suspicion to him, when she still pranks up herself beyond 

i Pontus Heuter, vita ejus. kLib. 8. Flor. hist. Dux omnium optimus et sapientissimus, sed in re venerea 
prodigiosus. IVitaCastruccii. Idem uxores maritis abalienavit. ™ Seselius, lib. 2 de Repub. Gal- 

lorum. Ita nunc apud infimos obtinuit hoc vitium, ut nullius fere pretii sit, et ignavus miles qui non in 
scortatione maxime excellat, et adulterio. i^Virg. .En. 4. " What now must have been Dido's sensations 
■when she witnessed these doings ? " « Epig. 9. lib. 4. P Virg. 4. vEn. 1 Secundus syl. ^ " And 
belches out the smell of onions and garlic." s j^neas Sylvius. t " Neither a god honoured him M'ith 

bis table, nor a goddess with her bed." '•^A^irg. 4. JEn. " Such beauty shines in his graceful featiires." 

^S. Graeco Simonides. yCont. 2. ca. 38. Oper. subcis. mulieris liberius et familiarius communicantis cum 
omnibus licentia et immodestia, sinistri sermonis et suspicionis materiam viro priebet. 



638 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

her means and fortunes, makes impertinent journeys, unnecessary visitations, 
stays out so long, with such and such companions, so frequently goes to plays, 
masks, feasts, and all public meetings, shall use such immodest ''gestures, 
free speeches, and withal show some distaste of her own husband; how can he 
choose, " though he were another Socrates, but be suspicious, and instantly 
jealous ?" " ^ Socraticas tandem faciei transcendere melasf' more especially 
when he shall take notice of their more secret and sly tricks, which to cornute 
their husbands they commonly use {dum ludis, ludos hcec tefacit), they pretend 
love, honour, chastity, and seem to respect them before all men living, saints 
in show, so cunningly can they dissemble, they will not so much as look upon 
another man in his presence, ^so chaste, so religious, and so devote, they can- 
not endure the name or sight of a quean, a harlot, out upon her ! and in their 
outward carriage are most loving and officious, will kiss their husband, and 
hang about his neck (dear husband, sweet husband), and with a composed 
countenance salute him, especially when he comes home; or if he go from 
home, weep, sigh, lament, and take upon them to be sick and swoon (like 
Jocundo's wife in ^Ariosto, when her husband was to depart), and yet arrant, 
<kc., they care not for him. 



' Aye me, the thought (quoth she) makes me so 'fraid, 
That scarce the breath abideth in my breast; 
Peace, my sweet love and wife, Jocundo said, 
And weeps as fast, and comforts her his best, &c, 
All this might not assuage the woman's pain, 
Needs must I die before you come again, 
Nor how to keep my life I can devise. 



The doleful days and nights T shall sustain, 

From meat my mouth, from sleep will keep mine 

eyes, &c. 
That very night that went before the morrow, 
That he had pointed sur(Jly to depart, 
Jocundo's wife was sick, and swoon'd for sorrow 
Amid his arms, so heavy was her heart." 



And yet for all these counterfeit tears and protestations, Jocundo coming 
back in all haste for a jewel he had forgot, 

" His chaste and yoke-fellow he found I Yet by his face was easily detected : 

Yok'd with a knave, all honesty neglected, A beggar's brat bred by him from his cradle. 

The adulterer sleeping very sound, | And now was riding on his master's saddle." 

Thus can they cunningly counterfeit, as ^Platina describes their customs, 
" kiss their husbands, whom they had rather see hanging on a gallows, and 
swear tljiey love him dearer than their own lives, whose soul they would not 
ransom for their little do^'s;" 

. " similis si permutatio detur, 

Morte viri cupiunt animam servare catellse." 

Many of them seem to be precise and holy forsooth, and will go to such a 
® church, to hear such a good man by all means, an excellent man, when 'tis 
for no other intent (as he follows it) than " to see and to be seen, to observe 
what fashions are in use, to meet some pander, bawd, monk, friar, or to entice 
some good fellow." For they persuade themselves, as ^Nevisanus shows, 
" That it is neither sin nor shame to lie with a lord or parish priest, if he be a 
proper man; ^and though she kneel often, and pray devoutly, 'tis (saith 
Platina) not for her husband's welfare, or children's good, or any friend, but 
for her sweetheart's return, her pander's health." If her husband would have 
her go, she feigns herself sick, ^Et simulat subitd condoluisse caput: her head 
aches, and she cannot stir : but if her paramour ask as much, she is for him 
in all seasons, at all hours of the night. ^In the kingdom of Malabar, and 
about Goa in the East Indies, the women are so subtile that, with a certain 
drink they give them to drive away cares as they say, " ^they will make them 

^ Voces liberas, oculorum colloquia, contractationes parum verecundre, motus iramodici, &c. Heinsius. 
* Chaloner. b What is here said, is not prejudicial to honest women. " Lib. 28. sc. 13. d Dial- 

amor. Pendet fallax et blanda circa oscula mariti, quem in cruce, si fieri posse!., deosculari velit : illius vitam 
chariorem esse sua jurejurando atHrmat : quem certs non redimeret anima catelli si posset. *Adeunt 

templum ut rem divinam audiant, ut ipsse simulant, sed vel ut monachum fratrem, vel adulterum lingua, 
oculis, ad libidinem provocent. f Lib. 4. Num. 81. Ipsee sibi persuadent, quod adulterium cum principo 
vel cum pra;sule, non est pudor, nee peccatum. ?Deum rogat, non pro salute mariti, filii, cognati vota 

suscipit, sed pro reditu nioechi si abest, pro valetudine lenonis si agrotet. h Tibullus. i Gortardus 

Arthus, descrip. Indiae Orient. Linchoften. k (iarcias ab Horto, hist. lib. 2. cap. 21. Daturam herbara 

vocat et describit, tarn proclives sunt ad venerem mulieres ut viros inebrient per 24 horas, liquore quodain, 
ut nihil vldeantj recordentur, at dormiant, et post lotionem pedum, ad se restituunt, iSic. 



Mem. 1." Subs. 2.] Causes of Jtalousy. 639 

sleep for twentv-foiir hours, or so intoxicate tliem that they can remember 
nought of that they saw done, or heard, and, by washing of their feet, restore 
them again, and so make their husbands cuckolds to their faces." Some are 
ill-disposed at all times, to all persons they like, others more wary to some few, 
at such and such seasons, as Augusta Li via, non nisiplendnavivectoremtollebat. 
But as he said, 

" 1 No pen could ^vrite, no tongue attain to tell, 
By force of eloquence, or help of art, 
Of women's treacheries the hundredth part." 

Both, to say truth, are often faulty ; men and women give just occasions in 
this humour of discontent, aggravate and yield matter of suspicion : but most 
part of the chief causes proceed from other adventitious accidents and cir- 
cumstances, though the parties be free, and both well given themselves. The 
indiscreet carriage of some lascivious gallant {et e contra of some light woman) 
by his often frequenting of a house, bold unseemly gestures, may make a 
breach, and by his over familiarity, if he be inclined to yellowness, colour him 
quite out. If he be poor, basely born, saith Benedetto Varolii, and otherwise 
unhandsome, he suspects him the less; but if a proper man, such as was 
Alcibiades in Greece, and Castruccius Castrucanus in Italy, well descended, 
commendable for his good parts, he taketli on the more, and watch eth his 
doings. ™ Theodosius the emperor gave his wife Eudoxia a golden apple when 
he was a suitor to her, which she long after bestowed upon a young gallant in 
the court, of her especial acquaintance. The emperor, espying this apple in 
his hand, suspected forthwith, more than was, his wife's dishonesty, banished 
him the court, and from that day following forbare to accompany her any more. 
"A rich merchant had a fair wife ; according to his custom he went to travel; 
in his absence a good fellow tempted his wife : she denied him; yet he, dying 
a little after, gave her a legacy for the love he bore her. At his return, her 
jealous husband, because she had got more by land than he had done at sea, 
turned her away upon suspicion. 

Now when those other circumstances of time and place, opportunity and 
importunity shall concur, what will they not. effect 1 

*'Fair opportunity can win the coyest she that is, 
So wisely he takes time, as he'll he sure he will not miss : 
Then he that loves her gamesome vein, and tempers toys with art, 
Brings love that swimmeth in her eyes to dive into her heart." 

As at plays, masks, great feasts and banquets, one singles out his wife to dance, 
another courts her in his presence, a third tempts her, a fourth insinuates with 
a pleasing compliment, a sweet smile, ingratiates himself with an amphibo- 
logical speech, as that merry companion in the ° Satirist did to his Gly cerium, 
adsidens et interiorem- 2>almam amabiliter concutiens, 

" Quod meus hortus habet suniat impune licebit, 
Si dederis nobis quod tuus hortus habet ; " 

with many such, &c., and then as he saith, 

4 She may no while in chastity abide, 
That is assaid on every side. 

For after a great feast, — ^ Vino scepe suum nescit arnica virum, Noah (saith 
^Hierome) "shewed his nakedness in his drunkenness, which for six hundred 
years he had covered in soberness." Lot lay with, his daughters in his drink, 

as Cyneras with Myrrha, ^quid enim Venus ebria curat? The most 

continent may be overcome, or if otherwise they keep bad company, they that 



1 Ariosto, lib. 28. st. 75. "^Lipsiug Polit. ngeneca, lib. 2. controv. 8. OBodicher, Sat. 

P " Sitting close to her, and shaking her hand lovingly." 1 Tibullus. ^' " After wine the mistress is 

often unable to distinguish her own lover." ^ Epist. 8-5. ad Oceanum : Ad unius horse ebrietatem nudat 
femora, quse per sexcentos annos sobrietate contexerat. ' Juv. Sat. 13. 



640 Love-MelancJwhj. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

are modest of themselves, and dare not offend, "confirmed by "others, o-row 
impudent, and confident, and get an ill habit." ' ^ 

*' ^ Alia qusestus gratia matrimonium corrumpit, 
Alia peccans multas vult morbi habere socias." 

Or if they dwell in suspected places, as in an infamous inn, near some stews, 
near monks, friars, Nevisanus adds, where be many tempters and solicitors, 
idle persons that frequent their companies, it may give just cause of suspicion. 
Martial of old inveighed against them that counterfeited a disease to go to the 
bath; for so many times, 

" relicto 

Coiijuge Penelope venit, abit Helen e." 

^neas Sylvius puts in a caveat against princes' courts, because there be tot 
formosi juvenes qui promittunt, so many brave suitors to tempt, &c. "^If 
you leave her in such a place, you shall likely find her in company you like 
not, either they come to her, or she is gone to them," ^Kornmannus makes 
a doubting jest in his lascivious country, Vir girds illibata censeatur ne castitas 
ad qua m frequenter accedant scholar es? And Baldus the lawyer scoffs on, 
quum scholaris, inquit, loquitur cum puelld, non prcesumitur ei dicere, Pater 
noster, when a scholar talks with a maid, or another man's wife in private, it 
is presumed he saith not a pater noster. Or if I shall see a monk or a friar 
climb up a ladder at midnight into a virgin's or widow's chamber window, I 
shall hardly think he then goes to administer the sacraments, or to take her 
confession. These are the ordinary causes of jealousy, which are intended or 
remitted as the circumstances vary. 



MEMB. II. 

SuBSECT. I. — Symptoms of Jealousy, Fear, Sorroiv, Suspicion, strange Actions, 
Gestures, Outrages, Locking up, Oaths, Irials, Laivs, S^c. 

Of all passions, as I have already proved, love is most violent, and of those 
bitter potions which this love-melancholy affords, this bastard jealousy is the 
greatest, as appears by those prodigious symptoms which it hath, and that it 
produceth. For besides fear and sorrow, which is common to all melancholy, 
anxiety of mind, suspicion, aggravation, restless thoughts, paleness, meagre- 
ness, neglect of busiuess, and the like, these men are farther yet misaffected, 
and in a higher strain. 'Tis a more vehement passion, a more farioiis pertur- 
bation, a bitter pain, a fire, a pernicious curiosity, a gall corrupting the honey 
of our life, madness, vertigo, plague, hell, they are more than ordinarily dis- 
quieted, they lose honum pads, as ^Chrysostom observes; and though they be 
rich, keep sumptuous tables, be nobly allied, yet miserrimi omnium sunt, they 
are most miserable, they are more than ordinarily discontent, more sad, 7ii)il 
tristius, more than ordinarily suspicious. Jealousy, saith ^Vives, "begets 
uu quietness in the mind, night and day: he hunts after every word he hears, 
every whisper, and amplifies it to himself (as all melancholy men do in other 
matters) with a most unjust calumny of others, he misinterprets everything is 
said or done, most apt to mistake or misconstrue," he pries into every corner, 
follows close, observes to a hair. 'Tis proper to jealousy so to do, 

" Pale hag, infernal furj', pleasure's smart, 
Envy's observer, prying in every part." 

, Besides those strange gestures of staring, frowning, grinning, rolling of eyes, 
menacing, ghastly looks, broken pace, interrupt, precipitate, half- turns. He 

" Nihil audent prime, post ab aliis confirmatiB, autlaces etconfidentes sunt. Ubi semel verecundi£elimites 
traiisierint. * Euripides, 1 . (j3. " Love of gain induces one to break her marriage vow, a wish to have 

associates to keep her in countenance actuates others." ^ De miser. Curialium. Aut alium cum ea invenies, 
aut isse alium reperies. ^ Cap. 18. de Virg. » Horn. 38. in c. 17. Gen. Etsi magnis affluunt divitiis, &c. 
b 3 de Anima. Omnes voces, auras, omnes susurros captat zelotypus, et amplificat apud se cum iniquis- 
sima de singulis calumnia. Maxime suspiciosi, et ad pejora credeudum proclirss. 



IMem. 2.] Symptoms of Jealousy. 641 

will sometimes sigh, weep, sob for anger, Nempe sues imhres etiam isU 
tonitrua fundunt,^ — swear and belie, slander any man, curse, threaten, brawl 
scold, fight ; and sometimes again flatter and speak fair, ask forgiveness, kiss 
and coll, condemn his rashness and folly, vow, protest, and swear he will never 
do so again; and then eftsoons, impatient as he is, rave, roar, and lay about 
him like a madman, thump her sides, drag her about perchance, drive her out 
of doors, send her home, he will be divorced forthwith, she is a whore, &c., and 
by-and-by with all submission compliment, entreat her fair, and bring her in 
again, he loves her dearly, she is his sweet, most kind and loving wife, he will 
not change, nor leave her for a kingdom ; so he continues off and on, as the 
toy takes him, the object moves him, but most part brawling, fretting, unquiet 
he is, accusing and suspecting not strangers only, but brothers and sisters, 
father and mother, nearest and dearest friends. He thinks with those Italians, 

"Chi non tocca paren-ado, 
Tocca mai e rado." 

And through fear conceives unto himself things almost incredible and impo; 
sible to be effected. As a heron when she fishes, still prying on all sides; 
or as a cat doth a mouse, his eye is never off hers; he gloats on him, on her, 
accurately observing on whom she looks, who looks at her, what she saith, 
doth, at dinner, at supper, sitting, walking, at home, abroad, he is the same, 
still inquiring, mandring, gazing, listening, affrighted with every small object; 
why did she smile, why did she pity him, commend him? why did she drink 
twice to such a man? why did she offer to kiss, to dance? &c., a whore, a 
whore, an arrant whore. All this he confesseth in the poet. 



'd Omnia me terrent, timidus sum, ignosce timori, 
Et miser in tunica suspicor esse virum. 
Me liedit si multa tibi dubit oscula mater, 
Me soror, et cum qua dormit arnica simul," 



"Each thing affrights me, I do fear. 
Ah pardon me my fear, 
I doubt a man is hid within 
The clothes that thou dost wear." 



Is it not a man in woman's apparel? is not somebody in that great chest, or 
behind the door, or hangings, or in some of those barrels? may not a man 
steal in at the window with a ladder of ropes, or come down the chimney, have 
a false key, or get in when he is asleep? If a mouse do but stir, or the wind 
blow, a casement clatter, that's the villain, there he is: by his good- will no 
man shall see her, salute her, speak with her, she shall not go forth of his 
sight, so much as to do her needs. ^Non ita bovem argus, &c. Argus did 
not so keep his cow, that watchful dragon the golden fleece, or Cerberus the 
coming in of hell, as he keeps his wife. If a dear friend or near kinsman 
come as guest to his house, to visit him, he will never let him be out of his 
own sight and company, lest, peradventure, &c. If the necessity of his 
business be such that he must go from home, he doth either lock her up, or 
commit her with a deal of injunctions and protestations to some trusty friends, 
him and her he sets and bribes to oversee : one servant is set in his absence 
to watch another, and all to observe his wife, and yet all this will not serve, 
though his business be very urgent, he will when he is half way come back 
again in all post haste, rise from supper, or at midnight, and be gone, and 
sometimes leave his business undone, and as a stranger court his own wife in 
some disguised habit. Though there be no danger at all, no cause of suspicion, 
she live in such a place, where Messalina herself could not be dishonest if she 
would, yet he suspects her as much as if she were in a bawdy-house, some 
prince's court, or in a common inn, where all comers might have free access. 
He calls her on a sudden all to nought, she is a strumpet, a light housewife, a 
bitch, an arrant whore. No persuasion, no protestation can divert this passion, 
nothing can ease him, secure or give him satisfaction. It is most strange to report 
what outrageous acts by men and women have been committed in this kind, by 

^ "These thunders pour doivn their peculiar showers." d Propertius. * iEneas Silv. 

2t 



642 Lovs-Mehnchofy. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

women especially, that will run after their husbands into all places and com- 
panies, ^as Jovianus Pontanus's wife did by him, follow him whithersoever he 
went, it matters not, or upon what business, raving like Juno in the tragedy, 
miscalling, cursing, swearing, and mistrusting every one she sees. Gomesius 
in his third book of the Life and Deeds of Francis Ximenius, sometime arch- 
bishop of Toledo, hath a strange story of that incredible jealousy of Joan 
queen of Spain, wife to king Philip, mother of Ferdinand and Charles the 
Fifth, emperors ; when her husband Philip, either for that he was tired with 
his wife's jealousy, or had some great business, went into the Low Countries: 
she was so impatient and melancholy upon his departure, that she would scarce 
eat her meat, or converse with any man; and though she were with child, the 
season of the year very bad, the wind against her, in all haste she would to 
sea after him. Neither Isabella her queen mother, the archbishop, or any 
other friend could persuade her to the contrary, but she would after him. 
When she was now come into the JjOw Countries, and kindly entertained by 
her husband, she could not contain herself, "^but in a rage ran upon a yellow- 
haired wench," with whom she suspected her husband to be naught, "cut off 
her hair, did beat her black and blue, and so dragged her about." It is an 
ordinary thing for women in such cases to scratch the faces, slit the noses of 
such as they suspect; as Henry the Second's importune Juno did by Rosa- 
mond at Woodstock: for she complains in a ^modern poet, she scarce spake, 

" But flies witli eager fury to my face, | So fell she on me in ontra.Eceous wise, 

Offering me most unwomanly disgrace. I As could disdain and jealousy devise." 

Look how a tigress, <tc. I 

Or if it be so they dare not or cannot execute any such tyrannical injustice, 
they will miscall, rail and revile, bear them deadly hate and malice, as 
^Tacitus observes, "The hatred of a jealous woman is inseparable against 
.such as she suspects." 



•k Nulla vis flamm£e tumidiqiie venti 
Tanta, nee teli metuenda torti, 
Quanta cum conjux viduata tjedis 
Ardet et odit. 



' Winds, weapons, flames make not such hurly-burly, 
As raving women turn all topsy-turvy." 



So did -Agrippina by Lollia, and Calphurnia in the days of Claudius. But 
women are sufficiently curbed in such cases, the rage of men is more 
eminent, and frequently put in practice. See but with what rigour tho^e 
jealous husbands tyrannise over their poor wives. In Greece, Spain, Italy, 
Turkey, Africa, Asia, and generally over all those hot countries, Wulieres 
vestrce terra vestra, arate sicut vultis, Mahomet in his Alcoran gives this power 
to men, your wives are as your land, till them, use them, entreat them fair or 
foul, as you will yourselves. ^Mecastor lege dura mvunt mulieres, they lock 
them still in their houses, wliich are so many prisons to them, will suffer 

nobody to come at them, or their wives to be seen abroad, nee campos 

liceat lustrare patentes. They must not so much as look out. And if they be 
great persons, they have eunuchs to keep them, as the Grand Seignior among 
the Turks, the Sophies of Persia, those Tartarian Mogors, and Kings of China. 
Infantes inasculos castrant innumeros ut regi serviant, saith"E,iccius, "they 
geld innumerable infants" to this purpose; the King of ° China "maintains 
10,000 eunuchs in his family to keep his wives." The Xeriffes of Barbary 
keep their courtezans in such a strict manner, that if any man come but in 
sight of them he dies for it ; and if they chance to see a man, and do not 
instantly cry out, though from their windows, they must be put to death. The 
Turks have I know not how many black, deformed eunuchs (for the white serve 

f Ant. Dial. S Eabie concepta, caesariem abrasit, puellseque mirabiliter insultans faciem vibicibus fsedavit. 
hDaiiieL iAnnal. lib. 12. Principis muheris zelotypge est in alias mulieres quas suspectas habet, odium 

inseparabile. k Seneca in Medea. 1 Alcoran cap. Bovis, inteiTprete liicardo praid. c. 8. Confutationis. 

^ Plautus. ^ Expedit. in Siuas. 1. 3. c. 9. « Uecem eunuchoruni millia numeraniur in regia familla, 

qui servant uxores ejus. 



Mem. 2.] Symptoms of Jecdousy. 643 

for other ministeries) to this purpose sent commonly from Egypt, deprived ia 
their childhood of all their privities, and brought up in the seraglio at Con- 
stantinople to keep their wives ; which are so penned up they may not confer 
with any living man, or converse with younger women, have a cucumber or 
carrot sent into them for their diet, but sliced, for fear, &c., and so live and 
are left alone to their unchaste thoughts all the days of their lives. The vul- 
gar sort of women, if at any time they come abroad, which is very seldom, to 
visit one another, or go to their baths, are so covered, that no man can see them, 
as the matrons were in old Rome, lectica aut selld tectd vectce, so ^ Dion and 
Seneca record, Vclatce totce incedunt, which ^Alexander ab Alexandro relates 
of the Parthians, lib. 5. cap. 24. which, with Andreas Tiraquellus his com- 
mentator, I rather think should be understood of Persians. I have not yet 
said all, they do not only lock them up, sed et pudendis seras adhibent: hear 
what Bembus relates lib. 6. of his Venetian history, of those inhabitants that 
dwell about Quiloa in Africa. Lusitani, inquit, quorundam civitates adierunt, 
qui natis statim/ce/ninis naturam consuunt, quoad urince exitus ne impediatur, 
easque qiium adoleverint sic consutas in matrimonium collocant, ut sponsi prima 
cura sit conglutinatas puellcB orasferro interscindsre. In some parts of Greece 
at this day, like those old Jews, they will not believe their wives are honest, 
nisi pannum mensfruatum ^:'7"ima oioite videant : our countryman "^ Sands, in 
his peregrination, saith it; is severely observed in Zazynthus, or Zante ; and 
Leo Afer in his time at Fez, in Africa, 7ion credunt virgiuem esse nisi videant 
sanguineam mappam ; si non, ad p)ctrentes p)udore rejicitur. Those sheets are 
publicly shown by their parents, and kept as a sign of incon-upt virginity. 
The Jews of old examined their maids ex tenui mernbrana, caviled Hymen, 
which Laurentius in his anatomy, Columbus, lib. 12. cap. 16. Capivaccius, 
lib. 4. cap. 11. de uteri affectibus, Vincent, Alsarius Genuensis, qucesit. med. 
cent. 4. Hieronymus Mercurialis, consult. Ambros. Parens, Julius Ccssar Clau- 
dinus, Itespons. 4. as that also de ^ruptura venarumut sanguis Jliiat, copiously 
confute ; 'tis no sufficient trial they contend. And yet others again defend 
it, Caspar Bartholinus, Institut. Anat. lib. 1. cap. 31. Pinteus of Paris, Alber- 
tus Magnus de secret, mulier. cap. 9 c& 10, &c., and think they speak too much 
in favour of women. ^LudovicusBoncialus, lib. 2. cap. 2. muliebr. naturalem 
illam uteri labiorum constrictionem, in qua virginitatem consistere volunt, astrin- 
gentibus medicinis fieri posse vendicat, et si dejloratce sint, astidce ^ mulier es 
{inquit) nos fallunt in his. Idem Alsarius Crucius Genuensis iisdemfere verbis. 
Idem Avicenna, lib. 3. Fen. 20. Tract 1. cap. 47. ^Eliasis, Continent, lib. 24. 
Kodericus a Castro, de nat. mul. lib. 1. cap. 3. An old bawdy nurse in -^Aris- 
tsenetus, (like that S|)anish Cifilestina, ^ quce quinque mille virgines fecit 
mulieres, totidemque onidieres arte sua virgines) when a fair maid of her 
acquaintance wept and made her moan to her, how she had been deflowered, 
and now ready to be married, was afraid it would be perceived, comfortably 
replied. Noli vereri, filia, &c, " Fear not, daughter, I'll teach thee a trick to 
help it." Sed hcec extra calJem. To what end are all those astrological ques- 
tions, an sit virgo, an sit casta, an sit midier ? and such strange absurd trials 
in Albertus Magnus, Bap. Porta, 3Iag. lib. 2. cap. 21. in Wecker. lib. 5. de 
secret, by stones, perfumes, to make them piss, and confess I know not what 
in their sleep ; some jealous brain was the first founder of them. And to what 
passion may v.e accribe those severe laws against jealousy, JVum. v. 14, Adul- 
terers, Deut. cap. xsii. v. 22. as amongst the Hebrews, amongst the Egyptians 

P Lib. 57. ep. SI. ^ Semotis h viris servant interioribns, ab eonun conspectu immimes. ^ Lib. I . fol. 7. 
^ Diruptiones hymenis ssepe tiunt h propriis digitis vel ab aliis instrumentis. t Idem Rbasis Arab. cont. 

" Ita clausce pharmacis nt non possunt coitum exercere. ^ Qui et pharmaciim prarscribit docetque. 

y Epist. 6. Jilcrcero Inter. ^ Bavthius. Ludus illi temeratum pudicitiaB florem mentitis macLinis pro 

integro vendere. Ego docebo te qui mulier ante nuptias spouse te probes virginem. 



644 Love-Melancholy. ' [Part. 3. Sec. %: 

(read ^Boliemus, I. 1. c. 5. dc mor. gen. of the Carthaginians, cap. 6. of Turks, 
lib. 2. cap. 11.) amongst the Athenians of old, Italians at this day, wherein 
they are to be severely punished, cut in pieces, burned, vivi-comhurio, buried 
alive, with several expurgations, &c., are they not as so many symptoms of 
incredible jealousy 1 we may say the same of those vestal virgins that fetched 
water in a sieve, as Tatia did in E,ome, anno ab urb. condita 800, before the 
senators; and ^ Emilia, virgo innocens, that ran over hot irons, as Emma, 
Edward the Confessor's mother did, the king himself being a spectator, with 
the like. We read in Nicephorus, that Chunegunda the wife of Henricus 
Bavarus emperor, suspected of adultery, insimulata adulterii per ignitos vo- 
Tiieres illcesa transiit, trod upon red hot coulters, and had no harm : such another 
story we find in Eegino, lib. 2. In Aventinus and Sigonius of Charles the 
Third and his wife Kicharda, An. 887, that was so purged with hot irons. 
Pausanias saith, that he was once an eye-witness of such a miracle at Diana's 
temple, a maid without any harm at all walked upon burning coals. Pius 
Secund. in his description of Europe, c. 46. relates as much, that it was com- 
monly practised at Diana's temple, for women to go barefoot over hot coals, to 
try their honesties: Plinius, Solinus, and many writers, make mention of 
''Geronia's temple, and Dionysius Halicarnassus, lib. 3. of Memnon's statue, 
which were used to this purpose. Tatius, lib, 6. of Pan his cave (much like 
old St. Wilfrid's needle in Yorkshire), wherein they did use to try maids, 
*^ whether they were honest; when Leucippe went in, suavissimus exaudiri 
sonus coepit: Austin de civ. Dei, lib. 10. c. 16. relates many such examples, all 
which Lavater de spectr. part. 1. cap. 19. contends to be done by the illusion of 
devils; though Thomas, qucest. 6. de potentiA, &c., ascribes it to good angels. 
Some, saith ® Austin, compel their wives to swear they be honest, as if perjury 
were a lesser sin than adultery; ^some consult oracles, as Ph^rus that blind 
king of Egypt. Others reward, as those old Ptomans used to do ; if a woman 
were contented with one man. Corona pudiciiice donabatur, she had a crown 
of chastity bestowed on her. When all this will not serve, saith Alexander 
Gaguinus, cap. 5. descript. Muscovies, the Muscovites, if they suspect their 
wives, will beat them till they confess, and if that will not avail, like those 
wild Irish, be divorced at their pleasures, or else knock them on the heads, 
as the old ^ Gauls have done in former ages. Of this tyranny of jealousy read 
more in Fai'thenins, Urot. cap. 10. Camerarius, cap. 53. hor. subcis. et cent. 2. 
cap. 34. Cielia's epistles, Tho. Chaloner de repub. Ang. lib. 9. Ariosto, lib. 31, 
stasse 1. Fselix Platerus, observat. lib. 1. &c. 



MSMB. III. 
Frognostlcs of Jealousy, Despair, Madness, to make away themselves and others. 
Those which are jealous, most part, if they be not otherwise relieved, 
«ii proceed from suspicion to hatred, from hatred to frenzy, madness, injury, 
murder and despair." 

^ i A placrue by who^e most damnable effect, I By which a man to madness near is brought, 
Diverts in deep despair to die have sought, | As weU with causeless as >vith just suspect. 

In their madness many times, saith ^^ Yives,they make away themselves and 
others. Which induceth Cyprian to call it, Fcecundam et multiplicem perniciem., 
fontem cladium et seminarium delictorum, a fruitful mischief; the seminary of 

a oui mulierem viola-set, virilia execabant, et mille virgas dabant. b Dion. Halic. _ « Viridi ga'i^ens 
Feronia ^co Vir- d Ismene was so tried by Diana's well, in which maids d.d swim, unchaste were 

drJwned Eustath us, lib. 8. « Contra mendac. ad confess. 21 cap. f Ph^ru., iEgypti rex, captus ocu is 
pe?dSnSovaculumconsulm^ Herod. Euterp. S C^Bsar, ib. 6 bello Gal .. 

?L nedsque in uxores habuerunt potestatem. , b Animi dolores et zelotypia si ^^^^ms perseverent, 

dementes reddunt. Acak. comment, in par. art. Galeni. i Ariosto , lib. 3 1._ staff, b t 3 de amma, 

c. 3. de zelotyp. transit in rabiem et odium, et sibi et aUis violentas sa;pe manus lajiciunt. 



Mem. 3.] Symptoms of Jealousy. 645 

offences, and fountain of miirders. Tragical examples are too common in this 
kind, both new and old, in all ages, as of ^Cephalus and Procris, ^Phserus of 
Egypt, Tereus, Atreus, and Thyestes. ^Alexander Phsereus was murdered 
of his wife, oh pelUcatus suspitioneni, TuUy saith. Antoainus Yerus was so 
made away by Lueilla; Demetrius the son of Antigonus, and-Nicanor, by 
their wives. Hercules poisoned by Dej anira, ° Csecinna murdered by Vespasian, 
Justina, a Roman lady, by her husband. ^Amestris, Xerxes' wife, because 
she found her husband's cloak in Masista's house, cut off Masista, his wife's 
paps, and gave them to the dogs, flayed her besides, and cut off her ears, lips, 
tongue, and slit the nose of Artaynta her daughter. Our late writers are full 
of such outrages. 

*^Paulus ^milius, in his history of France, hath a tragical story of Chil- 
pericus the First his death, made away by Ferdegunde his queen. In a jealous 
humour he came from hunting, and stole behind his wife, as she was dressing 
and combing her head in the sim, gave her a familiar touch with his wand, 
which she mistaking for her lover, said, "Ah Landre, a good knight should 
strike before and not behind:" but when she saw herself betrayed by his 
presence, she instantly took order to make him away. Hierome Osorius, in 
his eleventh book of the deeds of Emanuel King of Portugal, to this effect 
hath a tragical narration of one Ferdinandus Chalderia, that wounded Gothe- 
rinus, a noble countryman of his, at Goa in the East Indies, "^and cut off one 
of his legs, for that he looked as he thought too familiarly upon his wife, which 
was afterwards a cause of man}^ quarrels, and much bloodshed." Guianerius 
cap. 36. de cegritud. matr. speaks of a silly jealous fellow, that seeing his child 
new-born included in a caul, thought sure a ^Franciscan that used to come to 
his house, was the father of it, it was so like the friar's cowl, and thereupon 
threatened the friar to kill him : Fulgosus of a woman in Narbonne, that cut 
off her husband's privities in the night, because she thought he played false 
with her. The story of Jouuses Bassa, and fair Manto his wife, is well 
known to such as have read the Turkish history; and that of Joan of Spain, 
of which I treated in my former section. Her jealousy, saith Gomesius, was 
the cause of both their deaths : King Philip died for grief a little after, as 
* Martin his physician gave it out, " and she for her part after a melancholy 
discontented Hie, misspent in lurking holes and corners, made an end of her 
miseries." Faelix Plater, in the first book of his observations, hath many such 
instances, of a physician of his acqua-intance, "^that was first mad through 
jealousy, and afterwards desperate: of a merchant "^that killed his wife in 
the same humour, and after precipitated hims.elf:" of a doctor of law that 
cut off his man's nose : of a painter's wife in Basil, anno 1600, that was 
mother of nine children and had been twenty-seven years married, yet after- 
wards jealous, and so impatient that she became desperate, and would neither 
eat nor drink in her own house, for fear her husband should poison her. 'Tis 
a common sign this; for when once the humours are stirred, and the imagina- 
tion misaffected, it will vary itself in divers forms; and many such absurd 
symptoms will accompany, even madness itself Skenkius, ohservat. lib. 4. cap. 

IHygJnus, cap. 189. Ovid, &c. ™Ph£eras, ^gypti rex, de cffidtateoraculum consulens, visum ei reditunim 
accepit, si oculos abluis&et Ictio mulieiis qute aliorum viroiuni esset expers; uxoris urinam expeitus niijil 
pvoffccit, et aliarum Irustra, eas omnes (ea excepta per qiiam curatus tuit) unum in locum coactas cunc.e- 
mavit. Herod. Euterp. '^ OfBc. lib. 2. "^ Aurelius Victor. P Herod. lib. 9. in Calliope, ilasistaa 

nxorem excarnificat, mamillas prsescindit, easque canibus abjiclt, filife nares prjescindit, labia, linguam, &;c. 
•ILib. 1. Dum forma; curand£e mtenta capillum in sole pectir, a mariio per lusuni leviter percussa furtim 
puperveniente vii-ga, ri&u suborto, mi Landiice dixit, frontem vir fortis petet, <fec. Marito coi specto attonita: 
Gum Landrico mox in ejus mortem conspirat, et statim inier veiiandum etficit. ^Qui (Joie uxorem liabeiis, 
Gotherinum principem quendam virum quod uxorisuae oculos adjecisset, ingentivulneie defomiavlt in I'acie, 
et tibiam abscidit, unde mutute csedes. ^Eo quod inlivis natus involutus esset panuiculo, credebat eum 

filium fratris Francisci, &c. tZelotypia regiute regis mortem acceleravit paulo post, ut Martianus medicus 
jmhi retulit. Ilia autem atra bile inde exagitata in latebras se subducens prse segritudine animi re.i.tuuui 
t.tnipus consumpsit. ^ A zelotypia redactus ad insaniam et desperatiunem. ^ L'xorem iuteremit, iud© 
desperabundus ex alto se prsecipitavit. 



' Qui timet ut sua sit, ne quis sibi subtrahat illam, 
lUe Machaonia vix ope salvus erit." 



616 Love-Melanclioly. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

de Titer, liath an example of a jealous woman tliat by this means liad many 
fits of the mother: and in his first book of some that through jealousy ran 
mad : of a baker that gelded himself to try his wife's honesty, &c. Such 
examples are too common. 

MEMB. lY. 

SuESECT. I. — Cure of Jealousy ; by avoiding occasions, not to he idle: of good 
counsel; to conUmn it, not to watch or lock them up: to dissemble it, &g. 

As of all other melancholy, some doubt whether this malady may be cured 
or no, they think 'tis like the ^gout, or Switzers, whom we commonly call 
Walloons, those hired soldiers, if once they take possession of a castle, they can 
never be got out. 

2 This is the cruel wound against whose smart, 
No liquor's force prevails, or any plaister, 
No skill of stars, no depth of magic art, 
Devised by that great clerk Zoroaster, 
A wound that so infects the soul and heart, 
As all our sense and reason it doth master: 
A wound whose pang and torment is so durable, 
As it may rightly called be Incurable." 

Yet what I have formerly said of other melancholy, I will say again, it may be 
cured or mitigated at least by some contrary passion, good counsel and persua- 
sion, if it be withstood in the beginning, maturely resisted, and as those 
ancients hold, " '^the nails of it be pared before they grow too long." No 
better means to resist or repel it than by avoiding idleness, to be still seriously 
busied about some matters of importance, to drive out those vain fears, foolish 
fantasies and irksome suspicions out of his head, and then to be persuaded by 
his judicious friends, to give ear to their good counsel and advice, and wisely 
to consider, how much he discredits himself, his friends, dishonours his children, 
disgraceth his family, publisheth his shame, and as a trumpeter of his own 
misery, divulgeth, macerates, grieves himself and others : what an argument 
of weakness it is, how absurd a thing in its own nature, how ridiculous, how 
brutish a passion, how sottish, how odious; for as ^Hierome well hath it, 
Odium suifacit, et ipse novissime sibi odio est, others hate him, and at last he 
hates himself for it; how harebrain a disease, mad and furious. If he will 
but hear them speak, no doubt he may be cured. '^ Joan, queen of Spain, of 
whom I have formerly spoken, under pretence of changing air was sent to Com- 
plutum, or Alcadade las Heneras, where Ximenius the archbishop of Toledo 
tJien lived, that by his good counsel (as for the present she was) she might be 
eased. " ^ For a disease of the soul, if concealed, tortures and overturns it, 
and by no physic can sooner be removed than by a discreet man's comfortable 
speeches." I will not here insert any consolatory sentences to this purpose, or 
forestall any man's invention, but leave it every one to dilate and amplify as he 
shall think fit in his own judgment: let him advise with Siracides, cap. 9. 1. 
''Be not jealous over the wife of thy bosom;" read that comfortable and pithy 
speech to this purpose of Ximenius, in the author himself, as it is recorded by 
Gomesius; consult with Chaloner, lib. 9. de repub. Anglor. or Ceelia in her 
epistles, &c. Only this I will add, that if it be considered aright, which 
causeth this jealous passion, be it just or unjust, whether with or without 
cause, true or false, it ought not so heinously to be taken; 'tis no such real or 
capital matter, that it should make so deep a wound. 'Tis a blow that hurts 
not, an insensible smart, grounded many times upon false suspicion alone, and 
so fostered by a sinister conceit. If she be not dishonest, he troubles and 

y Tollere nodosam nescit medicina podagram. ^ Ariosto, lib. 31. staff. ^Veteres mattirfe suadent 

unc^ues amoris esse radendos, priusquam producant se nimis. b in Jovianura. ° Gomesius, lib. 3. de 

rt'b. gestis Ximenii. dUrit ennn prEeeoidia Eegritudo animi compressa, et in angustiis abducta mentem 

subvertit, nee alio medicamine fucilius erigitur, quara cordati hcminis sermone. 



Mem, 4. Sub3. 1.] Citre of Jealousy. 617 

macerates himself without a cause; or put case wliicli is the worst, he be a 
cuckold, it caunot be helped, the more he stirs in it, the more he aggravates his 
own misery. How much better were it in such a case to dissemble or contemn 
it ? why should that be feared which cannot be redressed % multce tandem de~ 
posuerunt (saith ® Vivos) quumfcecti maritos non posse vident, many women, 
when they see there is no remedy, have been pacihed; and shall men be more 
jealous than women? 'Tis some comfort in such a case to have companions, 
Solamen miser is socios habuisse duloris; Who can say he is free? Who can 
assure himself he is not one de pi^a^terito, or secure himself de ficturo ? If it 
were his case alone, it were hard ; but being as it is almost a common cala- 
mity, 'tis not so grievously to be taken. If a man have a lock, which every 
man's key will open, as well as his own, why should he think to keep it private 
to himself? In some countries they make nothing of it, ne nobiles quidem, saith 
^Leo Afer, in many parts of Africa (if she be past fourteen) there's not a noble- 
man that marries a maid, or that hath a chaste wife ; 'tis so common ; as the 
moon gives horns once a month to the world, do they to their husbands at 
least. And 'tis most part true which that Caledonian lady, ^ Argetocovus, a 
British prince's wife, told Julia Augusta, v/hen she took her up for dishonesty, 
" We Britons are naught at least with some few choice men of the better sort, 
but you Eomans lie with every base knave, you are a company of common 
whores." Severus the emperor in his time made laws for the restraint of this 
vice ; and as ^ Dion Nicseus relates in his life, tria millia moechormn, three 
thousand cuckold-makers, or naturce monetain adulterantes, as Philo calls them, 
false coiners, and clippers of nature's money, were summoned into the court at 
once. And yet, Non omnem molitor quoijiuit undam videt, "the miller sees not 
all the water that goes by his mill : " no doubt, but, as in our days, these were 
of the commonalty, all the great ones were not so much as called in question 
for it. i Martial's Epigram I suppose might have been generally applied in 
those licentious times, Onuiia solus hahes, &c., thy goods, lands, money, wits, 
are thine own. Uxor em sedJiahes, Candide,cumpo20ido j but neighbour Candidus 
your wife is common : husband and cuckold in that age it seems were recipro- 
cal terms; the emperors themselves did wear Actason's badge; how many 
Cagsars might I reckon up together, and what a catalogue of cornuted kings 
and princes in every story? Agamemnon, Menelaus, Phillippus of Greece, 
Ptolomeus of iEgypt, Lucullus, Cccsar, Pompeius, Gato, Augustus, Antonius, 
Antoninus, &c., that wore fair plumes of bull's feathers in their crests. The 
bravest soldiers and most lieroical spirits could not avoid it. They have been 
active and passive in this business, they have either given or taken horns. 
^King Arthur, whom we call one of the nine worthies, for all his great valour, 
was unworthily served by Mordred, one of his round-table knights: and 
Guithera, or Helena Alba, his fair wdfe, as Leland interprets it, was an arrant 
honest woman. Parcerem lihenter (saith mine ^author) Heroinarum IcEsce 
ma^'estati, si non historice Veritas aurem vellicaret, I could willingly wink at a 
fair lady's faults, but that lam bound by the laws of history to tell the truth : 
against his will, God knows, did he write it, and so do I repeat it. I speak 
not of our times all this while, we have good, honest, virtuous men and women, 
whom fame, zeal, fear of God, religion and superstition contains : and yet for 
all that, we have many knights of this order, so dubbed by their wdves, many 
good women abused by dissolute husbands. In some places, and such persons 
you may as soon enjoin them to carry water in a sieve, as to keep themselves 

^3 De anima. f Lib. 3. 8 Argetocosi, Caledonii regtili uxor, Julife Angustse cum ipsam morderet quod 
inlioiiestfe vei-saxetur, respondet, nos cum optinds viris cousuetudinem habemus, vosKomunas autem occulte 
jassim homines constupranc. h Leges de mcechis fecit, ex civibus plm-es in jus vocati. i L. 3. Epig. 2ii. 
kAsser. Artburi; parcerem libenter heroinarum Isesse majestati, si non bistorise Veritas aurem vellicaret. 
Lelaud. ILeland's assert. AitburL 



648 Love-Melanclwly. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

honest. What shall a man do now in such a case? What remedy is to be 
had? how shall he be eased? By suing a divorce? this is hard to be effected: 
si non caste, tamen caute, they carry the matter so cunningly, that though it be 
as common as simony, as clear and as manifest as the nose in a man's face, 
yet it cannot be evidently proved, or they likely taken in the fact: they will 
have a knave Gallus to watch, or with that Roman "^Sulpitia, all made fast and 
sure, 

" Ne se Cadurc's destitutam fasciis, 
Nudam Caleno concumbentem videat." 

" she will hardly be surprised by her husband, be he never so wary." Much 
better then to put it up : the more he strives in it, the more he shall divulge his 
own shame : make a virtue of necessity, and conceal it. Yea, but the world 
takes notice of it, 'tis in every man's mouth: let them talk their pleasure, of 
whom speak they not in this sense? From the highest to the lowest they are 
thus censured all : there is no remedy then but patience. It may be 'tis his 
own fault, and he hath no reason to complain, 'tis quid pro quo, she is bad, he 
is worse: ""Bethink thyself, hast thou not done as much for some of thy 
neighbours? why dost thou require that of thy wife, which thou wilt not per- 
form thyself? Thou rangest like a town bull, °why art thou so incensed if she 
tread awry?" 

" P Be it that some woman break chaste wedlock's She feels that he his love from her withdraws, 



laws, 

And leaves her husband and becomes unchaste : 
Yet commonly it is not without cause, 
She sees her man in sin her goods to waste, 



And hath on some perhaj s less worthy placcl, 
Who strike with sword, the scabbard them may 

strike. 
And sure love craveth love, like asketh like." 



Ea senvper studebit, saith "^ISrevisanuSj/^ares reddere vices, she wdll quit it if she 
can. And therefore, as well adviseth Siracides, cajy. ix. 1. " teach her not an 
evil lesson against thyself," which as Jansenius, Lyranus, on his text, and 
Carthusianus interpret, is no otherwise to be understood than that she do thee 
not a mischief. I do not excuse her in accusing thee ; but if both be naught, 
mend thyself first; for as the old saying is, a good husband makes a goood wife. 
Yea but thou repKest. 'tis not the like reason betwixt man and woman, 
through her fault my children are bastards, I may not endure it ; ^' Sit amaru- 
lenta, sit im2')eriosa, prodiga, &c. Let her scold, brawl, and spend, I care not, 
Qiiodo sit casta, so she be honest, I could easily bear it ; but this I cannot, I 
may not, I will not; "my faith, my fame, mine eye must not be touched," as 
the diverb is, Non 2Kttitur tactum fama, fides, oculus. I say the same of my 
wife, touch all, use all, take all but this. I acknowledge that of Seneca to 
be true, Nullius honi jucunda possessio sine socio, there is no sweet content in 
the possession of any good thing without a companion, this only excepted, I say 
Sliis. And why this? Even this which thou so much abhorrest, it may be for 
thy progeny's good, ^better be any man's son than thine, to be begot of base 
Irus, poor Seius, or mean Mevius, the town swineherd's, a shepherd's son : 
and well is he, that like Hercules he hath any two fathers; for thou thyself 
hast peradventure more diseases than a horse, more infirmities of body and 
mind, a cankered soul, crabbed conditions, make the worst of it, as it is 
vulnus insanabile, sic vulnus insensibile, as it is incurable, so it is insensible. 
But art thou sure it is so? ^res agit ille iuas? " doth he so indeed?" It may 
be thou art over-suspicious, and without a cause as some are : if it be octimes- 
tris 2Kirtus, born at eight months, or like him, and him, they fondly suspect he 
got it; if she speak or laugh familiarly with such or such men, then presently 
she is naught with them; such is thy weakness: whereas charity, or a wel-- 
disposed mind, would interpret all unto the best. St. Francis, by chance seeing 

™ Epigram. ^ Cogita an sic aliis tu unquam feceris ; an hoc tibi nunc fieri dignum sit ? severas ahis, 

indul-ens tibi, cur ab uxure exigis quod non ijise prsestas? I'lutar. ^ Vaga libidine cum ipse, quovis 

rapiaris, cur si vel modicum aberret ipsa, ir.sanias? P Ariosto, li. 28. statte 80. <lSylva nupt. 1. 4. 

num. 72. J^ Lemnius, lib. 4. cap. 13. de occult, nat. mir. ^QptiQ^ium bene nasci. Mart. 



Mem. 4. SubFS. 1.] 



Cure of Jealousy, 



649 



a friar familiarly kissing another man's wife, was so far from misconceiving it, 
that lie presently" kneeled down and thanked God there was so much charity 
left : but they on the other side will ascribe nothing to natural causes, indulge 
nothing to familiarity, mutual society, friendship ; but out of a smister sus- 
picion, presently lock them close, watch them, thinking by those means to 
prevent all such inconveniences, that's the way to help it ; whereas by such 
tricks they do aggravate the mischief. 'Tis but in vain to watch that which 
will away. 



' " Nee custodiri si velit ulla potest ; 
JS'cc meiitem servare potes, licet omnia serves ; 
Omnibus exclusis. intus adulter erit." 



' None cm be kept resisting for her part ; 
Though body be kept close, within her heart 
Advoutry lurks, t' exclude it there's no ai't." 



Argus, with a hundred eyes cannot keep her, et hunc unus scepe fefellit amor, 
as in ^Ariosto. 

" If all our hearts were eyes, yet sure they said 
We husbands of our wives should be betr.iyed. " 

.Hierome holds. Uxor impudica servari non potest, pudica non debet, injida 
custos castitatis est necessitas, to what end is all your custody '] A dishonest 
woman cannot be kept, an Iionest woman ought not to be kept, necessity is a 
keeper not to be trusted. Difficile custoditur, quod plures amant; that which 
many covet, can hardly be preserved, as ^ Salisburiensis thinks. I am of 
./Eneas Sylvius' mind, " ^ Those jealous Italians do very ill to lock up their 
wives ; for women are of such a disposition, they will most covet that which 
is denied most, and offend least when they have free liberty to trespass. " It 
is in. vain to lock her up if she be dishonest ; et tyrannicum imperiuin, as our 
great iM.r. Aristotle calls it, too tyrannical a task, most unfit : for when she 
perceives her husband observes her and suspects, liberius peccat, saith '^iS'evi- 
.sanus, ^'Toxica Zelotypo dedit uxor oncecha 7narito, she is exasperated, 
seeks by all means to vindicate herself, and will therefore offend, because she 
is unjustly suspected. The best course then is to let them have their own 
wills, give them free liberty, without any keeping. 

'•In vain our friends from this do us dehort. 
For beauty will be where is most resort." 

If she be lionest as Lucretia to Collatinus, Laodamia to Protesilaus, Penelope 
to her Ulysses, she will so continue her honor, good name, credit, Penelop)e 
conjux semyer Ulyssis era ; " I shall always be Penelope the wife of Ulysses." 
And as Phocias' wife, in ^ Plutarch, called her husband " her wealth, treasure, 
world, joy, delight, orb and sphere, " she will hers. The vow she made unto 
lier good man ; love, virtue, religion, zeal, are better keepers than all those 
locks, eunuchs, prisons ; she will not be moved : 



'd At mihi vel tellus optem priits ima dehiscat, 

Aut pater omuipotens adigat mefulrainead umbras, 
Pallentcs umbras Erebi, noctemque profundam, 
Ante pudor quamteviolem, aut tuajuraresolvam. " 



First I desire the earth to swallow me, 

Before I violate mine honesty. 

Or thunder from above drive me to hell, 

With those pale ghosts, and ugly nights to dwell.' 



She is resolved with Dido to be chaste ; though her husband be false, she will 
be true : and as Octavia writ to her Antony, 

" 6 These walls that here do keep me out of sight, 
Shall keep me all unspotted unto thee. 
And testify that I will do thee right, 
I'll never stain thine house, though thou shame me.** 

Turn her loose to all those Tarquins and Satyrs, she will not be tempted. In 
tlie time of Valence the Emperor, saith ^St. Austin, one Archidamus, a Consul 
of Antioch, ofiered a hundred pounds of gold to a fair young wife, and besides 
to set her husband free, who was then sub gravissimd custodid, a dark prisoner, 
pro unius noctis conculitu : but the chaste matron would not accept of it. 

"Ovid. amor. lib. 3. eleg. 4, ^Lib. 4. st.72. ypolicrat. lib. 8. c. 11. De amor. ^Eurial. et Lucret. 
qui u.\ores occludunt, meo judicio minus utiliter faciunt ; sunt enim eo ingenio mulleres nt id potissimum 
cupiant, quod maxinib denegaitir; siliberas habent habenas, minus deliuquunt; frustra seram adhibes, si 
j:(;!i sit spunte casta * Quando cognoscunt maritos hoc advertere. bAusonius. « Opes suus, 

niuadum suum, thesaurura suum, &c. d Virg. jEn. ® Daniel. f 1 de serm. d. in monte ros. 16. 



030 LovQ-Melanrlidj. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

^When Ode commended Theana's fiae arm to his fellows, she took liim up 
short, " Sir, 'tis not common :" she is wholly reserved to her husband. ^Eilia 
had an old man to her sjDouse, and his breath stunk, so that nobody could 
abide it abroad ; " coming home one day he reprehended his wife, because she 
did not tell him of it : she vowed unto him, she had told him, but she thought 
every man's breath had been as strong as his." 'Tigranes and Armena his 
lady were invited to supper by King Cyrus : when they came home, Tigranes 
asked his wife, how she liked Cyrus, and what she did especially commend in 
him % " she swore she did not observe him ; when he replied again, what 
then she did observe, whom she looked on? She made answer, her husband, 
that said he would die for her sake." Such are the properties and conditions 
of good women : and if she be well given, she will so carry herself; if other- 
wise she be naught, use all the means thou canst, she will be naught. Non 
deest animus sed corruptor, she hath so many lies, excuses, as a hare hath 
muses, tricks, panders, bawds, shifts, to deceive, 'tis to no purpose to keep her , 
up, or to reclaim her by hard usage. " Fair means perad venture may do 
somewhat." ^ Obsequio vinces aptius ipse tuo. Men and women are both in a 
prediciiment in this behalf, so sooner won, and better pacified. Duci volunt, 
non cogi: though she be as arrant a scold as Xantippe, as cruel as Medea, as 
clamorous as Hecuba, as lustful as Messalina, by such means (if at all) she 
may be reformed. Many patient ^Grizels, by their obsequiousness in this 
kind, have reclaimed their husbands from their wandering lusts. In Nova 
Francia and Turkey (as Leah, Rachel, and Sarah did to Abraham and Jacob) 
they bring their fairest damsels to their husbands' beds ; Livia seconded the 
lustful appetites of Augustus : Stratonice, wife to King Diotarus, did not only 
bring Electra, a fair maid, to her good man's bed, but brought up the children 
begot on her, as carefully as if they had been her own. Tertius Emilius' wife, 
Cornelia's mother, perceiving her husband's intemperance, rem dissiinulavit, 
made much of the maid, and would take no notice of it. A new-married man, 
when a pickthank friend of his, to curry favour, had showed him his wife, 
familiar in private with a young gallant, courting and dallying, &c. Tush, said 
he, let him do his worst, I dare trust my wife, though I dare not trust him. 
The best remedy then is by fair means; if that will not take place, to dissem- 
ble it as I say, or turn it off with a jest : hear Guexerra's advice in this case 
vel joco excipies, vel silentio eludes ; for if you take exceptions at every thing 
your wife doth, Solomon's wisdom, Hercules' valour. Homer's learning, 
Socrates' patience, Argus' vigilance, will not serve turn. Therefore Minus 
malum, ^a less mischief, Nevisanus holds, dissimulare, to be ^Cunarum 
emptor, a buyer of cradles, as the proverb is, than to be too solicitous. °"A 
good fellow, when his wife was brought to bed before her time, bought half a . 
dozen of cradles beforehand for so many children, as if his wife should con- 
tinue to bear children every two months." ^ Pertinax the Emperor, when one 
told him a fiddler v/as too familiar with his empress, made no reckoning of it. 
And when that Macedonian Philip was upbraided vrith his wife's dishonesty, 
cum tot victor regnorum ac pojmlorum esset, &c., a conqueror of kingdoms could 
not tame his wife (for she thrust him out of doors), he made a jest of it. 
Sapientes portant cornua inpectore, stidti infronte, saith Nevisanus, wise men 
bear their horns in their hearts, fools on their foreheads. Eumenes, king of 
Pergamus, was at, deadly feud with Perseus of Macedonia, insomuch that 

S qnam formosns lacertas hie ! qtiidam inqnit, ad jequales conversus ; at Hla, publictis, inquit, non est. 
h Bilia Dinutum virum senem liabuitet spiritum foetidum habentem, quern quum quidam exprobrasset &c. 
ii^umquid tibi, Ai-mena, Tigranes videbatur essa pulcher? et ilium, inquit, sedepol, &c. Xenopli. Cyropaed, 
1.3. ^Ovid. 1 Read Petrarcb's Tale of Patient Grizel in Chaucer. "^Silv. nupt. lib. 4. num. 80. 

^ Erasmus. ° Quum accepis-set uxorem peperisse secundo a nuptiis mense, cunas quinas vel seiias coemit, 

ut si forte uxor singulis bimensibus parerci. P Julius Capitol, vita ejus : quum palam Citharaedus uxorem 

diligeret, minime curiosus fuit. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 1.] Cure of Jealousy. 651 

Perseus hearing of a journey lie was to take to Delplios, ^set a company of 
soldiers to intercept him in his passage; they did it accordingly, and as they 
supposed left him stoned to death. The news of this fact was brought instantly 
to Pergamus; Attains, Eumenes' brother, proclaimed himself king forthwith, 
took possession of the crown, and married Stratonice the queen. But by-and- 
by, when contrary news was brought, that King Eumenes was alive, and now 
coming to the city, he laid by his crown, left his wife, as a private man went 
to meet him, and congratulate his return. Eumenes, though he knew all par- 
ticulars passed, yet dissembling the matter, kindly embraced his brother, and 
took his wife into his favour again, as if no such matter had been heard of or 
done. Jocundo, in Ariosto, found his wife in bed with a knave, both asleep, 
went his ways, and would not so much as wake them, much less reprove them 
for it. ^An honest fellow findmg in like sort his wife had played false at 
tables, and borne a man too many, drew his dagger, and swore if he had not 
been his very friend, he would have killed him. AJaother hearing one had done 
that for him, which no man desires to be done by a deputy, followed in a rage 
with his sword drawn, and having overtaken him, laid adultery to his charge ; 
the offender hotly pursued, confessed it was true ; with which confession he 
was satisfied, and so left him, swearing that if he had denied it, he would not 
have put it up. How much better is it to do thus, than to macerate himself, 
impatiently to rave and rage, to enter an action (as Arnoldus Tilius did in the 
court of Toulouse, against Martin Guerre, his fellow-soldier, for that he coun- 
terfeited his habit, and was too familiar with his wife), so to divulge his own 
shame, and to remain for ever a cuckold on record ? how much better be 
Cornelius Tacitus than Publius Cornutus, to condemn in such cases, or take no 
notice of it % Melius sic errare quam Zelotypice curls, saith Erasmus, se con- 
Jicere, better be a wittol and put it up, than to trouble himself to no purpose. 
And though he will not om?iibus dormire, be an ass, as he is an ox, yet to 
wink at it as many do is not amiss at some times, in some cases, to some 
parties, if it be for his commodity, or some great man's sake, his landlord, 
patron, benefactor, (as Calbas the Pom an saith ^Plutarch did by Msecenas, 
and Phayllus of Argos did by King Philip, when he promised him an office 
on that condition he might lie with his wife) and so let it pass : 

" t pol me haud poenitet, 
* Scilicet boni dimidium dividere cum Jove," 

" it never troubles me (said Ainphitrio) to be cornuted by Jupiter, let it not 
molest thee then;" be friends with her ; 

" ^ Tu cum Alcmena uxore antiquam in gratiam 
Eedi " 

" Peceive Alcmena to your grace again ; let it, I say, make no breach of 
love between you. Howsoever the best way is to contemn it, which Henry II. 
king of France advised a courtier of his, jealous of his wife,'and complaining 
of her unchasteness, to reject it, and comfort himself; for he that suspects his 
wife's incontinency, and fears the Pope's curse, shall never live a merry hour, 
or sleep a quiet night : no remedy but patience. When all is done according 
to that counsel of ^Nevisanus, si vitium uxoris corrigi non potest, fere7idum est : 
if it may not be helped, it must be endured. Date veniam et sustinete taciti, 
'tis Sophocles' advice, keep it to thyself, and which Chrysostom calls pala^strain 
pJii/oso^yhice et domesticum gymnasium, a school of philosophy, put it up. There 
is no other cure but time to wear it out, Injuriarum remedium est oblivio, as if 

^ Disposuit armatos qui ipsum interficerent ; hi preterms mandatum exeqnentes, &c. Ille et rex declaratur, 
et Stratonicem quas fratri nupserat, uxorem ducit; sed postquam audivit tratrem vlvere, &c. Attalum 
comiter accepit, pristinamque uxorem complexus, masno honore apud se liabuit. '^See John Harrington's 
notes in 28 . hooli of Ariosto. s Amator dial. tplautas, sceu. ult. Amphit. '^ idem. » t. Daniel, 

coujurat French. J'Lib. 4. num. 80. 



653 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

they had drunk a draught of Lethe in Trophonius' den : to conclude, age will 
hereave her of it, dies dolorem minuit, time and patieace must end it. 

" ^The mind's affections patience will appease, 
It passions kilis, and healetli each di.^ease. " 

SuBSECT. II. — By prevention before or after Marriage, Plato's Community, 
inarry a Courtezan, Philters, Stews, to marry one equal in years, fortunes, 
of a good family, education, good 'place, to use them well, ^c. 

Of such medicines as conduce to the cure of this malady, I have sufficiently 
treated ; there be some good remedies remaining by way of prevention, pre- 
cautions, or admonitions, which if rightly practised, may do much good. Plato, 
in his Commonwealth, to prevent this mischief, belike, would have all things, 
wives and children, all as one : and which Caesar in his Commentaries observed 
of those old Britons, that first inhabited this land, they had ten or twelve 
wives allotted to such a family, or promiscuously to be used by so many men; 
not one to one, as with us, or four, five, or six to one as in Turkey. The 
^^JSTicholaites, a sect that sprang, saith Austin, from Nicholas the deacon, 
would have women indifferent; and the cause of this filthy sect, was Nicholas 
the deacon's jealousy, for which when he was condemned to purge himself of 
his offence, he broached his heresy, that it was lawful to lie with one another's 
wives, and for any man to lie with his; like to those ^ Anabaptists in Munster, 
that would consort with other men's wives as the spirit moved them : or as 
^Mahomet, the seducing prophet, would needs use women as he list himself, to 
beget prophets ; two hundred and five, their Alcoran saith, were in love with 
him, and *^he as able as forty men. Amongst the old CarthagiDians, as 
^Bohemus relates out of Sabellicus, the king of the country lay with the bride 
the first night, and once in a year they went promiscuously all together. Munster 
Cosmog. lib. 3. ca]^. 497. ascribes the beginning of this brutish custom (unjustly) 
to one Picardus, a Frenchman, that invented a new sect of Adamites to go 
naked as Adam did, and to use promiscuous venery at set times. When the 
priest repeated that of Genesis, " Increase and multiply," *^out wentthe candles, 
in the place where they met, "and without all respect of age, persons, condi- 
tions, catch that catch may, every man took her that came next," &c. ; some 
fasten this on those ancient Bohemians and Russians : ^others on the inhabi- 
tants of Mambrium, in the Lucerne valley in Piedmont ; and, as I read, it was 
practised in Scotland amongst Christians themselves, until King Malcolm's 
time, the king or the lord of t,he town had their maidenheads. In some parts 
of ^ India in our age, and those ^islanders, ''as amongst the Babylonians of 
old, they will prostitute their wives and daughters (which Chalcocondila, a 
Greek modern writer, for want of better intelligence puts upon us Britons) to 
such travellers or seafaring men as come amongst them by chance, to show 
how far they were from this feral vice of jealousy, and how little they esteemed 
it. The kings of Calecut, as Lod. Yertomannus relates, will not touch their 
wives, till one of their Biarmi or high priests have lain first with them, to 
sanctify their wombs. But those Esai and Montanists, two strange sects of 
old, were in another extreme, they would not marry at all, or have any society 
with women, " ^because of their intemperance they held them all to be naught," 

^ R. T. *Lib. de heres. Quum de zele culparetur, purgandi se causa permisisse fertur ut ea qui vellet 

uteretur; quod ejus factum in sectam turpissimam versum est, qua placet usus inditterens fogmlnarain. 
b Sleiden, Com. ° Alcoran. d Alcoran edit, et Bibiiandro. ^De nior. gent. lib. 1. cap. 6. JSiupturjB 

regi devirginand« exhibentur. fLuminaext)nguebantur,nec personse et setatis habita reverentia, in quam 
quisque per tenebras incidit, mulierem cognoscit. S Leander Albertus. Flagitioso ritu cuucti in sedera 

convenientes post impuram concionem, extinctis luminibus in Venereal ruunt. hLod. Vertomannus 

navig. lib. 6. cap. 8. et Marcus Polus, lib. 1. cap. 46. Uxores viatoribus prostituunt. IDithmarus, Bleske- 
nius, ut A.getas Aristoni, pulcherrimam uxorem habens prostituit. kHerodot. in Erato Mnl'eres Babyloni 
caBCum hospite permibcentur ob argentiira quod post Veneri sacrum. Bohemus, lib. 2. 1 Navigat. lib. 5. 

cap. 4. prius thorum non init, quam a digniore sacerdote nova nupta dellorata sit. ^ Bohemus, lib. 2. 

cap. 3. Ideo nubere nollent ob mulierum intemperantiam, nullam servare viro lidem putabant. 



Mem. 4. Subs. 2.] Cure of Jealousy. 6-53 

Nevisanus tlie lawyer, lib. 4. num. 33. syl. nupt. would have him that is 
inclined to this malady, to prevent the worst, marry a quean, Capiens meretri- 
cem, hoc kahet saltern boni quod nooi decipitur, quia scit earn sic esse, quod non 
contingit aliis. A fornicator in Seneca constuprated two wenches in a night; 
for satisfaction, the one desired to hang him, the other to marry him. ^ Hierome, 
king of Syracuse in Sicil}'-, espoused himself to Pitho, keeper of the stews ; and 
Ptolemy took Thais a common whore to be his wife, had two sons, Leontiscus 
and Lagus by her, and one daughter Irene : 'tis therefore no such unlikely 
thing. °A citizen of Eugubine gelded himself to try his wife's honesty, 
and to be freed from jealousy; so did a baker in ^Basil, to the same intent. 
But of all other precedents in this kind, that of ''^Combalus is most memo- 
rable; who to prevent his master's suspicion, for he was a beautiful young 
man, and sent by Seleucus his lord and king, with Stratonice the queen to 
conduct her into Syria, fearing the worst, gelded himself before he went, and 
left his genitals behind him in a box sealed up. His mistress by the way fell 
in love with him, but he not yielding to her, was accused to Seleucus of incon- 
tinency (as that Bellerophon was in like case falsely traduced ^ by Sthenobia, 
to king Prsetns her husband, cum non posset ad coitum inducers), and that by 
her, and was therefore at his coming home cast into prison; the day of hearing 
appointed, he was sufficiently cleared and acquitted by showing his privities, 
which to the admiration of the beholders he had formerly cut oj0f. The Ly dians 
used to geld women whom they suspected, saith Leonicus. var. hist. lib. 3. cap. 
49. as well as men. To tliis jDurpose, ^Saint Francis, because he used to con- 
fess women in private, to prevent suspicion, and prove himself a maid, stripped 
himself before the Bishop of Assise and others : and Friar Leonard for the 
same cause went through Yiterbium in Italy, without any garments. 

Our Pseudo-catholics, to help these inconveniences which proceed from 
jealousy, to keep themselves and their wives honest, make severe laws; against 
adultery present death ; and withal fornication, a venial sin, as a sink to convey 
that furious and swift stream of concupiscence, they appoint and permit stews, 
those punks and pleasant sinners, the more to secure their wives in all popu- 
lous cities, for they hold them as necessary as churches ; and howsoever 
unlawful, yet to avoid a greater mischief, to be tolerated in policy, as usury, for 
the hardness of men's hearts; and for this end they have whole colleges of 
courtezans in their tovais and cities. Of ^Cato's mind belike that would have 
his servants {cum ancillis congredi coitus causa, definito cere, ut graviora faci- 
nora evitarent, cceteris interim interdicens) familiar with some such feminine 
creatures, to avoid worse mischiefs in his house, and made allowance for it. 
They hold it impossible for idle persons, young, rich, and lusty, so many 
servants, monks, friars, to live honest, too tyrannical a burden to compel them 
to be chaste, and most unnt to suffer poor men, younger brothers, and soldiers 
at all to marry, as those diseased persons, votaries, priests, servants. There- 
fore, as well to keep and ease the one as the other, they tolerate and wink at 
these kind of brothel-houses and stews. Many probable arguments they have 
to prove the lawfulness, the necessity, and a toleration of them,, as of usury; 
and without question in policy they are not to be contradicted : but altogether 
in religion. Others prescribe filters, spells, charms to keep men and women 
honest. ^ JMulier ut cdienurnvirum non admittat prceter suum: Accipe fel hirciy 
et adipem, et exsicca, calescat in oleo, &c., et non alium prceter te amabit. In 
Alexi. Porta, &c., "plura invenie.% et multo Ids absui-diora, uti et in Rhasi, ne 
jmdier virum achnittat, et inaritum solum diligat, &c. But these are most part 
Pagan, impious, irreligious, absurd, and ridiculous devices. 

^Stephanus, prcefat. Herori. Alius e lupanari meretricem, Pitho dictam, in uxorem duxit ; Ptolomsens 
Thaideni nob;le scortum duxit et ex ea duos filios suscei);t, &c. ^Pogicius Koreno. P Felix Plater. 
*1 Plutarch, Lucian, Sahnutz Tit. 2. de porcellanis cum in Panciio 1. de nov, repert. et Plutarchu.s. ^ ste- 

pliunus e 1. confer. Bondvent. c. (i. vit. FranciscL ^piutarch. vit. ejus. t Vecker lib. 7. secret. 



654 Love-Mdanchohj. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

The best means to avoid these and like inconveniences are, to take away the 
causes and occasions. To this purpose ^ Varro writ Satyram, Merdppeam, but 
it is lost. ^Patritius prescribes four rules to be observed in choosing of a wife 
(which whoso will may read) ; Fonseca, the Spaniard, in his 45. c. AmpJiitheat. 
Amoris, sets down six special cautions for men, four for women ; Sam ]S"eander 
out of Shonbernerus, five for men, five for women ; Anthony Guivarra many 
good lessons ; ^Cleobulus two alone, others otherwise ; as first to make a good 
choice in marriage, to invite Christ to their wedding, and which ^ St. Ambrose 
adviseth, Deum conjugii 'prcesidem habere^ and to pray to him for her {A Do- 
inino enim datur uxor prudens, Prov. xix), not to be too rash and precipitate 
in his election, to run upon the first he meets, or dote upon every stout fair 
piece he sees, but to choose her as much by his ears as eyes, to be well-advised 
whom he takes, of what age, &c., and cautelous in his proceedings. An old 
man should not marry a young woman, nor a young woman an old man, ^ Quam 
male incequales veniunt ad aratra juvenci I such matches must needs minister 
a perpetual cause of suspicion, and be distasteful to each other. 

*' bNoctua ut in tumulis, super atque cadavera bubo, I " Niglit-crows on tombs, owl sits on carcass dead. 
Talis apud Sophoclem nostra pueUa sedet." | So lies a wench with Sophocles in bed." 

For Sophocles, as ^Athenseus describes him, was a very old man, as cold as 
January, a bed-fellow of bones, and doted yet upon Archippe, a young cour- 
tezan, than which nothing can be more odious. ^Senex maritus uxori juveni 
ingratus est, an old man is a most unwelcome guest to a young wench, unable, 
unfit: 

" ® Amplexus suos fa?iunt puellas, 

Omuis horret amor Venusque Hymenque." 

And as in like case a good fellow that had but a peck of corn weekly to grind, 
yet would needs build a new mill for it, found his error eftsoons, for either he 
must let his mill lie waste, pull it quite down, or let others grind at it. So 
these men, &c. 

Seneca therefore disallows all such 'unseasonable matches, liabent enim male- 
dicti locum crebrce nuptice. And as ^Tully farther inveighs, " 'tis unfit for 
any, but ugly and filthy in old age," Turpe senilis amor, one of the three things 
^God hateth. Plutarch, in his book contra Coleten, rails downright at such 
kind of marriages which are attempted by old men, qui jam corpore impotenti, 
et a voluptatihus deserti, peccant animo, and makes a question whether in 

some cases it be tolerable at least for such a man to marry qui Venerem 

affectat sine viribus, " that is now past those venerous exercises," " as a gelded 
man lies with a virgin and sighs," Ecclus. xxx. 20, and now complains with 
him in Fetroiims,/unerata est hcec pars jam qucefuit olim Achillea, he is quite 
done, 

♦' h Vixit puellEe nuper idoneus, 
Et militavit iion sine gloria." 

But the question is whether he may delight himself as those Priapeian popes, 
which in their decrepit age, lay commonly between two wenches every night, 
contactu formosarum, et conirectatione, num adhuc gaudeat ; and as many 
doting sires do to their own shame, their children's undoing, and their fami- 
lies' confusion : he abhors it, tanquam ab agresti et farioso domino fugiendum, 
it must be avoided as a bedlam master, and not obeyed. 



" Alecto- 



Ipsa faces prsefert nubentibus, et malus Kymen 
Triste ululat" i 



"Citatur a Gellio. ^Lib. 4. Tit. 4. deirstit. reipub. de officio mariti. ^Ne cum ea blande nimis 
agas, ne objurges prffisentibus extraneis. ^Epist. 70. 8,Qyi(j^ " How badly steers of different ages 

are yoked to the plough." b Alciat. emb. 116. cpgipnosoph. 1. 3. cap. 12. d Euripides. ^Pontanus 
hiarum lib. 1. " Maidens shun their embraces ; Love, Venus, Hymen, all abhor them." f Offlc. lib. Luxuria 
cum omni setati turpis, turn senectuti faedissima. Sfcclus. xxvii. "An old man that dotes," &c. 

h Hor. lib. 3. ode 26. " He was lately a match for a maid, and contended not ingloriously." i " Alecto 
herself holds the torch at such nuptials, and malicious Hymen sadly howls." 



Mem. 4. Subs. 2.] 



Cure of Jealousy. 



(^55 



tli8 devil himself makes siicli matches. ^ Lovinus Lemnius reckons up three 
things which generally disturb the peace of marriage; the first is when they 
marry intempestive or unseasonably, " as many mortal men marry precipitately 
and inconsiderately, when they are effete and old : the second when they 
marry unequally for fortunes and birth : the third, when a sick impotent person 
■weds one that is sound, novce nuj)t(E spes frustraiur : many dislikes instantly 
follow. Many doting dizzards, it may not be denied, as Plutarch confesseth, 
" ^ recreate themselves with such obsolete, unseasonable and filthy remedies 
(so he calls them), with a remembrance of their former pleasures, against 
nature they stir up their dead fiesh :" but an old lecher is abominable ; mulier 
tertib nubens, ^ Nevisanus holds, ^yrcesumitiir lubrica el inconstcins^ a woman 
that marries a third time may be presumed to be no honester than she should. 
Of them both, thus Ambrose concludes in his comment upon Luke, "^ they 
that are coupled together, not to get children, but to satisfy their lust, are not 
husbands but fornicators,'' with whom St. Austin consents: matrimony without 
hope of children, nan mcttrinnnium, sed concubium did debet, is not a wedding, 
but a jumbling or coupling together. In a word, except they wed for mutual 
society, help and comfort one of another (in which respects, though ° Tiberius 
deny it, without question old folks may well marry, for sometimes a man hath 
most need of a wife, according to Puccius, when he hath no need of a wife;) 
otherwise it is most odious, when an old acherontic dizzard, that hath one 
foot in his grave, a siliceraium, shall flicker after a young wench that is blithe 
and bonny. 

' ** TP salaciorqnc 

Vemo passcre, et albulis Columbia." 

Wliat can be more detestable ? 



■ 1 Tucano capite amas, senex nequissime, 
Jam plenus astatis, animaqiie foetida 
Senex hirccsus tu osculare miUierem ? 
TJtine adiens vomitum potius excuties." 



I " Thou old goat, hoary lecher, naughfy man, 

With stinlving hreatli, arc tliou in love ? 
J ]\Iust thou be slavering ? she spews to see 

I Thy filthy face, it doth so move." 



Yet, as some will, it is much more tolerable for an old man to marry a young 
woman (our ladies' match they call it) for eras erit mulier, as he said in Tully. 
Cato the Roman, Critobulus, in ^ Xenophon, ^ Tyraquellus of late, Julius Sca- 
liger, &c., and many famous precedents we have in that kind; but not e contra: 
'tis not held fit for an ancient woman to match with a young man. For as 
Varro will. Anus dur,i ludit morti delitias facit, 'tis Charon's match between 
t Cascus and Casca, and the devil himself is surely well pleased with it. And 
therefore, as the " poet inveighs, thou old Yetustina bed-ridden quean, that art 
now skin and bones. 



"Cui tres capilli, quatuorque sunt dentes. 
Pectus cicadte, crusculumquo lorraicse, 
Eugosiorem quse geris stolafiontem, 
Et arenarum cassibus pares mamma.s." 



'Thou hast three hairs, four teeth, a breast 
Like grasshopper, an emmet's crest, 
A skin more ragged than thy coat. 
And dugs like spider's web to boot." 



Must thou marry a youth again? And yet ducentas ire nwptufn post mortes 
aiaant : howsoever it is, as ^ Apuleius gives out of his Meroe, congressus 
annosus, pestilens, abhorrendt.is, a pestilent match, abominable, and not to be 
endured. In such case how can they otherwise choose but be jealous, how 
should they agree one with another ? This inequality is not in years only, but 
in birth, fortunes, conditions, and all good ^ qualities, si qua voles apte nubere, 
nube pari, 'tis my counsel, saith Anthony Guiverra, to choose such a one. 
Civis Civem ducat, Nobilis Nobilem, let a citizen match with a citizen, a gen- 

kCap. 5. instit. ad optimam vitam; maxima mortalium pars pr^cipitanter et inconsiderate nubit, idque ea 
Eetate quje minus apta est, quum senex adolescentuise, sanus morbid*, dives pauperi, <&c. 1 Obsoleto, 

intempestivo, turpi remedio fatentur se irti; recordatione pristinarum voluptatum se recreant, et adversante 
natura, polhnctam carnem et enectam excitant. °^ Lib. 2. nu. 25. ^ Qui vero non procreandiB prolis, 

sed explendje Ubidinis causa sibi iuvicem copulantur, non tam conjuges quam fomicarii habentur. "Lex 

Papia, Sueton. Claud, c. 23. PPontanus, biarum lib. 1. "More salacious than the sparrow in spring, 

or tlie snoAv- white ling-doves." 1 Plautus, mercator. ^Symposio. ^ Vide Thuani historiam. 

tCalabect vet, poetarum. ^Martial, lib. 3. 62. Epig. ^Lib, 1. Miles. y Ovid. "If you would marry 
suitably, marry your equal in every respect" 



656 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

tleman with a gentlewoman ; lie that observes not this precept (saith he) non 
generum sed malum Genium, non nurum sed Furiam, non vitce Gomitem, sed 
litis fomitem domi habebit, instead of a fair wife shall have a fury, for a fit son- 
in-law a mere fiend, &c. examples are too frequent. 

Another main caution fit to be observed is this, that though they be equal in 
years, birth, fortunes, and other conditions, yet they do not omit virtue and 
good education, which Musonius and Antipater so much inculcatein Stobeus : 

" Dos est magna parentum 
Virtus, et metuens alterius viri 
Certo foedere castitas."^ 

If, as Plutarch adviseth, one must eat modium salia, a bushel of salt with him 
before he choose his friend, what care should be had in choosing a wife, his, 
second self, how solicitous should he be to know her qualities and behaviour ? 
and when he is assured of them, not to prefer birth, fortune, beauty, before 
bringing up, and good conditions. * Coquage god of cuckolds, as one merrily 
said, accompanies the goddess Jealousy, both follow the fairest, by Jupiter's 
appointment, and tliey sacrifice to them together : beauty and honesty seldom 
agree; straight personages have often crooked manners; fair faces, foul vices; 
good complexions, ill conditions. Susjncionis plena res est, et insidiarum, 
beauty (saith ^ Chrysostom) is full of treachery and suspicion : he that hath a 
fair wife, cannot have a worse mischief, and yet must covet it, as if nothing 
else in marriage but that and wealth were to be respected. ^ Francis Sforza, 
Duke of Milan, was so curious in this behalf, that he would not marry the 
Duke of Mantua's daughter, except he might see her naked first: which 
Lycurgus appointed in his laws, and Morus in his Utopian Commonwealth 
approves. ^ In Italy, as a traveller observes, if a man have three or four 
daughters, or more, and they prove fair, they are married eftsoons : if de- 
formed, they change their lovely names of Lucia, Cynthia, Camsena, call them 
Dorothy, Ursula, Bridget, and so put them into monasteries, as if none were 
fit for marriage but such as are eminently fair: but these are erroneous 
tenets : a modest virgin well conditioned, to such a fair snout-piece is much to 
be preferred. If thou wilt avoid them, take away all causes of suspicion and 
jealousy, marry a coarse piece, fetch her from Cassandra's temple, which was 
w^ont in Italy to be a sanctuary of all deformed maids, and so thou shalt be 
sure that no man will make thee cuckold, but for spite. A citizen of Bizance 
in France had a filthy, dowdy, deformed slut to his wife, and finding her in bed 
with another man, cried out as one amazed ; iniser ! quae te necessitas hue 
adegit ? O thou wretch, what necessity brought thee hither ? as well he might ; 
for who can affect such a one'? But this is warily to be understood, most offend 
in another extreme, they prefer wealth before beauty, and so she be rich, they 
care not how she look; but these are all out as faulty as the rest. Attendenda 
uxoris forma, as ^ Salisburiensis adviseth, ne si alteram aspexeris, tnox earn 
sordere putes, as the Knight in Chaucer that was married to an old woman, 

And all day after hid him as an owl, 
So woe was his wife looked so/uul. 

Have a care of thy wife's complexion, lest whilst thou seest another, thou 
loathest her, she prove jealous, thou naught, 

" Si tibi deformis conjiix, si serva venusta, 
Ne utaris serva," g 

I can* perhaps give instance. Molestum est possidere quod nemo habere dignetur, 

2 *' Parental virtue is a rich inheritance, as well as that chastity Avhich habitually avoids a second 
husband." «■ Rabelais, hist. Pantagruel, 1 . 3. cap. 33. b Horn. 80. Qui pulchram habetuxorem, niliil 

pejus habere potest. cArniseus. d itinerar. Ital. Coloniae edit. 1620. Nomine trium Ger, fol. 304. 

displicuit quod dominse filiabus immutent nomen inditum in Baptismo, et pro Catharina, JMargareta, &c. ne 
quid desit ad luxuriam, appellant ipsas nominibus Cynthice, CamEeiiEe, &c. ^Leonicusde var, hb. 3. 

c. 43. Asylum virginum dsformium Cassandrge templum. Plutarch. f Polycrat. 1, 8. cap. 11. 8 "If 
your wife seem deformed, your maid beautiful, slill abstaiu from the latter," 



Mem. 4. Subs. 2.] Cure of Jealousy. 657 

a miserj to possess that wliicli no man likes : on the other side, Difficile cus- 
toditur quod plures amcvnt. And as the bragging soldier vaunted in the comedy, 
nimia est iniseria pulchrum esse hominem nimis. Scipio did never so hardly 
besiege Carthage, as these young gallants will beset thine house, one with wit 
or person, another with wealth, &c. Tf she be fair, saith Guazzo, she will be 
suspected howsoever. Both extremes are naught, Pulclwa citd adamatur,f(jeda, 
facile concupiscit, the one is soon beloved, the other loves : one is hardly kept, 
because proud and arrogant, the other not worth keeping ; what is to be done 
in this case ? Ennius in Menelippe adviseth thee as a friend to take statam 
formam, si vis habere incolumem p)udicitiam, one of a middle size, neither too 
fair, nor too foul, ^ Necformosa magis quam milii casta placet, with old Cato, 
though fit let her beauty be, neque lectissima, neque illiheralis, between both. 
This I approve ; but of the other two I resolve with Salisburiensis, cceteris paH- 
hus, both rich alike, endowed alike, majori miserid deformis liahetur quamfor- 
tnosa servatur, I had rather marry a fair one, and put it to the hazard, than be 
troubled with a blowze ; but do thou as thou wilt, I speak only of myself 

Howsoever, quod iterum moneo, I would advise thee thus much, be she fair 
or foul, to choose a wife out of a good kindred, parentage, well brought up, 
in an honest place. 

" iPrimum animo tibi proponas quo sanguine creta, 
Qua forma, qua state, quibusque ante omnia virgo 
Moribus, in junctos veuiat nova nupta penates." 

He that marries a wife out of a suspected inn or alehouse, buys a horse in 
Smithfield, and hires a servant in Paul's, as the diverb is, shall likely have 
a jade to his horse, a knave for his man, an arrant honest woman to his wife. 
Filia prcBsumitur esse r/iatri similis, saith ^Nevisanus? "Such ^a mother, 
such a daughter;" mali corvi malum ovum, cat to her kind. 

" °^ Scilicet expectas ut tradat mater honestos 
Atque alios mores quam quos habet ? " 

" If the mother be dishonest, in all likelihood the daughter will matrizare, 
take after her in all good qualities," 

" Creden' Pasiphae non taui'ipotente futuram 
Tauripetam ? " 

" If the dam trot, the foal will not amble." My last caution is, that a woman 
do not bestow herself upon a fool, or an apparent melancholy person; jea- 
lousy is a symptom of that disease, and fools have no moderation. Justina, 
a E,oman lady, was much persecuted, and after made away by her jealous 
husband, she caused and enjoined this epitaph, as a caveat to others, to be. 
engraven on her tomb : 

" JiDiscite ab exemplo Justine, discite patres, I " Learn parents all, and by Justina's case, 
Ke nubat fatuo filia vestra viro," &c. | Your children to no dizzards for to place." 

After marriage, I can give no better admonitions than to use their wives well, 
and which a friend of mine told me that was a married man, I will tell you as 
good cheap, saith Nicostratus in °Stobeus, to avoid future strife, and for quiet- 
ness' sake, '• when you are in bed take heed of your wife's flattering speeches 
over night, and curtain sermons in the morning." Let them do their endea- 
vour likewise to maintain them to their means, which ^Patricius ingeminates, 
and let them have liberty wdth discretion, as time and place requires : many 
women turn queans by compulsion, as ^^ ISTevisanus observes, because their hus- 
bands are so hard, and keep them so short in diet and apparel, pau'}oertas 
cogit eas oneretricari, poverty and hunger, want of means, makes them dis- 
honest, or bad usage j their churlish behaviour forceth them to fly out, or bad 

h Marullus. " Xot the most fair but the most virtuous pleases me." i Chaloner, lib. 9. de repub. Ang. 
k Lib. 2. num. 159. 1 Si genetrix caste, caste quoque filia vivit; si meretrix mater, filia talis erit. 

"^ Juven. Sat. 6. ^Camerarius, cent. 2. cap. 54. oper. subcis. ^Ser. 72. Quod amicus quidam uxorem 
habens mihi dixit, dicam vobis, In cubili cavendte adulationes vesperi, mane clamores. P Lib. 4. tit. 4. 

de institut. Keipub cap. de officio mariti et uxoris. ILib. 4. syl. uup. num. 81. Non curant de uxoriuus, 
nee volant iis subvenire de victu, vestitu, &c. 

2u 



658 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 3. 

examples, they do it to cry quittance. In tlie otlier extreme some are too 
liberal, as the proverb is, Tardus malum sibi cacat, they make a rod for their 
own tails, as Caiidaules did to Gyges in '^Herodotus, commend his wife's beauty 
himself, and besides would needs have him see her naked. Whilst they give 
their wives too much liberty to gad abroad, and bountiful allowance, they are 
accessary to their own miseries; animce uxorum pessime olent, as Plautus 
jibes, they have deformed souls, and by their paintings and colours procure 

odium mariti, their husband's hate, especially, ^ cum misere viscantur 

labra mariti. Besides, their wives (as ^ Basil notes) Impudenter se exponunt 
Qnasculormn aspectibus, jactantes tunicas, et coram tripudiantes, impudently 
thrust themselves into other men's companies, and by their indecent wanton 
carriage provoke and tempt the spectators. Virtuous women should keep 
house; and 'twas well performed and ordered by the Greeks, 

• " mulier ne qua in publicum 

Spectandam se sine arbitro pr^Bbeat viro -. " " 

which made Phidias belike at Elis paint Yenus treading on a tortoise, a 
symbol of women's silence and houyekeeping. For a womau abroad and alone, 
is like a deer broke out of a park, quam mille venatores insequuntur, whom 
every hunter follows ; and })esides in such places she cannot so well vindicate 
herself, but as that virgin Dinah (Gen. xxxiv. 2), " going for to see the daugh- 
ters of the land," lost her virginity, she may be defiled and overtaken of a 
sudden : Imbelles damoi quid nisiproida sumus V 

And therefore I know not what philosopher he was, that would have women 
come but thrice abroad all their time, " ^ to be baptized, married and buried ;" 
but he was too strait-laced. Let them have their liberty in good sort, and go in 
good sort, modo non annosviginti cetatis suce domi relinquant, as a good fellow said, 
so that they look not twenty years younger abroad than they do at home, they be 
not spruce, neat, angels abroad, beasts, dowdies, sluts at home ; but seek by all 
means to please and give content to their husbands : to be quiet above all 
things, obedient, silent and patient; if they be incensed, angry, chid a little, 
their wives must not ^ cample again, but take it in good part. An honest 
woman, I cannot now tell where she dwelt, but by report an honest woman she 
was, hearing one of her gossips by chance complain of her husband's impatience, 
told her an excellent remedy for it, and gave her withal a glass of water, which 
when he brawled she should hold still in her mouth, and that toties quoiies, 
as often as he chid; she did so two or three times with good success, and at 
.length seeing her neighbour, gave her great thanks for it, and v/ould needs 
know the ingredients, ^ she told her in brief what it was, " fair water," and 
no more : for it was not the water, but her silence which performed the cure. 
Let every fro ward woman imitate this example, and be quiet within doors, and 
(as ^M. Aurelius prescribes) a necessary caution it is to be observed of all 
good matrons that love their credits, to come little abroad, but follow their 
Avork at home, look to their household affairs and private business, ceconomice 
incumbentes, be sober, thrifty, wary, circumspect, modest, and compose them- 
selves to live to their husbands' means, as a good housewife should do. 

*' ° Qnse studiis gavisa coli, partita labores 
Pallet opus cantu, forniaj assimulata coronas 
Cura puellaris, circum fusosque rotasque 
Cum volvfet," &c. 

^ In Clio. Speciem uxoris supra modum extoUens, fecit ut illam nudam coram aspiceret. ^ Juven. 

Sat. 6. " He cannot kiss his wife for paint." t Orat. contra ebr. ^ " That a matron should not be 

seen in public M-ithout her husband as her spokesman." ^ " Helpless deer, what ai-e we but a prey ? " 

y Ad baptismnm, matrimonium et tumulum. ^ Non vociferatur ilia si maritus obganniat. _ ^ Fraudem 
aperiens ostendit ei non aquam sed silentium iracundice moderari. b Horol. princi. lib. 2. cap. 8. 

Diligenter cavendiim foeminis illustribus ne frequenter exeant. <= Chaloner. " One who delights in the 

labour of the distaff, and beguiles the hours of labour with a song : her duties assume an air of virtuous 
beauty when she is busied at the wheel and the spindle with her maids." 



Mem. 4. Subs. 2.] Cure of Jealousy. 659 

Howsoever 'tis good to keep them private, not in prison; 

"d Quisquis custodit uxorem vectibus et seris, 
Etsi sibi sapiens, stultus est, et nihil sapit." 

Head more of tliis subject, Horol, princ. lib. 2. per totmn. Arnisseus, polit, 
Cyprian, TertuUian, Bossus de mulier. apparat. Godefridus de Amor. lib. 2. 
cap. 4. Levinus Lemnius, cap. 54. de institut. Christ. Barbaras de re uxor. lib. 
2. cap. 2. Francisciis Patrifcius de institut. Reipub. lib. 4. Tit. 4 et 5. de 
officio mariti et uxoris, Christ. Fonseca, Amphitheat. Amor. cap. 45. Sam. 
ISTeander, &c. 

These cautions concern him ; and if by those or his own discretion otherwise 
he cannot moderate himself, his friends must not be wanting by their wisdom, 
if it be possible, to give the party grieved satisfaction, to prevent and remove 
the occasions, objects, if it may be to secure him. If it be one alone, or many, 
to consider whom he suspects or at what times, in what places he is most 
incensed, in what companies. ^ISTevisanus makes a question whether a young 
physician ought to be admitted in cases of sickness, into a new married man's 
house, to administer a julep, a syrup, or some such physic. The Persians of 
old would not suffer a young physician to come amongst women. ^Apollonides 
Cous made Artaxerxes cuckold, and was after buried alive for it. A gaoler in 
Aristsenetus had a fine young gentleman to his prisoner; ^in commiseration of 
his youth and person he let him loose, to enjoy the liberty of the prison, but 
he unkindly made him a cornuto. Menelaus gave good welcome to Paris a 
stranger, his whole house and family were at his command, but he ungently 
stole away his best beloved wife. The like measure was offered to Agis king 
of Lacedsemon, by ^ Alcibiades an exile, for his good entertainment, he was too 
familiar with Timea his wife, begetting a child of her, called Leotichides : and 
bragging moreover when he came home to Athens, that he had a son should 
be king of the Lacedemonians. If such objects were removed, no doubt but 
the parties might easily be satisfied, or that they could use them gently and 
intreat them well, not to revile them, scoff at, hate them, as in such cases 
commonly they do, 'tis a human infirmity, a miserable vexation, and they 
should not add grief to grief, nor aggravate their misery, but seek to please, 
and by all means give them content, by good counsel, removing such oflensive 
objects, or by mediation of some discreet friends. In old Rome there was a 
temple erected by the matrons to that Viriplaca Dea, another to Yenus 
verticorda, quae maritos uxoribus reddebat benevolos, whither (if any difference 
happened between man and wife) they did instantly resort : there tliey did 
offer sacrifice, a white hart, Plutarch records, sine fetle, without the gall 
(some say the like of Juno's temple), and make their prayers for conjugal 
peace : before some ^indifferent arbitrators and friends, the matter was heard 
between man and wife, and commonly composed. In our times we want no 
sacred churches, or good men to end such controversies, if use were made of 
them. Some say that precious stone called ^ bery llus, others a diamond, hath 
excellent virtue, contra hostium injurias, et conjugatos invicem conciliare, 
to reconcile men and wives, to maintain unity and love ; you may try this when 
you will, and as you see cause. If none of all these means and cautions will 
take place, I know not what remedy to prescribe, or whither such persons may 
go for ease, except they can get into the same °^ Turkey paradise, " Where 
they shall have as many fair wives as they will themselves, with clear eyes, and 

d Menander. " Whoever gnards his wife with bolts and bars will repent his narrow policy." ® Lib. 5. 
num. 11. f Ctesiusin Persicis finxit vulv« morbum esse nee, curari posse nisi cum viro concumberet, 

hac arte voti compos, &c. SExsolvit vinciilis solutumque demisit, at ille inhumanus s:upravit conjiigem. 
• hi Plutarch, vita ejus. iEosinus, l;b. 2. 19. Valerius, lib. 2. cap. I. k Alexander ab Alexandre, I. 4. 

cap. 8. gen. dier. IFr. Rueus de gem.mis, 1. 2. cap. 8. et 15. "^Strozius Cicogna, lib. 2. cap. 15. spiiitet 
in can. habent ibidem uxores quot volunt cum oculis clarissimis, quos uunquam in aliquem pr*ter niarituitt 
fixur« sunt, &c. Bredenbacchius, Idem et Bohemus, &c. 



660 Love-Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 



such as look on none but tlieir own husbands," no fear, no danger of beino- 
cuckolds; or else I would have them observe that strict rule of "Alplionsus 
to many a deaf and dumb man to a blind woman. If this will not help, let 
them, to prevent the worst, consult with an ° astrologer, and see whether the 
significators in her horoscope agree with his, that they be not in signis et j)ar~ 
tibus odiose intaentibus aut imperantlbus, sed mutuo et amice antisciis et obe- 
dientibus, otherwise (as they hold) there will be intolerable enmities between 
them ; or else get him sigillum veneris, a characteristicai seal stamped in the 
day and hour of Venus, when she is fortunate, with such and such set words 
and charms, which Yillanovanus and Leo Suavius prescribe, ex sigillis magicis 
Salomonis, Hermetis, Raguelis, &c., with many such, which Alexis, Albertus, 
and some of our natural magicians put upon us : ut mulier cum aliquo adulter- 
are nonpossit, incide de capiilis ejus, &c., and he shall surely be gracious in all 
women's eyes, and never suspect or disagree with his own wife so long as he 
wears it. If this course be not approved, and other remedies may not be 
had, they must in the last place sue for a divorce ; but that is somewhat diffi- 
cult to effect, and not all out so fit. For as Eelisacus in his Tract dejusta 
uxore urgeth, if that law of Constantine the G reat, or that of Theodosius and 
Valentinian, concerning divorce, were in use in our times, innumeras propemo- 
dum vidnas haberemus, et coelibes vivos, \Ye should have almost no married 
couples left. Try therefore those former remedies ; or as TertuUian rej^orts of 
Democritus, that put out his eyes, ^because he could not look iipon a woman 
without lust, and was much troubled to see that which he might not enjoy; let 
him make himself blind, and so he shall avoid that care and molestation of 
watching his wife. One other sovereign remedy I could repeat, an especial 
antidote against jealousy, an excellent cure, but I am not now disposed to tell 
it, not that like a covetous empiric I conceal it for any gain, but some other 
reasons, I am not willing to publish it ; if you be very desirous to know it, 
when I meet you next I will perad venture tell you what it is in your ear. This 
is the best counsel I can give ; which he that hath need of, as occasion serves, 

may apply unto himself. In the mean time, dii talem terris avertite 

pestem, '^as the proverb is, from heresy, jealousy and frenzy, good Lord 
deliver us. 



SECT. lY. MEMB. I. 

SuBSECT. I. — Religious Melancholy. Its object God; what his beauty is; Hoiv 
it allures. The parts and parties affected. 

That there is such a distinct species of love melancholy, no man hath ever 
yet doubted : but whether this subdivision of ^' Religious Melancholy be 
warrantcible, it may be controverted. 

" ^ Pergite Pierides, medio nee calle vagantem 
Linquite me, qua nulla pedum vestigia ducunt, 
KuUa rotse currus testantur signa prioves." 

I have no pattern to follow as in some of the rest, no man to imitate. No 
physician hath as yet distinctly written of it as of the other; all acknowledge 
is a most notable symptom, some a cause, but few a species or kind. ^ Areteus, 
Alexander, Rhasis, Avicenna, and most of our late writers, as Gordonius, 
Fuchsius-, Plater, Bruel, Montaltus, &c. repeat it as a symptom. "Some 
seem to be inspired of the Holy Ghost, some take upon them to be prophets, 

mjxor cseca ducat maritura surdam, &c. ^See Valent. Kabod. differ, com. in Alcabitium, ubi pliira. 

PCap. 46. Apol. quod mulieres sine concupiscentia aspicere non posset, &c. <1 " Ye gods avert such -i 

pestilence from the world." ^ Called religions because it is still conversant about religion and such divine 
objects. sQi-oti^is, <■'■ pi-oceed, ye muses, nor desert me in the middle of my journey, where no footstei)S 
lead me, nn wheeltracks indicate the transit of former chariots." t Lib. 1 . cap. 16. nonnuUi opinionibus 
addicti sunt, et futura se prffidicere arbitrantur. ^ Aliis videtur quod sunt prophet* et iuspiruii a 

fcjpiritu sancto, et incipiunt prophetare, et multa futura priedicaut. 



Mem. 1. Sub-^. 1] TieJiglous Melanclioly. 661 

some are addicted to new opinions, some foretell sti'ange tilings, de statu mimdi 
et Aiitichristi, saitli Gordonins. Some will prophesy of the end of the world to 
a day almost, and the fall of the Antichrist, as they have been addicted or 
brought up; for so melancholy works with them, as ^Laurentius holds. If 
they have been precisely given, all their meditations tend that way, and in 
conclusion produce strange effects, the humour imprints symptoms according 
to their several inclinations and conditions, which makes ^'Guianerius and 
^ Felix Plater put too much devotion, blind zeal, fear for eternal punishment, 
and that last judgment for a cause of those enthusiastic and desperate persons : 
but some do not obscurely make a distinct species of it, dividing love-melan- 
choly into that whose object is women ; and into the other whose object is God. 
Plato, in Convivio, makes mention of two distinct furies : and amongst our 
!Neoterics, Hercules de Saxonid, lib. \. pract. med. cop. 16. cap. de Melanch. 
doth expressly treat of it in a distinct species. " ^Love melancholy (saith he) 
is twofold ; the first is that (to which peradventure some will not vouchsafe 
this name or species of melancholy) affection of those which put God for their 
object, and are altogether about prayer, fasting, &c., the other about women." 
Peter Forestus in his observations delivereth as much in the same words : and 
Felix Platerus de mentis alieiiat. cap. Z.frequentisaima est ejus species, in qua 
curandd scepissiiiie muUum fai impeditus ; 'tis a frequent disease; and they 
have a ground of what they say, forth of Areteus and Plato. ^ Areteus, an old 
author, in his third book, cap. 6. doth so divide love melancholy, and derives 
this second from the first, which comes by inspii^ation or otherwise. ^Plato 
in his Phsedrus hath these words, "Apollo's priests in Deljohos, and at 
Dodona, in their fury do many pretty feats, and benefit the Greeks, but never 
in their right wits.'' He makes them all mad, as well he might; and he that 
shall but consider that superstition of old, those prodigious effects of it (as in 
its place I will shew the several furies of our fatidici dii, pythonissas, sibyls, 
enthusiasts, pseudoprophets, heretics, and schismatics in these our latter ages) 
shall instantly confess, that all the world again cannot afford so much matter of 
madness, so many stupendous symptoms, as superstition, heresy, schism have 
brought out : that this species alone may be paralleled to all the former, has a 
greater latitude, and more miraculous efi'ects; that it more besots and infa- 
tuates men, than any other above named whatsoever, does more harm, works 
more disquietness to mankind, and has more crucified the souls of mortal men 
(such hath been the devil's craft) than wars, plagues, sicknesses, dearth, 
famine, and all the rest. 

Give me but a little leave, and I will set before j^our eyes in brief a stupendous, 
vast, infinite ocean of incredible madness and folly : a sea full of shelves and 
rocks, sands, gulfs, euripes and contrary tides, full of fearful monsters, uncouth 
shapes, roaring waves, tempests, and siren calms, halcyonian seas, unspeak- 
able misery, such comedies and tragedies, such absurd and ridiculous, feral and 
lamentable fits, that I know not whether they are more to be pitied or derided, 
or may be believed, but that we daily see the same still practised in our days, 
fresh examples, nova novitia, fresh objects of misery and madness, in this 
kind that are still represented unto us, abroad, at home, in the midst of us, in 
our bosoms. 

But before I can come to treat of these several errors and obliquities, their 
causes, symptoms, aflections, &c., I must say something necessarily of the 



^ Cap. 6. de Melanch. J^Cap. 5. Tractat. multi ob timorem Dei sunt melancholici, et timorem gehennae. 
They are still troubled for their sins. ^pj^ter c. 13. * Melancholia Erotica vel quss cum amore est, 

duplex est : prima qu?8 ab aliis forsan non meretur nomen melancholia, est afiectio ecrum qus pro objecto 
proponunt Deum et ideo nihil aliud curant aut cogitant quam Deum, jejunia, vigilias : altera ob mulieres. 
l> Alia reperitar furoris species a pnma vel a secunda, deorum roganrium, vel afflatu numinura furor hie 
venit. ^ Qui in Delpliis futura prtedicunt vates, et in Dodona sacerdotes foi'entes quidem multa jocunda 
Gracis deferunt, sani vero exigua aut nulla. 



662 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3, Sec. 4. 

object of tliis love, God himself, what this love is, how it allureth, whence it 
proceeds, and (which is the cause of all our miseries) how we mistake, wander 
and swerve from it. 

Amongst all those divine attributes that God doth vindicate to himself, eter- 
nity, omnipotency, immiitability, wisdom, majesty, justice, mercy, &c., his 
*^ beauty is not the least: one thing, saith David, have I desired of the Lord, 
and that I will still desire, to behold the beauty of the Lord, Psal. xxvii, 4. 
And out of Sion, which is the perfection of beauty, hath God shined, Psal. 
I. 2. All other creatures are fair, 1 confess, and many other objects do much 
enamour us, a fair house, a fair horse, a comely person. " ® I am amazed," 
saith Austin, "when I look up to heaven and behold the beauty of the stars, the 
beauty of angels, principalities, powers, who can express it ? who can suffi- 
ciently commend, or set out this beauty which appears in us? so fair a body, 
so fair a face, eyes, nose, cheeks, chin, brows, all fair and lovely to behold ; 
besides the beauty of the soul which cannot be discerned. If we so labour and 
be so much affected with the comeliness of creatures, how shall we be ravished 
with that admirable lustre of God himself ? " If ordinary beauty have such a 
prerogative and power, and what is amiable and fair, to draw the eyes and ears, 
hearts and affections of all spectators unto it, to move, win, entice, allure : 
how shall this divine form ravish our souls, which is the fountain and quint- 
essence of all beauty? Coelum pulchrum, sed j^ulchrior cceli fabricator ; if 
heaven be so fair, the sun so fair, how much fairer shall he be, that made them 
fair ? " For by the greatness and beauty of the creatures, proportionally, the 
maker of them is seen," Wisd, xiii. 5. If there be such pleasure in beholding 
a beautiful person alone, and, as a plausible sermon, he so much affect us, what 
shall this beauty of God himself, that is infinitely fairer than all creatures, men, 
angels, &c. ^Omnis pulchritudo Jlorum, hominwin, angelorum, et rermn 
omnium pulcherrimarum ad Dei pulchritudinem coUata, nox est et tenebrce, all 
other beauties are night itself, mere darkness to this our inexplicable, incom- 
prehensible, unspeakable, eternal, infinite, admirable and divine beauty. This 
lustre, pulchritudo omnium pulcherrima. This beauty and " ^ splendour of the 
divine majesty," is it that draws all creatures to it, to seek it, love, admire, and 
adore it ; and those heathens, pagans, philosophers, out of those relics they 
have yet left of God's image, are so far forth incensed, as not only to acknow- 
ledge a God; but, though after their own inventions, to stand in admiration of 
his bounty, goodness, to adore and seek him ; the magnificence and structure 
of the world itself, and beauty of all his creatures, his goodness, providence, 
protection, enforceth them to love him, seek him, fear him, though a wrong 
way to adore him : but for us that are Christians, regenerate, that are his 
adopted sons, illuminated by his word,having the eyes of our hearts and under- 
standings opened; how fairly doth he offer and expose himself? Ambit nos 
Deus (Austin saith) donis et forma sua, he woos us by his beauty, gift^, pro- 
mises, to come unto him; "^the whole Scripture is a message, an exhorta- 
tion, a love-letter to this purpose;" to incite us, and invite us, 'God's epistle, 
as Gregory calls it, to his creatures. He sets out his son and his church in 
that epithalamium or mystical song of Solomon, to enamour us the more, com- 
paring his head "to fine gold, his locks curled and black as a raven, Gant. iv. 
5. his eyes like doves on rivers of waters, washed with milk, his lips as lilies, 
dropping down pure juice, his hands as rings of gold set with chrysolite : and 
his church to a vineyard, a garden enclosed, a foimtain of living waters, an 

dDeus bonus, Justus, pulcher, juxta Platonem. ®Miror et stupeo cum coelum aspicio et pulchritudinem 
si derum, angelorum, &c. et quis digne laudet quod in nobis viget, corpus tam pulchrura, frontem pulchram, 
nares, genas, oculos, intellectum, omnia pulchra; si sic in creaturis laboramus, quid in ipso deo ? 
f Drexelius Nicet. lib. 2. cap. 11. ^ Fulgor divinge majestatis. Aug. h In Psal. Ixiv. misit ad nc s 

Epistolas et totam scripturam, quibus nobis faceret amandi desiderium. iEpist. 48. 1. 4. quid est tota 

scriptura nisi Epistola omnipotentis Dei ad ereaturam suam ? 



Mem. 1. Su'os. 1.] That it is a distinct species. 633 

orchard of pomegranates, witli sweet scents of saffron, spike, calamus and 
cinnamon, and all the trees of incense, as the chief spices, the fairest amongst 
women, no spot in her, ^his sister, his spouse, undefiled, the only daughter of 
her mother, dear unto her, fair as the moon, pure as the sun, looking out as 
the morning;" that by these figures, that glass, these spiritual eyes of con- 
templation, we might ];erceive some resemblance of his beauty, the love be- 
tween his church and him. And so in the xlv. Psalm this beauty of his church 
is compared to a " queen in a vesture of gold of Ophir, embroidered raiment 
of needlework, that the king might take pleasure in lier beauty." To incense 
us further yet, ^ John, in his apocalypse, makes a description of that heavenly 
Jerusalem, the beauty of it, and in it the maker of it; " Likening it to a city 
of pure gold, like unto clear glass, shining and garnished with all manner of 
precious stones, having no need of sun or moon : for the Lamb is the light of 
it, the glory of God doth illuminate it : to give us to understand the infinite 
glory, beauty, and happiness of it.'* Not that it is no fairer than these crea- 
tures to which it is compared, but that this vision of his, this lustre of his divine 
majesty, cannot otherwise be expressed to our apprehensions, "no tongue can 
tell, no heart can conceive it," as Paul saith. Moses himself, Exod. xxxiii. 18. 
when he desired to see Grod in his glory, was answered that he might not 
endurs it, no man could see his face and live. Sensibile forte destruit sensum, 
a strong object overcometh the sight, according to that axiom in philosophy : 
fulgorer)i solisferre nonpotes,muUo magis creatoris; if thou canst not endure 
the sunbeams, how canst thou endure that fulgor and brightness of Him that 
made the sun? The sun itself and all that we can imagine, are but shadows of 
it, 'tis visio 'prcecellens, aa ™ Austin calls it, the quintessence of l^eauty this, 
'•' which far exceeds the beauty of heavens, sun and moon, stars, angels, gold 
and silver, woods, fair fields, and whatsoever is pleasant to behold." All those 
other beauties fail, vary, are subject to corruption, to loathing; "^ But this is 
an immortal vision, a divine beauty, an immortal love, an indefatigable love and 
beauty, with sight of which we shall never be tired nor wearied, but still the 
more we see, the more we shall covet him." " ° For as one saith, where this 
vision is, there is absolute beauty; and v^^here is that beauty, from the same 
fountain comes all pleasure and happiness ; neither can beauty, pleasure, hap- 
piness, be separated from his vision or sight, or his vision, from beauty, 
pleasure, happiness." In this life we have but a glimpse of this beauty and 
happiness : we shall hereafter, as John saith, see him as he is : thine eyes, as 
Isaiah promiseth, xxxiii. 17. "shall behold the king in his glory," then shall 
we be perfectly enamoured, have a fall fruition of it, desire, ^ behold and love 
him alone as the most amiable and fairest object, or summum honum, or 
chiefest good. 

This likewise should we now have done, had not our will been corrupted ; 
and as we are enjoined to love God with all our heart, and all our soul : for to 
that end were we born, to love this object, as *^Melancthon discourseth, and to 
enjoy it. " And him our will would have loved and sought alone as o\xv sum- 
QnuTYh honum, or principal good, and all other good things for God's sake : and 
nature, as she proceeded from it, would have sought this fountain; but in 
this infirmity of human nature this order is disturbed, our love is corrupt : " 
and a man is like that monster in ^' Plato, composed of a Scylla, a lion and a 
man ; we are carried away headlong v/ith the torrent of our affections : the 

kCap. vi. 8. 1 Cap. xxvii. 11, ^ In Psal. Ixxsv. omnes pulchritudines teirenas auri, argenti, nemoriim 
et camporum pulchritudinem Solis et LuniB, stellarum, omnia pulchra superans. ^ Immortalis hsec visio, 
inimortalis amor, indefessus amor et visio. ^ Osorius; ubicunque visio et pulchritudo divini aspectus, 

ibi volnptas ex eodem fonte omnisque beatittido, nee ab ejus aspectu voluptas, nee ab ilia voluptate aspectua 
separari potest. PLeon Hsebi-eus. Dubitatur an htimana felicitas Deo cognoscendo an amando termi- 

netur. iLib. de anima. Ad hoc objectum amandum et fruendum nati sumus; et hunc expetisset, 

xmicura hunc amasset humana voluntas, ut summum bonum, et caeteras res omues eo ordine. ^9. de Kepub. 



664 Meligious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

world, and tliat infinite variety of pleasing objects in it, do so allure and ena- 
mour us, that we cannot so much as look towards God, seek him, or think ou 
him as we should : we cannot, saith Austin, rempuhlicam coelestem. cogitare, we 
cannot contain ourselves from them, their sweetness is so pleasing to us. Mar- 
riage, saith ^ Gualter, detains many ; " A thing in itself laudable, good and 
necessary, but many deceived and carried away with the blind love of it, have 
quite laid aside the love of God, and desire of his glory. Meat and drink 
hath overcome as many, whilst they rather strive to please, satisfy their guts 
and belly, than to serve God and nature." Some are so busied about mer- 
chandise to get money, they lose their own souls, whilst covetously carried, and 
with an insatiable desire of gain, they forget God ; as much we may say of 
honour, leagues, friendships, health, wealth, and all other profits or pleasures 
in this life whatsoever. " * In this world there be so many beautiful objects, 
splendours and brightness of gold, majesty of glory, assistance of friends, fair 
promises, smooth words, victories, triumphs, and such an infinite company of 
pleasing beauties to allure us, and draw us from God, that we cannot look after 
him." And this is it which Christ himself, those prophets and apostles so 
much thundered against, 1 John, xvii. 15, dehort us from ; " love not the world, 
nor the things that are in the world : if any man love the world, the love of 
the Father is not in him, 16. For all that is in the world, as lust of the flesh, 
the lust of the eyes, and pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world : 
and the world passeth away and the lust thereof; but he that fulfilleth the will 
of God abideth for ever. " No man," saith our Saviour, "can serve two masters, 
but he must love the one and hate the other," &c., bonos velmalos mores, honi 
vel mali faciunt amoves, Austin well infers : and this is that which all the 
fathers inculcate. He cannot (^ Austin admonisheth) be God's friend, that is 
delighted with the pleasures of the world : " make clean thine heart, purify 
thine heart ; if thou wilt see this beauty, prepare thyself for it. It is the eye 
of contemplation by which we must behold it, the wing of meditation which 
lifts us up and rears our souls with the motion of our hearts, and sweetness 
of contemplation :" so saith Gregory cited by ^ Bonaventure. And as ^Philo 
Judseus seconds him, "He that loves God will soar aloft and take him wings; 
and, leaving the earth, fly up to heaven, wander with sun and moon, stars, and 
that heavenly troop, God himself being his guide." If we desire to see him, 
we must lay aside all vain objects, which detain us and dazzle our eyes, and 
as ^ Ficinus adviseth us, " get us solar eyes, spectacles as they that look on 
the sun : to see this divine beauty, lay aside all material objects, all sense, and 
then thou shalt see him as he is." Thou covetous wretch, as "^Austin expos- 
tulates, " why dost thou stand gaping on this dross, muck-hills, filthy excre- 
ments? behold a far fairer object, God himself woos thee; behold him, enjoy 
him, he is sick for love." Cant. v. he invites thee to his sight, to come into 
his fair garden, to eat and drink with him, to be merry with him, to enjoy 
his presence for ever. ^ Wisdom cries out in the streets besides the gates in 
the top of high places, before the city, at the entry of the door, and bids them 
give ear to her instruction, which is better than gold or precious stones; no 
pleasures can be compared to it : leave all then and follow her, vos exhortor 6 



s Horn. 9. in epist. Joliannis, cap. 2. Multos conjiigium decepit, res alioqui salutaris et necessaria, eo quod 
cfeco ejus amore decepti, divini anioris et gloriae studium in universum abjecerunt; plurimos cibus et potus ' 
perdit. t In mundo splendor opum, glorise majestas, amicitiarum prsesidia, verborum blanditiae, volurita- 
tum omnis generis illecebrfe, victoriae, triumphi, et infinita alia ab amore dei nos abstrahunt, &c. ^In 

rsal. xxxii. Dei amicus esse non potest qui mundi studiis delectatur ; ut banc formara videas munda cor, 
Serena cor, &c. ^ Contemplationis pluma nos sublevat atque inde erigimur intentione cordis, dulcedine 

conteinplationis distinct. 6. de 7. Itineribus. y Lib. de yictimis : amans Deum, subliraia petit, sumptia 

alis et in ccelum recte volat, relicta terra, cupidus aberrandi cum sole, luna, stellarumque s.icra militia, ipso 
Deo duce. ^ In com. Plat. cap. 7. ut Solem videas oculis, fieri debes Solaris : ut divinam aspicias pul- 

chiitudinem, demitte materiam, demitte sensum, et Deum qualis sit videbis. ^ Avare, quid inhias his, 

&c., pulclirior est qui te ambit ipsum visurus, ipsum habiturus. b Prov. viii. 



j\Iem. 1. Subs. 1.] Causes of "Religious MelcmcJiohj. 665 

arnici et obsecro. In °Ficinus's words, "I exhort and beseech yon, tliat you 
would embrace and follow this divine love with all your hearts and abilities, by 
all offices and endeavours make this so loving God propitious unto you." For 
whom alone, saith ^Plotinus, " we must forsake the kingdoms and empires of 
the whole earth, sea, land, and air, if we desire to be ingrafted into him, leave 
all and follow him," 

Now, forasmuch as this love of God is a habit infused of God, as '^Thomas 
holds, 1. 2. qucest. 23. " by which a man is inclined to love God above all, and 
his neighbour as himselfj" we must pray to God that he will open our eyes, 
make clear our hearts, that we may be capable of his glorious rays, and per- 
form those duties that he requires of us, Deut. vi. and Josh, xxiii. " to love 
God above all, and our neighbour as ourself, to keep his commandments. In 
this we know, saith 1 John, c. v. 2. we love the children^^of God, when we love 
God and keep his commandments." This is the love of God, that we keep 
his commandments ; he that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love, 
ca-p. iv. 8. and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him;" 
for love pre-supposeth knowledge, faith, hope, and unites us to God himself, as 
^Leon Hebreus delivereth unto us, and is accompanied with the fear ot God, 
humility, meekness, patience, all those virtues, and charity itself For if we 
love God, we shall love our neighbour, and perform the duties which are re- 
quired at our hands, to which we are exhorted, 1 Cor. xv. 4, 5 ; Ephes. iv. ; 
Coloss. iii. ; Rom, xii. We shall not be envious or puffed up, or boast, 
disdain, think evil, or be provoked to anger, but suffer all things; endeavour 
to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." Forbear one another, 
forgive one another, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and perform all those 
works of mercy, which ^Clemens Alexandrinus calls amoris etamiciiiuB imple- 
tionem et extentionem, the extent and complement of love; and that not for 
fear or worldly respects, but or dine ad Deum, for the love of God himself. 
This we shall do if we be truly enamoured ; but we come short in both, we 
neither love God nor our neighbour as we should. Our love in spiritual things 
is too ^^ defective, in worldly things too excessive, there is ajar in both. We 
love the world too much ; God too little ; ourneighbour not at all, or for our own 
ends. Vulgas amicitias utilitate prohat. " The chief thing we respect is our 
commodity ;" and what we do is for fear of worldly punishment, for vain-glory, 
praise of men, fashion, and such by respects, not for God's sake. We neither 
know God aright, nor seek, love or worship him as we should. And for these 
defects, we involve ourselves into a multitude of errors, we swerve from this 
true love and worship of God : which is a cause unto us of unspeakable mise- 
ries; running into both extremes, we become fools, madmen, without sense, 
as now in the next place I will show you. 

The parties affected a,re innumerable almost, and scattered over the face of 
the earth, far and near, and so have been in all precedent ages, from the begin- 
ning of the world to these times, of all sorts and conditions. For method's 
sake I will reduce them to a two-fold division, according to those two extremes 
of excess and defect, impiety and superstition, idolatry and atheism. Not that 
there is any excess of divine worship or love of God ; that cannot be, we can- 
not love God too much, or do our duty as we ought, as Papists hold, or have 
any perfection in this life, much less supererogate ; when we have all done, we 
are unprofitable servants. Bat because we do aliud agere, zealous without 
knowledge, and too solicitous about that which is not necessary, busying our- 
selves about impertinent, needless, idle, and vain ceremonies, /?opM/o2^^p/«cerewjf, 

e Cap. 18. Rom. Amorem hunc divinurn totis viribns amplexamini; Deum vobis omni ofBciorum genere 
propitium facite. d Cap. 7. de pulchritudine regna et imperia totius tevree et maris et cceli oportct abjicere 
si ad ipsum coiiversus velis iiiseri. ® Habitus a Deo infusus, per quera inclinatur homo ad diligendum 

L>eum super omnia. fiJial. 1. Omnia convertit amor in ipsius pulchri nataram. SStromatum lib. 2. 
i» Greenhura. 



^6Q Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

as the Jews did abont sacrifices, oblations, offerings, incense, new moons, feasts, 
&c., but Isaiah taxeth them, i. 12, " who required this at your hands?" We 
have too great opinion of our own worth, that we can satisfy the law; and do 
more than is required at our hands, by performing those evangelical counsels, 
and such works of supererogation, merit for others, which Bellarmine, Gregory 
de Valentia, all their Jesuits and champions defend, that if God should deal in 
rigour with them, some of their Franciscans and Dominicans are so pure, that 
nothing could be objected to them. Some of us again are too dear, as we 
think, more divine and sanctified than others, of a better mettle, greater gifts, 
and with that proud Pharisee, contemn others in respect of ourselves, we are 
better Christians, better learned, choice spirits, inspired, know more, have 
special revelation, perceive God's secrets, and thereupon presume, say and do 
that many times which is not befitting to be said or done. Of this number 
are all superstitious idolaters, ethnics, Mahometans, Jews, heretics, ^en- 
thusiasts, divinators, prophets, sectaries, and schismatics. Zanchius reduceth 
such infidels to four chief sects ; but I will insist and follow mine own intended 
method : all which with many other curious persons, monks, hermits, &c., may 
be ranged in this extreme, and fight under the superstitious banner, with those 
rude idiots, and infinite swarms of people that are seduced by them. In the 
other extreme or in defect, march those impious epicures, libertines, atheists, 
hypocrites, infidels, worldly,secure, impenitent, unthankful, and carnal-minded 
men, that attribute all to natural causes, that will acknowledge no supreme 
power; that have cauterised consciences, or live in a reprobate sense; or such 
desperate persons as are too distrustful of his mercies. Of these there be 
many subdivisions, diverse degrees of madness and folly, some more than other, 
as shall be shown in the symptoms: and yet all miserably out, perplexed, 
doting, and beside themselves for religion's sake. For as ^Zanchy well dis- 
tinguished and all the world knows, religion is twofold, true or false ; false is 
that vain superstition of idolaters, such as v/ere of old, Greeks, Romans, pre- 
sent Mahometans, &c. Timorem deorum inanem, ^TuUy could term it; or as 
Zanchy defines it, Ubi falsi dii, aut falsa cultu coliturI)eus, when false gods, 
or that God is falsely worshipped. And 'tis a miserable plague, a torture of 
the soul, a mere madness, Religiosa insania, "^Meteran calls it, or insanus 
error, as ^Seneca, a frantic error; or as Austin, Insanus animi morbus, a 
furious disease of the soul; insania omnium insanissima, a quintessence of 
madness ; °for he that is superstitious can never be quiet. 'Tis proper to man 
alone, uni superbia, avaritia, superstitio, saith Plin. lib. 7. cap. 1. atque etiam 
post scevit defuturo, which wrings his soul for the present, and to come: the 
greatest misery belongs to mankind, a perpetual servitude, a slavery, "^ Ex 
timore timor, a heavy yoke, the seal of damnation^ an intolerable burden. They 
that are superstitious are still fearing, suspecting, vexing themselves with 
auguries, prodigies, false tales, dreams, idle, vain works, unprofitable labours, 
as '^Boterus observes, curd mentis ancipite ver&antur: enemies to God and to 
themselves. In a word, as Seneca concludes, Religio Deum eolit^ superstitio 
destruit, superstition destroys, but true religion honours God. True religion, 
ubi verus Deus vere colitur, where the true God is truly worshipped, is the way 
to heaven, the mother of virtues, love, fear, devotion, obedience, knowledge, &c. 
It rears the dejected soul of man, and amidst so many cares, miseries, perser 
cutions, which this world affords, it is a sole ease, an unspeakable comfort, a 
sweet reposal, Jugum suat^, et leve, a light yoke, an anchor, and a haven. It 
adds courage, boldness, and begets generous spirits : although tyrants rage, 
persecute, and that bloody Lictor, or sergeant be ready to martyr them, aut lita, 

i De primo prsecepto. k De relig. 1. 2. Thes. 1. 1 2 De nat. deorum. ™ Hist. Belgic. lib. 8. 

n Superstitio error insanus est. epist. 223. <> Kam qui superstitione imbutus esj, quietus essenunquam 

potest. P Greg. « polit. lib. 1. cap. 13. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 1.] Parties affected. 667 

aut moi^ere (as in those persecutions of the primitive Church, it was put in 
practice, as you may read in Eusebins and others), though enemies be now ready 
to invade, and all in an uproar, ^ Si fr actus illahatur orbis, impavidos ferient 
ruince, though heaven should fall on his head, he would not be dismayed. But 
as a good Christian prince once made answer to a menacing Turk, facile scele- 
rata liominum arma contemnit, qui Dei prcesidio tutus est: or as ^Phalaris writ 
to iilexander in a wrong cause, he nor any other enemy could terrify him, for 
that he trusted in Cod. Si Deus 7iobiscum, quis contra nos? In all calami- 
ties, persecutions whatsoever, as David did, 2 Sam. ii. 22, he will sing wdth 
him, " the Lord is my rock, my fortress, my strength, my refuge, the tower 
and horn of my salvation," &c. In all troubles and adversities, Psal. xlvi. 1. 
" God is my hope and help, still ready to be found, I will not therefore fear," 
&c., 'tis a fear expelling fear; he hath peace of conscience, and is full of hope, 
which is (saith * Austin) vita vitce wortalis, the life of this our mortal life, hope 
of immortality, the sole comfort of our misery : otherwise, as Paul saith, we 
of all others were most, wretched, but this makes us happy, counterpoising our 
hearts in all miseries ; superstition torments, and is from the devil, the author 
of lies; but this is from God himself, as Lucian, that Antiochian priest, made 
liis divine confession in "Eusebius, Auctor nobis de Deo Deus est, God is the 
author of our religion himself, his word is our rule, a lantern to us, dictated 
by the Holy Ghost, he plays upon our hearts as so many harpstrings, and we 
are his temjiles, he dwelleth in us, and we in him. 

The part affected of superstition, is the brain, heart, will, understanding, 
soul itself, and all the faculties of it, totum compositum, all is mad and dotes : 
now for the extent, as I say, the world itself is the subject of it (to omit that 
grand sin of atheism), all times have been misaifected, past, present, " there 
is not one that doth good, no not one, from the prophet to the priest," &c. A 
lamentable thing it is to consider, how many myriads of men this idolatry and 
su})erstition (for that comprehends all) hath infatuated in all ages, besotted by 
this blind zeal, which is religion's ape, religion's bastard, religion's shadow, 
false glass. For wdiere God hath a temple, the devil will have a chapel : 
where God hath sacrifices, the devil v/ill have his oblations : where God hath 
ceremonies, the devil Avill have his traditions : where there is any religion, the 
devil will plant superstition ; and 'tis a pitiful sight to behold and read, what 
tortures, miseries, it hath procured, what slaughter of souls it hath made, how 
it rageth amongst those old Persians, Syrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Eomans, 
Tuscans, Gauls, Germans, Britons, &c. Britannia jam Jiodie celebrat tani 
attonite, saith ^ Pliny, tantis ceremoniis (speaking of superstition) ut dedissePer- 
sis videripossit. The Britons are so stupendly superstitious in their ceremonies, 
that they go beyond those Persians. He that shall but read in Pausanias 
alone, those gods, temples, altars, idols, statues, so curiously made with such 
infinite cost and charge, amongst those old Greeks, such multitudes of them 
and frequent varieties, as ^ Gerbelius truly observes, may stand amazed, and 
never enough wonder at it; and thank God withal, that by the light of the 
Gospel, we are so happily freed from that slavish idolatry in these our days. 
But heretofore, almost in all countries, in all places, superstition hath blinded 
the hearts of men; in all ages what a small portion hath the true church ever 
been ! Divisum imperium cum Jove Dcernon habet.^ The patriarchs and 
their families, the Israelites a handful in respect, Christ and his apostles, and 
not all of them, neither. Into what straits hath it been compinged, a little 
flock ! how hath superstition on the other side dilated herself, error, ignorance, 
barbarism, folly, madness, deceived, triumphed, and insulted over the most 

'"Hor. s Epist. rhalar. tin Psal. iii. ^ Lib. 9. cap. 6. ^Lib. .3. yLib. 6. descript. GTcTC. 
nulla est via qui« non innumeris idolis est referta. Tantuni tunc tempovis in misexrimns raortales potentiie 
et crudtjlis Tyvannidis Satan exercuit. ^ " The devil divides the empire with Jupiier." 



6G8 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

wise, discreet, and understanding men, philosophers, dynasts, monarchs, all 
were involved and overshadowed in this mist, in more than Cimmerian dark- 
ness. "^Adeo ignara superstitio mentes hominum depravat, et nonnunquam 
sapientum animos iransversos agit. At this present, quota pars! How small 
a part is truly religious ! How little in respect ! Divide the world into six 
parts, and one, or not so much, is Christians; idolaters and Mahometans pos- 
sess almost Asia, Africa, America, Magellanica. The kings of China, great 
Cham, Siam, and Borneo, Pegu, Deccan, Narsinga, Japan, &c,, are gentiles, 
idolaters, and many other petty princes in Asia, Monomotopa, Congo, and I 
know not how many negro princes in Africa, all Terra Australis incognita, 
most of America, pagans, differing all in their several superstitions; and yet all 
idolaters. The Mahometans extend themselves over the great Turk's domi- 
nions in Europe, Africa, Asia, to the Xeriffes in Barbary, and his territories 
in Fez, Sus, Morocco, &c. The Tartar, the great Mogor, the Sophy of Per- 
sia, with most of their dominions and subjects, are at this day Mahometans. 
See how the devil rageth: those at odds, or differing among themselves, 
some for ^Ali, some Enbocar, for Acmor, and Ozimen, those four doctors, 
Mahomet's successors, and are subdivided into seventy-two inferior sects, as 
^Leo Afer reports. The Jews, as a company of vagabonds, are scattered over 
all parts; whose story, present estate, progress from time to time, is fully set 
down by ^Mr. Thomas Jackson, Doctor of Divinity, in his comment on the 
creed. A fifth part of the world, and hardly that, now professeth CHRIST, 
but so inlarded and interlaced with several superstitions, that there is scarce a 
sound part to be found, or any agreement amongst them. Presbyter John, in 
Africa, lord of those Abyssinians, or Ethiopitins, is by his profession a Chris- 
tian, but so different from us, with such new absurdities and ceremonies, such 
liberty, such a mixture of idolatry and paganism, ®that they keep little more 
than a bare title of Christianity. They suffer polygamy, circumcision, stupend 
fastings, divorce as they will themselves, &c., and as the papists call on the 
Virgin Mary, so do they on Thomas Didymus before Christ. ^The Greek or 
Eastern Church is rent from this of the West, and as they have four chief 
patriarchs, so have they four subdivisions, besides those Nestorians, Jacobins, 
Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, &c., scattered over Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, 
&c., Greece, Walachia, Circassia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Albania, Illyricum, Scla- 
vonia, Croatia, Thrace, Servia, Bascia, and a sprinkling amongst the Tartars, 
the Russians, Muscovites, and most of that great duke's (czar's) subjects, are 
part of the Greek Church, and still Christians: but as ^one saith, temporis 
successu multas illi addiderunt super stitiones. In process of time they have 
added so many superstitions, they be rather semi-christians than otherwise. 
That which remains is the Western Church with us in Europe, but so eclipsed 
with several schisms, heresies and superstitions, that one knows not where 
to find it. The papists have Italy, Spain, Savoy, part of Germany, France, 
Poland, and a sprinkling in the rest of Europe. In America, they hold all 
that which Spaniards inhabit, Hispania Nova, Castella Aurea, Peru, &c. In 
the East Indies, the Philippinse, some small holds about Goa, Malacca, Zelan, 
Ormus, &c., which the Portuguese got not long since, and those land-leaping 
Jesuits have essayed in China, Japan, as appears by their yearly letters; in 
Africa they have Melinda, Quiloa, Mombaze, &c., and some few towns, they 
drive out one superstition with another. Poland is a receptacle of all religions, 
where Samosetans, Socinians, Photinians (now protected in Transylvania and 
Poland) Arrians, anabaptists are to be found, as well as in some German cities. 

a Alex. ab. Alex. lib. 6. cap. 26. b Purchas Pilgrim, lib. 1. c. 3. '^lAh.Z. d 2 part, sect 3. lib. 1. 
C'p. et deinceps. ^ Titelmannus. Maginus. Bredenb^i chins. Fr. Aluaresius, Itin. de Abj'ssinis. Herbis 

.solum vescuntur votarii, aquis mento tenus dormiunt, &c. f Bredenbacliius Jod. a Meggen. ^See 

Passevinus Herbastein, Magin. D. Fletcher, Jovius, Hacluit, Purchas, &c., of their errors. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Causes of Religious Melancholy. 669 

Scandia is Christian, but ^Damianus A -Goes, the Portugal knight, complains, 
so mixed with magic, pagan rites and ceremonies, they may be as well counted 
idolaters : what Tacitus formerly said of a like nation, is verified in them, 
" ^ A people subject to superstition, contrary to religion." And some of them 
as about Lapland and the Pilapians, the devil's possession, to this day, Miser a 
/ioec ^e/i5 (saith mine ^•a,\ii\\ov) Satance hactenus possessio — et quod maxime 
mirandam et dolendum, ancl which is to be admired and pitied; if any of them 
be baptised, which the kings of Sweden much labour, they die within seven or 
nine days after, and for that cause they will hardly be brought to Christi- 
anity, but worship still the devil, Avho daily appears to them. In their idola- 
trous courses, Gaudentibus diis patriis quos religiose coliud, &c. Yet 
are they very superstitious, like our wild Irish : though they of the better 
note, the kings of Denmark and Sweden themselves, that govern them, be 
Luthercins; the remnant are Calvinists, Lutherans, in Germany equally mixed. 
And yet the emperor himself, dukes of Lorraine, Bavaria, and the princes 
electors, are most part professed papists. And though some parts of France 
and Ireland, Great Britain, half the cantons in Switzerland, and the Low Coun- 
tries, be Calvinists, more defecate than the rest, yet at odds amongst them- 
selves, not free from superstition. And which ^Brochard, the monk, in his 
description of the Holy Land, after he had censured the Greek church, and 
showed their errors, concluded at last, Faxit Deus ne Latinis multce irrepse- 
rint stultitice, I say God grant there be no fopperies in our church. As a dam 
of water stopped in one place breaks out into another, so doth superstition. I 
say nothing of Anabaptists, Socinians, Brownists, Barrowists, Famihsts, &c. 
There is superstition in our prayers, often in our hearing of sermons, bitter 
contentions, invectives, persecutions, strange conceits, besides diversity of 
opinions, schisms, factions, &c. But as the Lord (Job cap. xlii. v. 7.) said to 
Eliphaz, the Temanite, and his two friends, " his wrath was kindled against 
them, for they had not spoken of him things that were right :" we may justly 
of these schismatics and heretics, hov/ wise soever in their own conceits, no7i 
recte loquuntar de Deo, they speak not, they think not, they write not well of 
God, and as they ought. And therefore. Quid quceso, mi JJorpi, as Erasmus 
concludes to Dor^^ius, hisce Theologis faciamus, aut quid preceris, nisi forte 
fidelem medicum, qui cerehro medeatur'^ What shall we wish them hvM^sanam 
mentem, and a good physician] But more of their differences, paradoxes, 
opinions, mad pranks, in the symptoms : I now hasten to the causes. 

SuBSECT II. — Causes of Religious melancholy. From the devil by 7nirades, 
apparitions, oracles. His instruments or factors, politicians, Priests, Im- 
postors, Heretics, blind guides. In them simplicily, fear, blind zeal, igno- 
rance, solitariness, curiosity , pride, vain-glory, presumption, <^c. his engines, 
fasting, solitariness, hope, fear, ^c. 

We are taught in Holy Scripture, that the " Devil rangeth abroad like a 
roaring lion, still seeking whom he may devour:" and as in several shapes, so 
by several engines and devices he goeth about to seduce us ; sometimes he 
transforms himself into an angel of light; and is so cunning that he is able, 
if it were possible, to deceive the very elect. He will be worshipped, as "^ Gocl 
himself, and is so adored by the heathen, and esteemed. And in imitation of 
that divine power, as "Eusebius observes, °to abuse or emulate God's glory, 
as Dandinus adds, he will have all homage, sacrifices, oblations, and whatso- 

hDeplorat. Gentis Lapp. i Gens superstitioni obnoxia, religionibus adversa. kBoissardiis de Magia. 
Intra septimum aut nonum a baptismo diem moriuntur. Hinc tit, &c. 'Cap. de Incolis terrae sancta;. 

™ Plato in Crit. Diemones custodes sunt honiinum et eorum doniini, ut nos animalium ; nee hominibus, sed 
et regionibus imperant, vaticiniis, auguriis, nos regunt. Idem fere .Max. Tyrius, ser. 1. et 26. 27. medics vult 
dffimones inter Deos et homines deorum ministros, presides hominum, a coelo ad homines descendentes. 
" De prteparat. Evangel. <> Vel in abusum Dei vei in semulationem. Dandinus, com. in lib. 2. Ai-ist. de 

An. Text. 29. 



670 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3, Sec. 4. 

ever else belongs to tlie worship of God, to be done likewise unto him, similis 
erit altissimo, and by this means infatuates the world, deludes, entraps, and 
destroys many a thousand souls. Sometimes by dreams, visions (as God to 
Moses by familiar conference), the devil in several shapes talks with them : in 
the P Indies it is common, and in China nothing so familiar as apparitions, in- 
spirations, oracles, by terrifying them with false prodigies, counterfeit miracles, 
sending storms, tempests, diseases, plagues (as of old in Athens there was 
Apollo Alexicacus, Apollo XoifLiog, pestifer et malorum depiilsor), raising wars, 
seditions by spectrums, troubling their consciences, driving them to despair, 
terrors of mind, intolerable pains; by promises, rewards, benefits, and fair 
means, he raiseth such an opinion of his deity and greatness, that they dare 
not do otherwise than adore him, do as he will have them, they dare not offend 
him. And to compel them more to stand in awe of him, "^ he. sends and 
cures diseases, disquiets their spirits (as Cyprian saith), torments and terrifies 
their souls, to make them adore him : and all his study, all his endeavour is to 
divert them from true religion to superstition : and because he is damned him- 
self, and in an error, he would have all the world participate of his errors, and 
be damned with him. The iwimum mobile, therefore, and first mover of all 
superstition, is the devil, that great enemy of mankind, the principal agent, 
who in a thousand several shapes, after diverse fashions, with several engines, 
illusions, and by several names hath deceived the inhabitants of the earth, in 
several places and countries, still rejoicing at their falls. " All the world over 
before Christ's time, he freely domineered, and held the. souls of men in most 
slavish subjection (saith ^Eusebius) in diverse forms, ceremonies, and sacrifices, 
till Christ's coming," as if those devils of the air had shared the earth amongst 
them, which the Platonists held for gods (^ Ludus deorum sumus), and were 
our governors and keepers. In several places, they had several rites, orders, 
names, of which read Wierus de prcestigiis dcemonum, lib. 1. cap. 5. ^Strozius, 
Cicogua, and others; Adonided amongst the Syrians: Adramalech amongst 
the Capernaites, Asinine amongst the Emathites ; Astartes with the Sidonians ; 
Astaroth with theP.alestines; Dagon with the Philistines; Tartary with the 
Hanaei; Melchonis amongst the Ammonites: Beli the Babylonians; Beelzebub 
and Baal with the Samaritans and Moabites; Apsis, Isis, and Osiris amongst 
the JEgypt ians ; Apollo Pythius at Delphos, Colophon, Ancyra, Cuma, Ery thra ; 
Jupiter in Crete, Venus at Cyprus, Juno at Carthage, -ZEsculapius at Epidaurus, 
Diana at Ephesus, Pallas at Athens, &c. And even in these our days, both 
in the East and West Indies, in Tartary, China, Japan, &c., what strange 
idols, in what prodigious forms, with what absurd ceremonies are they adored ? 
What strange sacraments, like ours of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, what 
goodly temples, priests, sacrifices they had in America, when the Spaniards 
first landed there, let Acosta the Jesuit relate, lib. 5. cap. 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., and 
how the devil imitated the Ark and the children of Israel's coming out of 
Egypt ; with many such. For as Lipsius well discourseth out of the doctrine 
of the Stoics, maxime cupiunt adorationem hominum, now and of old, they still 
and most especially desire to be adored by men. See but what Yertomannus, 
/. 5. c. 2. Marcus Polus, Lerius, Benzo, P. Martyr in his Ocean Decades, 
Acosta, and Mat. Biccius, Expedit. Christ, in Sinas, lib. 1. relate. ^Eusebius 
wonders how that wise city of Athens, and flourishing kingdoms of Greece, 
should be so besotted ; and we in our times, how those witty Chinese, so per- 

P Dsemones consulunt, etfamiliareshabent dfemonespleriquesacerdotes. Riccius,lib. 1. cap. 10. Expedit. 
Sinar. ivitam turban t, somnos inquietant, ii-repentes etiara in corpora mentes terrent, valetudinera 

frangunt, morbos lacessunt, ut ad cultum sui cogant, nee aliud his stadium, quam ut a vera religione, ad 
suDerstitionem vertant; cum sint ipsi poenales, quaerunt sibi ad pocnas comites, ut habeant erroris participes. 
''lAh. 4. praeparat. Evangel, c. Tantamque vicloriam amentia hominum consequuti sunt, utsi colligere in 
unum veils, universum orbem istis scelestibus spiritibus subjectum fuisse invenies ; Usque ad Salvatoria 
adventum hominum casdeperniciosissimos da'mones placabant, A:c. ^ Plato. tstrozius, Cicogna, omnif. 
mag. lib. 3. cap. 7. Ezek. viii. 4; Keg. xi. 4. Keg. 3, et 17. 4. Jer. xlix,: Num. xi. 3; Reg. xiii. 
^Li\>. 4. cap. 8. de prsepar. evangel. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Causes of Religious Melanchohj. 671 

spicacious in all other tilings slionld be so gulled, so tortured with superstition, 
so blind as to worship stocks and stones. But it is no marvel, when we see 
all out as great effects amongst Christians themselves ; how are those Ana- 
baptists, Arians, and Papists above the rest, miserably infatuated ! Mars, 
Jupiter, Apollo, and ^sculapius, have resigned their interest, names, and 
offices to St. George, 

"^ (Maxime bellornm rector, quem nostra juventus 
Pro ilavorte colit.)" 

St. Christopher, and a company of fictitious saints, Yenus to the Lady of 
Loretto, And as those old Romans had several distinct gods, for diverse 
offices, persons, places, so have they saints, as ^Lavater well observes out of 
Lactantius, mutato nomine tantum, 'tis the same spirit or devil that deludes 
them still. The manner how, as I say, is by rewards, promises, terrors, 
affrights, punishments. In a word, fair and foul means, hope and fear. 
" How often hath Jupiter, Apollo, Bacchus, and the rest, sent plagues in 
^ Greece and Italy, because their sacrifices were neglected?" 

'"^Dii multa neglect! dederunt 
Hesperi^e mala luctuosce." 

to terrify them, to arouse them up, and the like: see but Livy, Dionysius 
HalicarnassEeus, Thucydides, Pausanias, Philostratus, '^ Poly bins, before the 
battle of Cannse, prodigiis, sig?iis, ostentis, templa cwrtcta, privaim etiam cedes 
scatehant. CEneus reigned in .^tolia, and because he did not sacrifice to Diana 
with his other gods (see more in Libanius his Diana), she sent a wild boar, 
insolitce magnitudinis, qui terras et homines misere depascehatur, to spoil both 
men and country, which was afterwards killed by Meleager. So Plutarch in 
the Life of Lucullus relates, how Mithridates, king of Pontus, at the siege of 
Cizicum, with all his navy, was overthrown by Proserpina, for neglecting of her 
holy day. She appeared in a vision to Aristagoras in tho night. Cras inquit 
tyhicinem Libicumcum tybicine Pontico cotmniticmi ("to-morrow I will cause a 
contest between a Lybian and a Pontic minstrel)," and the day following this 
enigma was understood ; for with a great south wind which came from Lybia, 
she quite overwhelmed Mithridates' army. "What prodigies and miracles, 
dreams, visions, predictions, apparitions, oracles, have been of old at Delphos, 
Dodona, Trophonius Denne, at Thebes, and Lebaudia, of Jupiter Ammon in 
Egypt, Amphiareus in Attica, &c. ; what strange cures performed by Apollo 
and ^sculapius 1 Juno's image and that of ^ Fortune spake, '^ Castor and 
Pollux fought in person for the Pomans against Hannibal's army, as Pallas, 
Mars, Juno, Yenus, for Greeks and Trojans, &c. Amongst our pseudo-catholics 
nothing so familiar as such miracles; how many cures done by our Lady of 
Loretto at Sichem! of old at our St. Thomas's shrine, <fcc. ^ St. Sabine was 
seen to fight for Arnulphus, duke of Spoleto. ® St. George fought in person 
for John the Bastard of Portugal, against the Castilians ; St, James for the 
Spaniards in America. In the battle of Bannockburn, where Edward the 
Second, our English king, was foiled by the Scots, St. Philanus' arm was seen 
to fight (if ^Hector Boethius doth not impose), that was before shut up in a 
silver capcase; another time, in the same author, St. Magnus fought for them. 
Now for visions, revelations, miracles, not only out of the legend, out of pur- 
gatory, but every daj^ comes news from the Indies, and at home read the 
Jesuits' Letters, Ribadeneira, Thurselinus, Acosta, Lippomanus, Xaverius, 
Ignatius' Lives, (fee, and tell me what difference ? 

His ordinary instruments or factors which he useth, as God himself did 

^Bapt. Mant. 4 Fast, de Sancto Georgio. "0 great master of war, whom otiryonths worship as if he 
were Mars self." y Part. I. cap. J. et lib. 2. cap. 9. zpoiyd, yij-g. lib. 1. deprodig. a,Kor. 1. 3. od. H. 
* Lib. 3. hist. b Grata lege me dicastis mulieres Dion Halicarn. "Tully de nat. deorum lib. 2. 

^qua Venus Teiicris, Pallas iniqua fuit. d Jo. IMolanus, lib. 3. cap. 59. ^Pet. Oliver, de Johanne 

primo Portugallise Rege strenue pugnans, et diversBe partis ictus clypeo excipiens. f L. 14. Lotulos 

sponte aperuisse et pro iis puguasse. 



672 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

good kings, lawful magistrates, patriarchs, prophets, to the establishing of his 
church, ^are politicians, statesmen, priests, heretics, blind guides, impostors, 
pseudo-prophets, to propagate his superstition. And first to begin of politicians, 
it hath ever been a principal axiom with them to maintain religion or supersti- 
tion, which they determine of, alter and vary upon all occasions, as to them 
seems best, they make religion mere policy, a cloak, a human invention, nihil 
ceque valet ad regendos vulgi aiiimos ac superstitio, as ^ Tacitus and ^ Tully hold. 
Austin /. 4. de civitat. Dei c. 9. censures Scsevola saying and acknowledging 
expedire civitates religione falli, that it was a fit thing cities should be deceived 
by religion, according to the diverb, Si mundus mdt deeipi, decipiatur, if the 
world will be gulled, let it be gulled, 'tis good howsoever to keep it in sub- 
jection. 'Tis that ^ Aristotle and ^ Plato inculcate in their politics, " Peligion 
neglected, brings plagues to the city, opens a gap to all naughtiness." 'Tis 
that which all our late politicians ingeminate. Cromerus, I. 2. pol. hist. 
Boterus, l.^.de incrementis urbium. Clapmarius, /. 2. cop. 9. de Arcanis rerum- 
pub. cap. 4. lib. 2.'polif. Captain Machiavel will have a prince by all means to 
counterfeit religion, to be superstitious in show at least, to seem to be devout, 
frequent holy exercises, honour divines, love the church, affect priests, as 
Numa, Lycurgus, and such law-makers were and did, noji ut hisjidem habeant, 
sed ut subditos religionis metufacilius in officio contineant. to keep people in 
obedience. ^Nam naturaliter (as Cardan writes), lex Christiana lex est pietatis, 
justitice,fidei, simplicitatis, &c. But this error of his, Innocentius Jentilettus, 
a French lawyer, theorem. 9. comment. 1. de Relig. and Thomas Bozius in his 
book de minis gentiwm et Regnorum have copiously confuted. Many politicians, 
I dare not deny, maintain religion as a true means, and sincerely speak of it 
■without hypocrisy, are truly zealous and religious themselves. Justice and 
religion are the two chief props and supporters of a well-governed common- 
wealth ; but most of them are bnt Machiavelians, counterfeits only for political 
ends; for solus rex (which Campanella, cap. 18. atheismi triumphati observes), 
as amongst our modern Turks, reipub. JFinis, as knowing ^magnwni ejus in 
animos imperiurn; and that, as °Sabellicus delivers, " Aman without religion, 
is like a horse without a bridle." ISTo way better to curb than superstition, to 
terrify men's consciences, and to keep them in awe: they make new laws, 
statutes, invent new religions, ceremonies, as so many stalking horses, to their 
ends. ^ Hcec enim (religio) si falsa sit, dummodo vera credatur, animorum 
ferociam domat, libidines coercet, subditos principi obsequentes efficit.^ There- 
fore (saith^'Polybius of Lycurgus), "did he maintain ceremonies, not that he 
was superstitious himself, but that he perceived mortal m.en more apt to embrace 
paradoxes than aught else, and durst attempt no evil things for fear of the 
gods." This was Zamolcus's stratagem amongst the Thracians, Numa's plot, 
when he said he had conference with the nymph ^geria, and that of Sertorius 
with a hart ; to get more credit to their decrees, by deriving them from the 
gods; or else they did all by divine instinct, which Nicholas Damascen well 
observes of Lycurgus, Solon, and Minos, they had their laws dictated, monte 
sacro, by Jupiter himself So Mahomet referred his new laws to the ^ angel 
Gabriel, by whose direction he gave out they were made. Caligula in Dion 
feigned himself to be familiar with Castor and Pollux, and many t^uch, which 
kept those Romans under (who, as Machiavel proves, lib. 1. disput. cap. 11. et 
12. were Religione maxime moti, most superstitious) : and did curb the people 

8 Eelij^on, as they hold, is policy, invented alone to keep men in awe. h 1 . Annal. i Omnes religione 
moventur. 5. in Verrem. k Zeletichus, praefat. legis qui urbem aut regionem inhaoitant, persuasos esse 

oportet esse Deos. 1 10. de legibus. Religio neglecta masimam pestem in civitatem infert, omnium 

scelerum fenestram aperit. "^Cardanus, Com. in Ptolomeum quadiipart. ^Lipsius, 1. 1. c. 3, 

<* Homo sine religione, sicut equus sine fraeno. P Vaninus, dial. 52. de oraculis. *1 " If a religion be 

false, only let it be supposed to be true, and it will tame mental femcity, restrain lusts, and make loyal sub- 
jects." '^Lib. 10. Ideo Lycurgus, &c. non quod ipse superstitiosus, sed quod videret mortales paradoxa 
facilius amplecti, nee res graves audere sine periculo deorum. ^ Cleonaidus, epist. 1. Kovas leges suaa 
ad Angelum Gabrielem referebat, quo monitore mentiebatur omnia se gei'ere. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Causes of Religious Melancholy. 673 

more by this means, than by force of arms, or severity of human laws. Sola 
plebecula earn agnoscebat (saith Yaninus, dial. 1 . lib. 4. de admirandis naturce 
arcanis) speaking of religion, quce facile decipitur, magnates vero et pliilosophi 
nequaquam, your grandees and philosophers had no such conceit, sed ad 
imperii conformationem et amplificationem quam sine prcetextu religionis tueri 
non poterant; and many thousands in all ages have ever held as much, Philo- 
sophers especially, animadvertebant hi sennper hcec esse fabellas, attamen ob 
Qiietum puhliccB potestatis silere cogebantur, they were still silent for fear of laws, 
etc. To this end that Syrian Phyresides, Pythagoras his master, broached in 
the East amongst the heathens, first the immortality of the soul, as Trismegistus 
did in Egypt, with a many of feigned gods. Those French and Briton Druids 
in the West first taught, saith * Caesar, non interire animas (that souls did not 
die), "but after death to go from one to another, that so they might encourage 
them to virtue." 'Twas for a politic end, and to this purpose the old "poets 
feigned those Elysian fields, their ^acus, Minos, and E-hadamanthus, their 
infernal judges, and those Stygian lakes, fiery Phlegethons, Pluto's kingdom, 
and variety of torments after death. Those that had done v/ell, went to the 
Elysian fields, but evil doers to Cocytus,and to that burning lake of ^'hell with 
file and brimstone for ever to be tormented. 'Tis this which ^Plato labours 
for in his Phsedon, et^. de rep. The Turks in their Alcoran, when they set 
down rewards, and several punishments for every particular virtue and vice, 
^ when they persuade men, that they that die in battle shall go directly to 
heaven, but wicked livers to eternal torment, and all of all sorts (much like 
our papistical purgatory), for a set time shall be tortured in their graves, as 
appears by that tract which John Baptista Alfaqui, that Mauritanian priest, 
now turned Christian, hath written in his confutation of the Alcortin. After 
a man's death two black angels, Nunquir and Nequir (so they call them) come 
to him to his grave and punish him for his precedent sins; if he lived well, 
they tortui-e him the less; if ill, per indesinentes cruciatus ad diem judicii, they 
incessantly punish him to the day of judgment. iVemo viventium qui ad 
horum mentionem non totus horretet co7itremiscit, the thought of this crucifies 
them all tlieir lives long, and makes them spend their days in fasting and 
prayer, ne mala hcec continuant, &c. A Tartar prince, saith Marcus Polus, 
lib. 1. cap. 28. called Senex de Montibus, the better to establish his govern- 
ment amongst his subjects, and to keep them in awe, found a convenient place 
in a pleasant valley, environed with hills, in "''^" which 'he made a delicious 
park full of odoriferous flowers and fruits, and a palace of all worldly contents," 
that could possibly be devised, music, pictures, variety of meats, &c., and 
chose out a certain young man, whom with a ^soforiferous potion he so 
benumbed, that he perceived nothing : " and so fast asleep as he was, caused 
him to be conveyed into this fair garden;" where after he had lived awhile 
in all such pleasures a sensual man could desire, " '^He cast him into a sleep 
again, and brought him forth, that when he awaked he might tell others he 
had been in Paradise." The like he did for hell, and by this means brought 
his people to subjection. Because heaven and hell are mentioned in the scrip- 
tures, and to be believed necessary by Christians : so cunningly can the devil 
and his ministers, in imitation of true religion, counterfeit and forge the like, 
to circumvent and delude his superstitious followers. Manj^ such tricks and 
impostures are acted by politicians, in Cliina especially, but with what efiect 
I will discourse in the symptoms. 

t Lib. 16. belli Gallici. Ut metu mortis neglecto, ad virtutem incitavent. ^ De his lege Luciannm de luctu 
torn. 1. Homer. Odyss. 11. Xiva. JEn. 6 ^Baratheo sulfurc et flamnia stagnante geternum demergebaniur. 
y Kt3. de repub. omnis institutio adolescentum eo refereuca ut de deo bene sentiant ob commiir.e bonum. 
^ Roterus. * Citra aqnam, vividai iurn plantavit maximum et pulcherrimum, floribus odoriferis et suavibus 
plenum, &c. ^Potumquendam dedit quo inescatus, ct gravi sopore oppressas, in viridarium interim 

ducebatur, &c. b Atque iterum memoratum potum bibendimi esliibuit, et sic extra Paradisum reduxit 

ut cum evigilaret, sopore soluto, &c. 

2 X 



G7i lidiyious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

Next to politicians, if I may distiiiguisli them, are some of our priests (v/lio 
make religion policy), if not far beyond them, for they domineer over princes 
and statesmen themselves. Carnijicinam exercent, one saith they tyrannise 
over men's consciences more than any other tormentors whatsoever, partly for 
their commodity and gain; Religionum enim omnium ahusus (as ''Postellns 
holds), qucBstus scilicet sacrijicum in causa est: for sovereignty, credit, to 
maintain their state and reputation, out of ambition and avarice, which are 
their chief supporters ; what have they not made the common people believe? 
Impossibilities in nature, incredible things; what devices, traditions, cere- 
monies, have they not invented in all ages to keep men in obedience, to enrich , 
themselves'? Quihus quccstui sunt ca2?ti supersiitione animi, as ^Livy saith. 
Those Egyptian priests of old got all the sovereignty into their hands, and 
knowing, as ^Curtius insinuates, nulla res efficacius multitudinem regit quam 
superstitio ; melius vatious qucim ducibus parent, vand religione capti, etiam 
impotentes fveminai ; the common people will sooner obey priests than captains, 
and nothing so forcible as superstition, or better than blind zeal to rule a 
multitude; have so terrified and gulled them, that it is incredible to relate. 
All nations almost have been besotted in this kind; amongst our Britons and 
old Gauls the Druids; magi in Persia; philosophers in Greece; Chaldeans 
amongst the Oriental; Brachmanni in India; Gymnosophists in Ethiopia; the 
Turditanes in Spain ; Augurs in Home, have insulted ; Apollo's priests in 
Greece, Phsebades and Pythonissaa, by their oracles and phantasms ; Araphi- 
arius and his companions ; now mahometan and pagan priests, what can they 
not effect ? E[ow do they not infatuate the world? Adeo uhique (as *Scaliger 
writes of the mahometan priests), turn gentium turn locoriim,gens ista sacrorum 
tninistra vulyi secat spes ad ea quce ipsi fingunt soninia, " so cnnningiy can 
they gull the commons in all places and countries.'' But above all others 
that high priest of Home, the dam of that monstrous and superstitious brood, 
the bull-bellowing pope, which now rageth in the West, that three-headed 
Cerberus hath played his part. " ^ Whose religion at this day is mere policy, 
a state wholly composed of superstition and wit, and needs nothing but wit and 
superstition to maintain it, that useth colleges and religious houses to as good 
purpose as forts and castles, and doth more at this day " by a company of 
scribbling parasites, fiery-spirited friars, zealous anchorites, hypocritical con 
fessors, and those pretorian soldiers, his Janissary Jesuits, and that dissociable 
society, as^Langius terms it, postremus diaboli con'Uiis et scecidi excrementumy 
that now stand in the fore front of the battle, will have a monopoly af, and 
engross all other learning, but domineer in divinity,^ Excipiimtsoli totius vulnera 
belli, and fight alone almost (for the rest are but his dromedaries and asses), 
than ever he could have done by garrisons and armies. What power of prince 
or penal law, be it never so strict, could enforce men to do that which for con- 
science'-sake they v/ill voluntarily undergo 'I As to fast from all flesh, abstain 
from marriage, rise to their prayersat midnight, whip themselves, with stupend- 
ous fasting and penance, abandon the v/orld, v/ilfui poverty, perform canonical 
and blind obedience, to prostrate their goods, fortunes, bodies, lives, and offer 
up themselves at their superiors' feet, at his command? What so powerful an 
engine as superstition? which they right well perceiving, are of no religion at 
all themselves: Primum enim (as Calvin rightly suspects, the tenor and 
practice of their life proves), arcance illius theologicB, quod apiid eos regnaty 
caput est, nidluTti esse deum, they hold there is no God, a,s Leo X. did, Hilde- 
brand the magician, Alexander YI., Julius II., mere atheists, and which the 
common proverb amongst them approves, " ^ The worst Christians of Italy are 

^c Lib. 1. de orb. Concord, cap. 7. dLib. 4. ^Lib. 4. f Exerc. 228. SS. Ed. Sands. hin 

consult, de princ. icter provinc. Europ i Lucian. '■ By themselves sustain the bruut of every battle." 

k i. Ed. Sands in his Kelafion. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 2.] Causes of Religious MelanchJy. 675 

tlie Romans, of the Romans tlie priests are wildest, the lewdest priests are 
preferred to be cardinals, and the baddest man amongst the cardinals is 
chosen to be pope," that is an epicure, as most part the popes are, infidels 
and Lucianists, for so they think and believe ; and what is said of Chri st to 
be fables and impostures, of heaven and hell, day of judgment, paradise, 
immortality of the soul, are all, 

"IRaraores vacui, verbaqne ininia, 
Et par soilicito fabuia somnio." 

'• Dreams, toys, and old wives' tales." Yet as so many "^ whetstones to make 
other tools cut, but cut not themselves, though they be of no religion at all, 
they will make others most devout and superstitious, by promises and threats, 
compel, enforce from, and lead them by the nose like so many bears in a line ; 
when as their end is not to propagate the church, advance God's kingdom, 
seek His glory or common good, but to enrich themselves, to enlarge their 
territories, to domineer and compel them to stand in awe, to live in subjection 
to the See of Rome. For what othervf ise care they ? Si mundus vult decipi, 
decipiatur, " since the world wishes to be gulled, let it be gulled," 'tis fit it 
should be so. And for which "Austin cites Yarro to maintain his Roman 
religion, we may better apply to them : multa vera, quce vulgus scire non est 
utile; pier aque falsa ^ quce tanie)i aliter existimare populuni expedit ; some 
things are true, some false, which for their own ends they will not have the 
guUish commonalty take notice of. As well may witness their intolerable 
covetousness, strange forgeries, fopperies, fooleries, unrighteous subtleties, 
impostures, illusions, new doctrines, paradoxes, traditions, false miracles, 
which they have still forged, to enthral, circumvent and subjugate them, to 
maintain their own estates. °One while by bulls, pardons, indulgences, and 
their doctrines of good works, that they be meritorious, hope of heaven, by 
that means they have so fleeced the commonalty, and spurred on this free 
superstitious horse, that he runs himself blind, and is an ass to carry burdens. 
They have so amplified Peter's patrimony, that from a poor bishop, he is become 
Eex Regum, Dominus dominantium, a demigod, as his canonists make him 
(Felinus and the rest), above God himself. And for his wealth and ^temporali- 
ties, is not inferior to many kings: ^his cardinals, princes' companions: and 
in every kingdom almost, abbots, friars, monks, friars, (fee, and his clergy, 
have engrossed a ^' third part, half, in some places all, into their hands. Three 
princes, electors in Germany, bishops; besides Magdeburg, Spire, Saltsbiu'g, 
Breme, Bamberg, &c. In France, as Bodine, lib. de repub. gives us to under- 
stand, their revenues are 12,300,000 livTres; and of twelve parts of the reve- 
nues in France, the church possesseth seven. The Jesuits, a new sect, begun 
in this age, have, as ^Middendorpius and ^Pelargus reckon up, three or four 
hundred colleges in Europe, and more revenues than many princes. In France, 
as Arnoldus proves, in thirty ycixrs they have got bis centum librarum millia 
annua, 200,000/. I say nothing of the rest of their orders. We have had 
in England, as Armachanns demonstrates, above 30,000 friars at once, and as 
"Speed collects out of Leland and others, almost 600 religious houses, and 
near 200,000/. in revenues of the old rent belonging to them, besides images 
of gold, silver, plate, furniture, goods and ornaments, as ^Weever calculates, 
and esteems them at the dissolution of abbeys, worth a million of gold. How 
many towns in every kingdom hath superstition enriched ^ Yfhat a deal of 
money by musty relics, images, idolatry, have their mass-priests engrossed, 

1 Seneca. ™ Vice coti«, acutiun Reddere qnje ferrum valet, exors ipsa secandi. ^ De civ. 

Dei, lib. 4. cap. 31 . » Seelving their ovm, saith Paul, not Christ's. P he hath the Duchy of Spoleto ia 

Italy, theMarquisate of Ancona, beside Kome, and the territories adjacent, Bologna, Ferrara, &c. Avi- 
gnon in France, &c. lEstote fratres mei, et principes hujus mundi. ^I'he Laity suspect i^ ■';■ greatness, 
witne>s those statutes of moi tmain. ^ lj^,, j<. dg Academ. t Prgefat. lib. de paradox, o e-oii t-llom. 

provincia habet Col. 36. Neapol. 23. Veneta 13. Lucit. 1-5. India orient. 27. BrasiL 20, &c " iu liia 

Clirouic. vit. Hen. 8. ^ 15. cap. of his funeral monuments. 



C76 Eeligious Melancholy. fPart. 3. Svx. 4. 

and what sums have they scraped by their other tricks ! Loretto in Italy, 
Walsingham in England, in those days, TJhi omnia auro nitent, " where every- 
thing shines with gold," saith Era|>mus, St, Thomas's shrine, &c., may witness. 
^' Delphos so renowned of old in Greece for Apollo's oracle, Delos commune 
conciliabulivm et emporium sold religione munitum; Dodona, whose fame and 
wealth were sustained by religion, were not so rich, so famous. If they can 
get but a relic of some saint, the Virgin Mary's picture, idols or the like, that 
city is for ever made, it needs no other maintenance. Now if any of these 
their impostures or juggling tricks be controverted, or caJled in question: if a 
magnanimous or zealous Luther, an Heroical Luther, as ^Dithmarus calls 
him, dare touch the monks' bellies, all is in a combustion, all is in an uproar : 
Demetrius and his associates are ready to pull him in pieces, to keep up 
their trades, "^ Great is Diana of the Ephesians:" with a mighty shout of two 
hours long they will roar and not be pacified. 

Now for their authority, what by auricular confession, satisfaction, penance, 
Peter's keys, thunderings, excommunications, &c., roaring bulls, this high 
priest of Home, shaking his Gorgon's head, hath so terrified the soul of many 
a silly man, insulted over majesty itself, and swaggered generally over all 
Europe for many ages, and still doth to some, holding them as yet in slavish 
subjection, as never tyrannising Spaniards did by their poor negroes, or Turks 
by their galley-slaves. ""The bishop of Rome (saith Stapleton, a parasite 
of his, de Mag. Eccles. lib. 2. cap. 1.) hath done that without arms, which those 
Koman emperors could never achieve with forty legions of soldiers," deposed 
kings, and crowned them again with his foot, made friends, and corrected at 
his pleasure, &c. ^'Tis a wonder, saith Machiavel, Floreatince his. lib. 1. 
" what slavery King Henry II. endured for the death of Thomas h. Beckett, 
what thiugs he was enjoined by the Pope, and how he submitted himself to do 
that which in our times a private man would not endure," and all through 
superstition. <^ Henry IV. disposed ofhis empire, stood barefooted with his wife 
at the gates of Canossus. ^Frederic the Emperor was trodden on by Alexander 
III., another held Adrian's stirrup, King John kissed the knees of Pandulphos 
the Pope's legate, &c. WJiat made so many thousand Christians travel from 
France, Britain, &;c , into the Holy Land, spend such huge sums of money, go 
a pilgrimage so familiarly to Jerusalem, to creep and crouch, but slavish super- 
stition? What makes them so freely venture their lives, to leave their native 
countries, to go seek martyrdom ia the Indies, but superstition? to be assas- 
sins, to meet death, murder kings, but a false persuasion of merit, of canonical 
or blind obedience which they instil into them, and animate them by strange 
illusions, hope of being martyrs and saints ? such pr.;tty feats can the devil 
work by priests, and so well for their own advantage can they play their parts. 
And if it were not yet enough, by priests and politicians to delude mankind, 
and crucify the souls of men, he hath more actors in his tragedy, more irons 
in the fire, another scene of heretics, factious, ambitious witSj insolent spirits, 
schismatics, impostors, false prophets, blind guides, that out of pride, singu- 
larity, vain-glory, blind zeal, cause much more madness yet, set all in an uproar 
by their new doctrines, paradoxes, figments, crotchets, make new divisions, 
subdivisions, new sects, oppose one superstition to another, one kingdom to 
another, commit prince and subjects, brother against brother, father against 
son, to the ruin and destruction of a commonwealth, to the disturbance of 
peace, and to make a general confusion of iill estates. How did those Arrians 

y Paiisanias in Laconicis, lib. 3. Idem de Achaicis, liL. 7. cujus sninmas opes, et valde inclyta fama. 
^Exercit. Eth. Colleg. 3. disp. 3. ^ Act. xix. 28. b Poiitifex Komanus prorsus inermis regibns terraa 

jura dat, ad recna eveliit, ad pacem cogit, etpeccantcs castigat, <tc. qtiod iniperatores Komaiii 40. legionibua 
armati rion effecerunt. ^'Mirum quanta passus sit H. 2.. qnoinodo dC subuiisit, ea se facturum pollicitiis, 

quoriun hodie ne privatus quidem £avt.cra fiicevct. d sigouius, 4. hist. ItaL ^ (..uvio, lib. 3. Fox ilartyrol 



Mem. 1. Subs, 2.] Causes of Religious Melanclioly. G77 

rage of old'? how many did they circumvent ? Those Pelagians, Manicliees, 
&c., their names alone would make a just volume. How many silly souls 
have impostors still deluded, drawn away, and quite alienated from Christ! 
Lucian's Alexander Simon Magus, whose statue was to be seen and adored in 
Ptome, saith Justin Martyr, Simoni deo Sancto, &c,, after his decease. ^Apol- 
lonius Tiaiiseus, Cynops, Eumo, who by counterfeitiDg some new ceremonies 
and juggling tricks of that Dea Syria, by spitting fire, and the like, got an 
army together of 40,000 men, and did much harm: with Eudo de stellis, of 
whom Nubrigensis speaks, lib. 1. cap. 19. that in King Stephen's days imitated 
most of Christ's miracles, fed I know not how many people in the wilderness, 
and built castles in the air, &c,, to the seducing of multitudes of poor souls. 
In Franconia, 1476, a base illiterate fellow took u})on him to be a prophet, and 
preach, John Beheim by name, a neatherd at Nicholhausen, he seduced 30,000 
jiersons, and was taken by the commonalty to be a most holy man, come from 
heaven. "^Ti-adesmen left their shops, women their distaffs, servants ran 
from thoir masters, children from their parents, scholars left their tutors, all 
to hear 1dm, some for novelty, some for zeal. He was burnt at- ^ast by the 
Bishop of Wartzburg, and so he and his heresy vanished together." How 
many such impostors, false prophets, have lived in every king's reign? what 
chronicles will not afford such examples? that as so many ignes fatui, have 
led men out oi the way, terrified some, deluded others, that are apt to be 
c irried about by the blast of every wind, a rude inconstant multitude, a silly 
company of poor souls, that follow all, and are cluttered together like so many 
pebbles in a tide. What prodigious follies, madness, vexatious, pereecutions, 
absurdities, impossibilities, these impostors, heretics, &c,, have thrust upon 
the world, what strange effects shall be shown in the symptoms. 

Now the means by which, or advantages the devil and his infernal ministers 
take, so to delude and disquiet the world with such idle ceremonies, false doc- 
trines, superstitious fopperies, are from themselves, innate fear, ignorance, 
simplicity, hope and fear, those two battering cannons and principal engines, 
with their objects, reward and punishment, purgatory, Limbus Pati^um, &c. 
which now more than ever tyrannise ; "^for what province is free from 
atheism, superstition, idolatry, schism, heresy, impiety, their factors and fol- 
lowers? thence they proceed, and from that same decayed image of God, 
which is yet remaining in us. 

" iOs homini suWhne ctedit, coelumquetueii 
Jussit." 

Our own conscience doth dictate so much unto us, we know theie is a God 
and nature doth inform w^i^NvUa gens tarn harbara (saith Tully) cui non insi- 
deat hcec persuasio Deuni esse; sed nee Scytha, nee GrcBcus, nee Persa, neo 
Ilyperboreus dissentiet (as Maximus Tyrius the Platonist, ser. 1. farther adds), 
Qiec continentis nee insularum habitator, let him dwell where he will, in what 
coast soever, there is no nation so barbarous that is not persuaded there is a 
God. It is a wonder to read of that infinite superstition amongst the Indians 
in this kind, of their tenets in America, pro sua quisque libitu varias res ve7ie- 
rabantur superstitiose, plantas, animalia, mantes, &c, omote quod amabant atit 
horrebant (some few places excepted as he grants, that had no God at all,) So 
"the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament declares his handy 
work," Psalm xix. "Every creature will evince it;" Prcesentemque refert 
quoilibet herba deum. Noleaies sciunt, fatentur inviti, as the said Tyrius pro- 
ceeds, will or nill, they must acknowledge it. The philosophers, Socrates, 

f Hierocles contends Apollonius to have been as great a prophet as Christ, whom Eusebius confutes. 
8 Munstar Cosmog. 1. 3. c. ,37. Artifices ex ofP.ciuis, arator e stiva, foemlnaB ^ colo, &c. quasi numine quodani 
rapti, nesciis parentibus et dominis recta adeunt, <fec. Combiistiis demum ab Herbipolensi Episcopo ; hajresis 
evanuit. h Nulla non provincia h^eresibus, Atheismis, &c. plena. NuUus orbis angulus ab hisce bellnis 

iin munis. iLib. 1. denat. Deorum. "He gave to man an upward gaze, commanding him to fix iiis 

eves on heaven." 



678 Eeligious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

Plato, Plotinus, Pythagoras, Trismegistus, Seneca, Epictetus, tliose Mao-i, 
Druids, &c. went as far as they could by the light of nature j ^multa x>rmdara, 
de naturd Dei scripta reliquerunt, "writ many things well of the nature of 
God, but they had but a confused light, a glimpse," 

"1 Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna 

Est iter in sj^lvis," 

*' as he that walks by moonshine in a wood," they groped in the dark ; they 
had a gross knowledge, as he in Euripides, Deus quicquid es, sive ccelum, 
sive terra, sive aliud quid, and that of Aristotle, Ens entium miserere mei. And 
so of the immortality of the soul, and future happiness. Immortalitatem 
animce (saith Hierom) Pythagoras smmiavlt, Democritus non credidit, iiiconso- 
lationem damnationis suce Socrates in carcere disputavit; Indus, Fersa, Cothiis, 
ha. Philosophantur. So some said thi'^, some that, as they conceived them- 
selves, which the devil perceiving, led them farther out (as'^^Lemnius observes) 
and made them worship him as their God with stocks and stones, and torture 
themselves to their own destruction, as he thought fit himself, inspired his 
priests and ministers with lies and fictions to prosecute the same, which they 
for their own ends were as willing to undergo, taking advantage of their sim- 
plicity, fear and ignorance. For the common people are as a flock of sheep, a 
rude, illiterate rout, void many times of common sense, a mere beast, bellua 
muhorum capitum, will go whithersoever they are led : as you lead a ram 
over a gap by the horns, all the rest will follow, ^Non qua eundum, sed qua 
itur, they will do as they see others do, and as their prince will have them, let 
him be of what religion he will, they are for him. Now for these idolaters, 
Maxentius and Licinius, then for Constantine a Christian. °Qui Christum 
negant, tnale pereant, acclamatum est Decies, for two hours' space j qui Christuoii 
non colunt, Augusti inimici sunt, acclamatum est ter decies; and by and by 
idolaters again under that Apostate Julianus; all Arrians under Constantius, 
good Catholics again under Jovinianus, "And little difierence there is between 
the discretion of men and children in this case, especially of old folks and 
women, as ^ Cardan discourseth, when as they are tossed with fear and super- 
stition, and with other men's folly and dishonesty." So that I may say their 
ignorance is a cause of their superstition, a symptom, and madness itself: 
Supplicii causa est, suppUciumque sui. Their own fear, folly, stupidity, to be 
deplored lethargy, is that which gives occasion to the other, and pulls these 
miseries on their own heads. For in all these religions and superstitions, 
amongst our idolaters, you shall find that the parties first affected, are silly, 
rude, ignorant people, old folks, that are naturally prone to superstition, weak 
women, or some poor, rude, illiterate persons, that are apt to be wrought U]^od, 
and gulled in this kind, prone without either examination or due consideration 
(for they take up religion a trust, as at mercers' they do their wares) to believe 
anything. And the best means they have to broach first, or to maintain it 
when they have done, is to keep them still in ignorance : for "ignorance is the 
mother of devotion," as all the world knows, and these times can amply 
witness. This hath been the devil's practice, and his infernal ministers' in all 
ages ; not as our Saviour by a few silly fishermen, to confound the wisdom of 
the world, to save publicans and sinners, but to make advantage of their igno- 
rance, to convert them and their associates; and that they may better effect 
what they intend, they begin, as I say, with poor "^stupid, illiterate persons. 
So Mahomet did when he published his Alcoran, which is a piece of work 

k Zanchius. 1 Virg. 6. ^n. ™ Superstitio ex ignorantia divinitatis emersit, ex vitiosa semulatione 

et dsemonis illecebris, inconstans, timens, fluctuans, et cui se addicat nesciens, quem imploret, qui se cora- 
imttat, a dsemone facile dectpta. Lemnius, lib. 3. c. 8. Ji Seneca. « yidg Baronium 3 Annalium ad 

annum 324. vit. Constantin. PDe rerum varietate, 1. 3. c. 38. Parum vero distat sapientia virorum a 

puerili, multo minus senum et mulierum, cum metu et siipevstitione et aliena stulcitia et improbitate sim- 
piices agitantur. ^In all superstition wise meu follow fools. Bacon's Essays. 



Mein. 1. Suus. 2.] Causes of Religious MelanchJrf. 67 D 

(saith ^Bredenbacliius) ''full of nonsense, barbarism, confusion, without rhyme, 
reason, or any good composition, first published to a company of rude rustics, 
hog-rubbers, that had no discretion, j udgment, art, or understanding, and is so 
still maintained." For it is a part of their policy to let no man comment, dare 
to dispute or call in question to this day any part of it, be it never so absurd, 
incredible, ridiculous, fabulous as it is, must be believed implicite, upon pain of 
death no man must dare to contradict it, ''' God and the emperor," &c. What 
else do our papists, but by keeping the people in ignorance vent and broach all 
their new ceremonies and traditions, when they conceal the scripture, read it 
in Latin, and to some few alone, feeding the slavish people in the meantime 
■with tales out of legends, and such like fabulous narrations ] Whom do they 
begin with but collapsed ladies, some few tradesmen, superstitious old folks, 
illiterate persons, weak women, discontent, rude, silly companions, or sooner 
circumvent "? so do all our schismatics and heretics. Marcus and Yalentiniau, 
heretics, in ^Irenseus, seduced first I know not how many women, and made 
them believe they were prophets. * Friar Cornelius of Dort seduced a com- 
pany of silly women. What are all our anabaptists, brownists, barrowists, 
familists, but a company of rude, illiterate, capricious, base fellows? What are 
most of our papists, but stupid, ignorant and blind bayards? how should they 
otherwise be, when as they are brought uj) and kept still in darkness? " ^If 
their pastors (saith Lavater) had done their duties, and instructed their flocks 
as they ought, in the principles of Christian religion, or had not forbidden them 
the reading of scriptures, they had not been as they are." But being so 
misled all their lives in superstition, and carried hood- winked like hawks, how- 
can they prove otherwise than blind idiots, and superstitious asses ? what else 
shall we expect at their hands? i^^ either is it sufficient to keep them blind, and 
in Cimmerian darkness, but withal, as a schoolmaster doth by his boys, to make 
them follow their books, sometimes by good hope, promises and encourage- 
ments, but most of all by fear, strict discipline, severity, threats and punish- 
ments, do they collogue and soothe up their silly auditors, and so bring them 
into a fools' paradise. BbX eris aiunt, si recte fades, do well, thou shalt be 
crowned ; but for the most part by threats, terrors, and affrights, they tyran- 
nise and terrify their distressed souls : knowing that fear alone is the sole and 
only means to keep men in obedience, according to that hemistichium of Fetro- 
nius, 'primus in orbe deos fecit timor, the fear of some divine and supreme 
powers, keeps men in obedience, makes the people do their duties : they play 
upon their consciences; ^ which was practised of old in Egypt by their 
priests ; when there was an eclipse, they made the people believe God was 
angry, great miseries were to come ; they take all opportunities of natural 
causes, to delude the people's senses, and with fearful tales out of purgatory, 
feigned apparitions, earthquakes in Japonia or China, tragical examples of 
devils, possessions, obsessions, false miracles, counterfeit visions, &g. They 
do so insult over and restrain them, never hoby so dared a larke, that they wifl 
not ^offend the least tradition, tread, or scarce look awry : Deus hone (^Lavater 
exclaims) quot hoc commentum de purgatorio misere aflixit! good God, how 
many men have been miserably afllicted by this fiction of purgatory ! 

To these advantages of hope and fear, ignorance and si;i)plicity, he hath 
several engines, traps, devices, to batter and enthral, omitting no opportuni- 
ties, according to men's several inclinations, abilities, to circumvent and 
humour them, to maintain his superstitions, sometimes to stupify, besot them : 

^ Peregrin. Eiercs. ca. 5. totum scvlptnm confasum s'.nc ordine v&I cclovc, absque sensu et ratione ad 

rnsticissimos, idem dedir, rudissimos, etproisusagrestes, qui nullius erant discretionis, iit dijudicare posseur. 
^ Lib. 1. cap. 9. Valent. hseres. 9. tMeteraiius, li. 8. hist. lielg. '^ Si doctores suum fecissent officium, 

et plebem tidei coiumissam recte instituissent de doctrinfe christianse capitibus, uec sacris scripturis interd-xis- 
sciit, de multis proculdubio recte sensissent. ^ Curtius, li. 4. y See more in Kemnisius" Exaiusu 

CoaciL Trident, de Ptu-gatorio. ^Tart 1. c. 16. part 3. cap. 13. et l-J. 



680 Eeligious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

sometimes again by oppositions, factions, to set all at odds and in an uproar; 
sometimes he infects one man, and makes him a principal agent; sometimes 
whole cities, countries. If of meaner sort, by stupidity, canonical obedience, 
blind zeal, &c. If of better note, by pride, ambition, popularity, vain-glory. 
If of the clergy, and more eminent, of better parts than the rest, more learned, 
eloquent, he puffs them up with a vain conceit of their own worth, scientia 
inflati, they begin to swell, and scorn all the world in respect of themselves, 
and thereupon turn heretics, schismatics, broach new doctrines, frame new 
crotchets and the like ; or else out of too much learning become mad, or out of 
curiosity they will search into God's secrets, and eat of the forbidden fruit : or 
out of presumption of their holiness and good gifts, inspirations, become pro- 
phets, enthusiasts, and what not ? or else if they be displeased, discontent, 
and have not (as they suppose) preferment to their worth, have some disgrace, 
repulse, neglect, or not esteemed as they fondly value themselves, or out of 
emulation, they begin presently to rage and rave, ccelum terrce miscent, they 
become so impatient in an instant, that a whole kingdom cannot contain them, 
they will set all in a combustion, all at variance, to be revenged of their adver- 
saries. ^Donatus, when he saw Cecilianus preferred before him in the bishop- 
ric of Carthage, turned heretic, and so did Arian, because Alexander was 
advanced : we have examples at home, and too many experiments of such per- 
sons. If they be laymen of better note, the same engines of pride, ambition, 
emulation, and jealousy, take place, they will be gods themselves : ^Alexander 
in India, after his victories, became so insolent, he would be adored for a god : 
and those Roman emperors came to that height of madness, they must have 
temples built to them, sacrifices to their deities, Divus Augustus, D. Claudius, 
D. Adrianus : ^ Heliogabalus, " put out that vestal fire at Rome, expelled the 
virgins, and banished all other religions all over the world, and would be the 
sole God himself" Our Turks, China kings, great Chams, and Mogors do 
little less, assuming divine and bombast titles to themselves; the meaner sort 
are too credulous, and led with blind zeal, blind obedience, to prosecute and 
maintain whatsoever their sottish leaders shall propose, what they in pride and 
singularity, revenge, vain-glory, ambition, spleen, for gain, shall rashly main- 
tain and broach, their disciples make a matter of conscience, of hell and dam- 
nation, if they do it not, and will rather forsake wives, children, house, and 
home, lands, goods, fortunes, life itself, than omit or abjure the least tittle of 
it, and to advance the common cause, undergo any miseries, turn traitors, 
assassins, pseudo-martyrs, with full assurance and hope of reward in that other 
world, that they shall certainly merit by it, win heaven, be canonised for saints. 
Now when they are truly possessed with blind zeal, and misled with super- 
stition, he hath many other baits to inveigle and infatuate them farther yet, to 
make them quite mortified and mad, and that under colour of perfection to 
merit by penance, going wolward, whipping, arms, fastings, &c. An. 1320. 
there was a sect of "^whippers in Germany, that, to the astonishment of the 
beholders, lashed, and cruelly tortured themselves. I could give many other 
instances of each particular. But these works so done are meritorious, ex 
opere operato, ex condiyno, for themselves and others, to make them macerate 
and consume their bodies, specie virtutis et umbra, those evangelical counsels 
are propounded, as our pseudo-catholics call them, canonical obedience, wilful 
poverty, ^vows of chastity, monkery, and a solitary life, which extend almost to 
all religions, and superstitions, to Turks, Chinese, Gentiles, Abyssinians, 
Greeks, Latins, and all countries. Amongst the rest, fasting, contemplation, 
solitariness, are as it were certain rams by which the devil doth batter and 

>>■ Austin. bCurtius, lib. 8, <= Lampridius vita ejus. Virgines vestales, et sacram ignem Rom£B 

cxiinxit, et omnes ubiqiie per orbem terrse velipiones, unum hoc studens ut solus deus coleretur. d Tlagel- 
latoiimi secta. Muntter. lib. 3. Cosmog. cap. 19. ® Votum coelibatus, monachatus. 



Mem. 1, Subs. 2.] Causes of Religious Melancholy. 681 

work upon the strongest constitutions. Nonnulli (saith Peter Forestus) oh 
longas inedias, studia et mediiationes coelestes, de rebus sacris et religione semper 
agitant, by fasting overmuch, and divine meditations, are overcome. Not that 
fasting is a thing itself to be discommended, for it is an excellent means to 
keep the body in subjection, a preparative to devotion, the physic of the soul, 
by which chaste thoughts are engendered, true zeal, a divine spirit, whence 
wholesome counsels do proceed, concupiscence is restrained, vicious and predo- 
minant lusts and humours are expelled. The fathers are very much in com- 
mendation of it, and, as Calvin notes, " sometimes immoderate. *The mother 
of health, key of heaven, a spiritual wing to ereare us, the chariot of the Holy 
Ghost, banner of faith," &c. And 'tis true they say of it, if it be moderately 
and seasonably used, by such parties as Moses, Elias, Daniel, Christ, and his 
^ apostles made use of it ; but when by this means they will supererogate, and 
as ^ Erasmus well taxeth, Cerium non sufficere putant suis meritis, Heaven is 
too small a reward for it ; they make choice of times and meats, buy and sell 
their merits, attribute more to them than to the ten Commandments, and 
count it a greater sin to eat meat in Lent, than to kill a man, and as one 
sayeth, Plus respiciunt assum piscem, quam Christum crucifixum, plus salmo- 
nem quam Solomonem^ quihus in ore Christus, Epicurus in corde, " pay more 
respect to a broiled fish than to Christ crucified, more regard to salmon than 
to Solomon, have Christen their lips, but Epicurus in their hearts," when some 
counterfeit, and some attribute more to such works of theirs than to Christ's 
death and passion; the devil sets in a foot, strangely deludes them, and by 
that means makes them to overthrow the temperature of their bodies, and 
hazard their souls. Never any strange illusions of devils amongst hermits, 
anachorites, never any visions, phantasms, apparitions, enthusiasms, prophets, 
any revelations, but immoderate fasting, bad diet, sickness, melancholy, soli- 
tariness, or some such things, were the precedent causes, the forerunners or 
concomitants of them. The best opportunity and sole occasion the devil takes 
to delude them. Marcilius Cognatus, ^i5. 1. cont. cap. 7. hath many stories to 
this purpose, of such as after long fasting have been seduced by devils ; and 
" His a miraculous thing to relate (as Cardan writes) what strange accidents 
proceed from fasting ; dreams, superstitions, contempt of torments, desire of 
death, prophecies, paradoxes, madness; fasting naturally prepares men to 
these things." Monks, anchorites, and the like, after much emptiness, become 
melancholy, vertiginous, they think they hear strange noises, confer with hob- 
goblins, devils, rivel up their bodies, et dum hostem insequimur, saith Gregory, 
civcon quern diligimus, trucidamus, they become bare skeletons, skin and bones; 
Carnibus abstinentes 2^'i'oprias carnes devorant, ut nil propter cutem et ossa sit 
reliquum. Hilarion, as ^Hierome reports in his life, and Athanasius of Anto- 
uius, was so bare with fasting, "that the skin did scarce stick to the bones; 
for want of vapours he could not sleep, and for want of sleep became idle- 
headed, heard every night infants cry, oxen low, wolves howl, lions roar (as 
he thought) clattering of chains, strange voices, and the like illusions of 
devils." Such symptoms are common to those that fast long, are solitary, 
given to contemplation, overmuch solitariness and meditation. Not that these 
things (as I said of fasting) are to be discommended of themselves, but very 
behoveful in some cases and good : sobriety and contemplation join our souls 
to God, as that heathen ^Porphyrie can tell us. " ^Ecstacy is a taste of 

f Mater sanitatis, clavis coelornm, ala animtB quse leves pennas producat, tit in sublimeferat ; currus Spiritus 
Saucti, vexillum fideJ, porta para disi, vita angelonim, &c SCastigo corpus meum. Paul. hMor. 

encom. iLib. 8. cap. 10. de rerum varietate : admiratione digna sunt quae per jejunium hoc modo 

contingunt : somnia, superstitio, contemptus toraientorum, mortis desiderium, obstinata opinio, irisania: 
jejunium naturaliter prseparat ad ha?c omnia. kEpist. i. 3. Ita attcnuatus fuit jejunio et vigUiis, in 

tantum exeso corpore ut ossibus vix hasrebat, unde nocte infantum va-itus, balatus pecorum, mugitus boum, 
voces et ludibria d^monum, &c. 1 Lib. de abstinentia. Sobriet is et continentia mentem Deo conjungunt. 
™ Extasis nihil est aliud quam gustas futuras beaiitudinis, in qua toti absoibemui' iu Deum. Erasmus 
epLsi. ad Dorpiuni. 



632 Eeliyious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4 

fatiire happiness, by which we are united unto God, a divine melancholy, a 
spiritual wing Bonaventure terms it, to lift us up to heaven : but as it is 
abut-ed, a mere dotage, madness, a cause and symptom of religious melan- 
choly. " ^If you shall at any time see (saith Guianerius) a religious person 
over-superstitious, too solitary, or much given to fasting, that man will certainly 
be melancholy, thou mayest boldly say it, he will be so," P. Porestus hath 
almost the same words, and °Cardan suhtii lib, 18. et cap. 40. lib. 8. de rerum 
vi7'ifitate, " solitariness, fasting, and that melancholy humour, are the causes 
of all hermits' illusions." Lavater, de sped. cap. 19. par^. 1, and pai^t. 1. cap. 
10. puts solitariness a main cause of such spectrums and apparitions; none 
saith he, so melancholy as monks and hermits, the devil's bath melancholy; 
" ^^none so subject to visions and dotage in this kind as such as live solitary 
lives, they hear and act strange things in their dotage." ^Polydore Virgil 
lib. 2. de jyrodigiis, " holds that those prophecies and monks' revelations, nuns' 
dreams, which they suppose come from God, to proceed wholly ab instinctu 
dcemonum, by the devil's means ; and so those enthusiasts, anabaptists, 
pseudo-prophets from the same cause. ^'Pracastorius, lib. 2. de intellect, will 
have all your pythonesses, sybils, and pseudo-prophets to be mere melancholy, 
so doth Wierus prove, lib. 1. cap. 8. et I. 3. cap. 7. and Arculanus in 9. Pha- 
sis, that melancholy is a sole cause and the devil together, with fasting, and 
solitariness, of such sybilline prophecies, if there were ever such, which with 
'"Casaubon and others I justly except at; for it is not likely that the Spirit of 
God should ever reveal such manifest revelations and predictions of Christ, to 
those Pythonissae witches, Apollo's priests, the devil's ministers (they were no 
better), and conceal them from his own prophets; for these sybils set down all 
particular circumstances of Christ's coming, and many other future accidents 
far more perspicuous and plain than ever any prophet did. But howsoever 
there be no Ph?ebades or sybils, I am assured there be other enthusiasts, 
prophets, dii Fatidici Magi, (of which read Jo. Boissardus, who hath labo- 
riously collected them into a great * volume of late, with elegant pictures, and 
epitomised their lives) &c., ever have been in all ages, and still proceeding 
from those causes, ^qui visiones suas enarrant, somniant futura, prophetisant, 
et ejusmodi deliriis agitati, Sinritwn Sanctum sibi communicari putant. 
That which is written of Saint Prancis' five wounds, and other such 
monastical effects of him and others, may justly be referred to this our 
melancholy; and that which Matthew Paris relates of the ^monk of 
Evesham, v/ho saw heaven and hell in a vision; of ^Sir Owen, that 
went down into Saint Patrick's purgatory in King Stephen's days, and 
saw as much : Walsingham of him that showed as much by Saint Julian, 
Beda, lib. 5. cap. 13. 14. 15. et 20. reports of King Sebba, lib. 4. cap. 11. 
eccl. hist, that saw strange ^visions; and Stumphius Plelvet Cornic, a cobbler 
of Basle, that beheld rare apparitions at Augsburg, ^in Germany. Alexan- 
der ab Alexandro, gen. dier. lib* 6. cap. 21. of an enthusiastical prisoner, (all 
out as probable as that of Eris Armenius, in Plato's tenth dialogue de Repub. 
that revived again ten days after he was killed in a battle, and told strange 
wonders, like those tales Ulysses related to Alcinous in Homer, or Lucian's 
vera historia itself) was still after much solitariness, fasting, or long sickness 

^ Si religiosum nimis jejnnia vMeris observanten), audacitermela-ncholicuin pronunciaHs. Tract. 5. cap. 5. 
° Solitudo'ipsa, mens segra laboribus anxiis et jcjuniis, turn temperatura cibis mutata agrestibus, et humor 
melancholicus Heremitis illnsionum causte sunt. P Solitudo est causa appavitionum ; nuUi visionibus et 

hinc delirio magis obnoxii sunt qiiam qui collegiis et eremo vhT.mt monachi ; tales plerumque melancholici 
ob victum, solitiidinem. 1 Monachi sese putant prophetare ex Deo, et qui solitariam agunt vitam, quum 
sit instinctu dsemonum ; et s'c falluntur fatidicas ; a malo genio habent, quse putant a Peo, et sic enthusiastse. 
'"Sibyllas, Pythii, et prophetse qui divinare solent, omnes fanatici sunt melancholici. ^Exerci'-. c. 1. 

t De diviuatione et magicis prsestigiis. ^Idem. ^ Post 15 dierum preces et jejunia, miiabiles videbat 

visiones. y Fol. 84. vita Stephani, et fol. 177. post trium mensium iiiediam et languorem per 9 dies nihil 

comedens aut bibens. ^ After contemplation in an ecstacy ; so Hierom was whipped for reading Tully ; 

f-ee miliifins of examples in our annals. ^Bede, Gregory, Jacobus de Voragine, Lippomannus, Hieronymus, 
J dm Major de vitiis patrum, &c. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] Symiitoins of Religious Melancholy. CSS 

when their brains were addled, and their bellies as empty of meat as their 
heads of wit. Florilegus hath many such examples, fol. 191. one of Saint 
Gutlake of Crowald that fought with devils, but still after long fastiug, over- 
nnich solitariness, ^the devil persuaded him therefore to fast, as Moses and 
Elias did, the better to delude him. '^In the same author is recorded Carolus 
Magnus' vision An. 185. or ecstacies, wherein he saw heaven and hell after 
much fasting and meditation. So did the devil of old with Apollo's priests. 
Amphiaraus and his fellows, those Egyptians, still enjoin long fasting before 
he would give any oracles, triduum a cibo et vino abslinerent, '^before they gave 
any answers, as Yolateran, lib. 13. cap. 4. records, and ^traho,- Geog. lib. 14. 
describes Charon's den, in the way between Tralles and Nissum, whither the 
priests led sick and fanatic men : but nothing performed without long fasting, 
no good to be done. That scoffing ®Lucian conducts his Menippus to hell by 
the directions of that Chaldean Mithrobarzanes, but after long fasting, and such 
like idle preparation. Which the Jesuits right well perceiving of what force 
this fasting and solitary meditation is, to alter men's minds, when they would 
make a man mad, ravish him, improve him beyond himself, to undertake some 
great business of moment, to kill a king, or the like, ^they bring him into a 
melancholy dark chamber, Avhere he shall see no light for many days together, 
no company, little meat, ghastly pictures of devils all about him, and leave him 
to lie as he will himself, on the bare floor in this chamber of meditation, as they 
call it, on. his back, side, belly, till by this strange usage they make him quite 
mad and beside himself And then after some ten days, as they find him ani- 
mated and resol ved, they make use of him. The devil hath many such factors, 
many such engines, which what effect they produce, you shall hear in the fol- 
lowing symptoms. 

SuBSECT. III. — Symptoms general, love to their own sect, hate of all other 
religions, obstinacy, peevishness, ready to undergo any danger or cross for 
it ; Martyrs, blind zeal, blind obedience, fastings, vows, belief of incredibi- 
lities, impossibilities: Particular of Gentiles, Mahometans, Jews, Chris- 
tians; and in them, heretics old and new, schismatics, schoolmen, prophets, 
enthusiasts, &c. 

Fleat Heraclitus, an rideat Democritus 2 in attempting to speak of these 
symptoms, shall I laugh with Democritus, or "weep with Heraclitus? they are 
so ridiculous and absurd on the one side, so lamentable and tragical on the 
other : a mixed scene offers itself, so full of errors and a promiscuous variety 
of objects, that I know not in what strain to represent it. When I think of 
the Turkish paradise, those Jewish fables, and pontifical rites, those pagan 
superstitions, their sacrifices, and ceremonies, as to make images of all matter, 
and adore them when they have done, to see them kiss the })yx, creep to the 
cross, &c. I cannot choose but laugh with Democritus: but when I see them 
whip and torture themselves, grind their souls for toys and trifles, desperate, 
and now ready to die, I cannot choose but weep with Heraclitus. When I see 
a priest say mass, with all those apish gestures, murmurings, &c. read the 
customs of the Jews' synagogue, or Mahometa Meschites, I must needs ^laugli 
at their folly, risum teneatis, amici? but when I see them make matters of 
conscience of such toys and trifles, to adore the devil, to endanger their souls, 
to offer their children to their idols, &c. I must needs condole their misery. 
When I see two superstitious orders contend pjo aris etfocis, with such have 

b Fol. 199. post abstinentiae curas miras illusiones da'monum andivit. " Fol. 1-55. post seriam 

meditationem in vigilia diei dominicaj visionem liabuit de purgatorio. dUbi multos dies maiient jejuni 

consilio sacerdotura auxilia invocantes. ^ In Necromant. Et cibus quidem glandes erant, potus aqua, 

lectus sub divo, &c. fJohn Everardus Britanno. Komanus lib. edit. IGll describes all the manner of 

it. E Varius mappa componere risum vix poterat 



684 Eeligious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

and hold, de land caprind, some write such great volumes to no purpose, take 
so much pains to so small effect, their satires, invectives, apologies, dull and 
gross fictions; when I see grave learned men rail and scold Mke butter-women, 
methinks 'tis pretty sport, and fit ^for Calphurnius and Democritus to laugh at. 
But when I see so much blood spilt, so many murders and massacres, so many 
cruel battles fought, &c. 'tis a fitter subject for Heraclitus to lament. ^As 
Merlin when he sat by the lake side with Yortigern, and had seen the white 
and red dragon fight, before he began to interpret or to speak, in fletmn pro- 
rupit, fell a weeping, and then proceeded to declare to the king what it meant. 
I should first pity and bewail this misery of human kind with some passionate 
preface, wishing mine eyes a fountain of tears, as Jeremiah did, and then to my 
task. For it is that great torture, that iafernal plague of mortal men, omnium 
pestium pestilentissima superstitio, and able of itself alone to stand in opposition 
to all other plagues, miseries and calamities whatsoever ; far more cruel, more 
pestiferous, more grievous, more general, more violent, of a greater extent. 
Other fears and sorrows, grievances of body and mind, are troublesome for the 
time j but this is for ever, eternal damnation, hell itself, a plague, a fire : an 
inundation hurts one province alone, and the loss may be recovered; but this 
superstition involves all the world almost, and can never be remedied. Sick- 
ness and sorrows come and go, but a superstitious soul hath no rest; ^super- 
stitione inibutus animus nunquam quietus esse potest, no peace, no quietness. 
True religion and superstition are quite opposite, longe diversa carnificina et 
pietas, as Lactantius describes, the one erects, the other dejects; illorum 
pietas, mera impietas; the one is an easy yoke, the other an intolerable burden, 
an absolute tyranny; the one a sure anchor, a haven; the other a tempestu- 
ous ocean; the one makes, the other mars; the one is wisdom,. the other is 
folly, madness, indiscretion; the one unfeigned, the other a counterfeit; the 
one a diligent observer, the other an ape ; one leads to heaven, the other to 
hell. But these differences will more evidently appear by their particular 
symptoms. What religion is, and of what parts it doth consist, every cate- 
chism will tell you, what symptoms it hath, and what effects it produceth : but 
for their superstitions, no tongue can tell them, no pen express, they are so 
many, so diverse, so uncertain, so inconstant, and so different from them- 
selves. Tot mundi superstitiones quot ccelo stellce, one saith, there be as many 
superstitions in the world, as there be stars in heaven, or devils themselves 
that are the first founders of them : with such ridiculous, absurd symptoms 
and signs, so many several rites, ceremonies, torments and vexations accom- 
panying, as may well express and beseem the devil to be the author and main- 
tainer of them. I will only point at some of them, ex ungue leonem, guess at 
the rest, and those of the chief kinds of superstition, which beside us Chris- 
tians now domineer and crucify the world. Gentiles, Mahometans, Jews, &c. 
Of these symptoms some be general, some particular to each private sect : 
general to all, are, an extraordinary love and affection they bear and show to 
such as are of their own sect, and more than Vatinian hate to such as are 
opposite in religion, as they call it, or disagree from them in their superstitious 
rites, blind zeal (which is as much a symptom as a cause), vain fears, blind 
obedience, needless works, incredibilities, impossibilities, monstrous rites and 
ceremonies, wilfulness, blindness, obstinacy, &c. For the first, which is love 
and hate, as ^Montanus saith, 7tidla firmior amicitia quam qiicB contrahltur 
hinc; nulla discordia jnojor quam quce a religionefit; no greater concord, no 
greater discord than that which proceeds from religion. It is incredible to 
relate, did not our daily experience evince it, what factions, quam teterrimm 

h Pleno ridet Calphumius ore. Hor. i Alanus de Insulis. k Cicero 1. de finibus. 1 In Micih 

couiment. 



Mem. 1. Subs, 3.] Symptoms of Religious Melancholy. 685 

factiones (as ™ Rich. Dinotli writes), have been of late for matters of religion in 
France, and what hurlyburlies all over Europe for these many years. Nihil est 
quod tarn impotenter rajnat homines, quam suscepta de salute opinio; siquidem 
pro ea omnes gentes corpora et a?iimas devovere solent, et arctissimo necessitudi- 
nis vinculo se invicem colligare. We are all brethren in Christ, servants of one 
Lord, members of one body, and therefore are or should be at least dearly 
beloved, inseparably allied in the greatest bond of love and familiarity, united 
partakers not only of the same cross, but coadjutors, comforters, helpers, at all 
times, upon all occasions : as they did in the primitive church, Acts v. they 
sold their patrimonies, and laid them at the apostles' feet, and many such 
memorable examples of mutual love we have had under the ten general perse- 
cutions, many since. Examples on the other side of discord none like, as 
our Saviour saith, he came therefore into the world to set father against son 
&c. In imitation of whom the devil belike (^ nam super stitio irrepsit verce reli- 
gionis imAtatrix, superstition is still religion's ape, as in all other things, so in 
this) doth so combine and glue together his superstitious followers in love and 
affection, that they will live and die together : and what an innate hatred hath 
he still inspired to any other superstition opposite? How those old Romans 
Avere affected, those ten persecutions may be a witness, and that cruel execu- 
tioner in Eusebius, aut lita aut morere, sacrifice or die. No greater hate, more 
continuate, bitter faction, wars, persecution in all ages, than for matters of re- 
ligion, no such feral opposition, father against son, mother against daughter, 
husband against wife, city against city, kingdom against kingdom: as of old 
at Tentria and Combos : 



' rmmortale odium et r.unquam sanatile viilnus, 
Inde furor vulgo, quod numina vicinorum 
Odit uterque locus, quum solos credit hubendos 
Es;e decs quos ipse colat." 



' Immortal hate it breeds, a wound past cure, 
And fury to tlie commons still to endure : 
Because one city t' other's gods as vain 
Deiide, and his alone as good maintain." 



The Turks at this day count no better of us than of dogs, so they commonly 
call us giaours, infidels, miscreants, make that their main quarrel and cause of 
Christian persecution. If he will turn Turk, he shall be entertained as a 
brother, and had in good esteem, a Mussulman or a believer, which is a greater 
tie to them than any affinity or consanguinity. The Jews stick together like 
so many burrs ; but as for the rest, whom they call Gentiles, they do hate and 
abhor, they cannot endure their Messiah should be a common saviour to us all, 
and rather, as ^ Luther writes, "than they that now scoff at them, curse them, 
persecute and revile them, shall be coheirs and brethren with them, or have 
any part or fellowship with their Messiah, they would crucify their Messiah ten 
times over, and God himself, his angels, and all his creatures, if it were pos- 
sible, though they endure a thousand hells for it." Such is their malice 
towards us. Now for Papists, what in a common cause for the advancement 
of their religion they will endure, our traitors and pseudo-catholics wiU declare 
unto us ; and how bitter on the other side to their adversaries, how violently 
bent, let those Marian times record, as those miserable slaughters at Merindol 
and Cabriers, the Spanish inquisition, the Diike of Alva's tyranny in the Low 
Countries, the French massacres and civil wars. " ^ Tantwn religio potuit 
suadere Qnalorum.'' "Such wickedness did religion persuade." Not there 
only, but all over Europe, we read of bloody battles, racks and wheels, sedi- 
tions, factions, oppositions. 

'• J'obvia signis 

Signa, pares aquilas, et pUa minantia pills," 

Invectives and contentions. They had rather shake hands with a Jew, Turt, 
or, as the Spaniards do, suffer Moors to live amongst them, and Jews, than 

™ Gall. hist. lib. 1. ^ Lactantius. ° Juv. Sat. 1-5. P Comment, in Micah. Ferre non possunt 

ut iilorum Messias communis servator sit, nostrum gaudium, (fee. Messiiis vel decern decies crucifixnri 
essent, ipsuinqne Deum si id tieri posset, una cum angelis et creaturis omnibus, nee abiterrentur ab hoc 
facto etsi mille interna subeunda foreut. l Lucrer. ^ Lucau. 



68^ Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

Protestants ; " my name (saitli ^ Luther) is more odious to them than any thief 
or murderer." So it is with all heretics and schismatics whatsoever : and none 
so passionate, violent in their tenets, opinions, obstinate, wilful, refractory, 
peevish, factious, singular and stiff in defence of them, they do not only perse- 
cute and hate, but pity all other religions, account them damned, blind as it 
they alone were the true church, they are the true heirs, have the fee-simple of 
heaven by a peculiar donation, 'tis entailed on them and their posterities, their 
doctrine sound, per funem aurewni de coalo delapsa doctrina, "■ let down from 
heaven by a golden rope," they alone are to be saved. The Jews at this day 
are so incomprehensibly proud and churlish, saith*^ Luther, that soli salvari, soli 
domini terrarum salutari volmit. And as ^ Buxtorfius adds, " so ignorant and 
self-willed withal, that amongst their most understanding rabbins you shall find 
nought but gross dotage, horrible hardness of heart, and stupendous obstinacy, 
in all their actions, opinions, conversations : and yet so zealous withal, that no 
man living can be more, and vindicsite themselves for the'elect people of GOD." 
'Tis so with all other superstitious seets, Mahometans, Gentiles in China, and 
Tartary ; our ignorantPapists, Anaba])tists, Separatists, and peculiar churches of 
Amsterdam, they alone, and none but they can be saved. " ^ Zealous (as Paul 
saith, E,om.x. 2.) without knowledge," theywillendureanymisery, any trouble, 
suffer and do that which the sunbeams will not endure to see, Religionis acti 
Fwriis, all extremities, losses and dangers, take any pains, fast, pray, vow chas- 
tity, wilful poverty, forsake all and follow their idols, die a thousand deaths as 
some Jews did to Pilate's soldiers, in like case, exertos prcehentes jugulos et 
manifeste prce seferentes, (as Josephus hath it) cariorem esse ritd sibi leg is 
patricE ohservationer)i, rather than abjure, or deny the least particle of that 
religion which their fathers profess, and they themselves have been brought 
up in, be it never so absurd, ridiculous, they will embrace it, and without 
f irther inquiry or examination of the truth, though it be prodigiously false, 
they will believe it; they will take much more pains to go to hell, than 
we shall do to heaven. Single out the most ignorant of them, convince his 
understanding, show him his errors, grossness, and absurdities of his secfc^ 
Non persuadehis etiamsi persuaseris, he will not be persuaded. As those 
pagans told the Jesuits in Japona, ^ they would do as their forefathers have 
done: and with Ratholde the Frisian Prince, go to hell for company, if most 
of their friends went thither : they will not be moved, no persuasion, no tor- 
ture can stir them. So that papists cannot brag of their vows, poverty, 
obedience, orders, merits, martyrdoms, fastings, alms, good works, pilgrim- 
ages : much and more than all this, I shall show you, is, and hath been done 
by these superstitious Gentiles, Pagans, Idolaters and Jews: their blind zeal 
and idolatrous superstition in all kinds is much at one ; little or no difference, 
and it is hard to say which is the greatest, which is the grossest. For if a 
man shall duly consider those superstitious rites amongst the Ethnics in Japan, 
the Bannians in Gusart, the Chinese idolaters, ^ Americans of old, in Mexico 
especially, Mahometan priests, he shall find the same government almost, the 
same orders and ceremonies, or so like, that they may seem all apparently to 
be derived from some heathen spirit, and the Koman hierarchy no better than 
the rest. In a word, this is common to all superstition, there is nothing so 
mad and absurd, so ridiculous, impossible, incredible, which they will not 
believe, observe, and diligently perform, as much as in them lies; nothing so 
monstrous to conceive, or intolerable to put in practice, so cruel to suffer, which 
they will not willingly undertake. So powerful a thing is superstition. " ^ O 

s Ad Galat. Comment. Nomen odiosius meum qtiam ullus homicida ant far. t Comment, in Micah. 

Adeo incomprehensibilis et aspera eorum superbia, &c. u Synagog. Judseorum, ca. 1. Inter fiorum intelli- 
gentissimos Rabbinos nil praster ignorantiam et insipientiam grandem invenies, horrendam indurationem, 
et obstinationem, &c. ^ Great is Diana of the Ephe.^ians, Actxv. yMaluntcum illis in^-anij-e, qua^ii 

cum aliisbene sentire. ^Acosta, 1. .5. ^0 ^E^ypte, religionis tuse sol« supersunt fabulae, esciue 

incredibiles posteris tuia. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] Symptoms of RellgioiLs Melandtuhj. 687 

Egypt (as Trismegistus exclaims) thy religion is fables, aud siicli as posterity 
will not believe." I know that in true religion itself, many mysteries are so 
apprehended alone by faith, as that of the Trinity, which Turks especially 
deride, Christ's incarnation, resurrection of the body at the last day, quodideo 
credetidum (saith Tertullian) quod incredibile, &c. many miracles not to be con- 
troverted or disputed of Mirarinon rimari sapieatia vera est, saith ^Gerhar- 
dus ; et in diviais (as a good fatlier informs us) qucedam credenda, qucedam 
ad/tiiranda, &c. some things are to be believed, embraced, followed with all 
submission and obedience, some again admired. Though Julian the apostate 
scoff at Christians in this point, quod captivemus iiitellectum in ohsequianijidei, 
Sciying, that the Christian creed is like the Pythagorean Ipse dixit, we make 
our will and understanding too slavishly subject to our faith, without farther 
examination of thejtruth; yet as Saint Gregory truly answers, our creed is alti- 
oris prcestmitice^ and much more divine; and as Thomas will, pie consideranti 
semper suppetunt rationes, ostendentes credihilitatem in mysteriis supernatura- 
libus, we do absolutely believe it, and upon good reasons, for as Gregory well 
informeth us; Fides non hahet meritum, itbi humana ratio qucerit experimen- 
tum; that faith hath no merit, is no^^, worth the name of faith, that will not 
apprehend without a certain demonstration : Ave must and will believe God's 
word; and if we be mistaken or err in our general belief, as '^Ftichardus de 
Sancto Victore vows he will say to Christ himself at the day of judgment; 
" Lord, if we be deceived, thou alone hast deceived us :" thus we plead. But 
for the rest I will not justify that pontificial consubstantiation, that which 
^Mahometans and Jews justly except at, as Campanella confesseth, Atheismi 
triumphat. cap. 12. fol. 125, di^cillimwin dogma esse, nee aliiid suhjectum 
magis hcereticorum hlasphejniis, et stultis irrisionibus politicorum reperiri. They 
hold it impossible, l)eum in pane manducari; and besides they scoff at it, 
vide gentem comedentem Deum suicm, inquit quidam Maurus. ^ Hunc Deum 
muscce et vermes irrident, quum ipsum polluunt et devorant^ subditus est igni, 
aquce, et latrones furaidur, pixidem auream humi prosternunt^ et se tamen non 
defendit hie Dens. Qui fieri potest, ut integer in singidis hostice particulis, 
idem corpus niimero, tam multis locis, ccelo, terra, (fee. But he that shall read 
the ^Turks' Alcoran^the Jews' Talmud, and Papists' golden legend, in the mean 
time will swear that such gross fictions, fables, vain traditions, prodigious para- 
doxes and ceremonies, could never proceed from any other spirit, than that of 
the devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies ; and wonder 
withal how such wise men as have been of the Jews, such learned under- 
standing men as Averroes, Avicenna, or those heathen philosophers, could ever 
be persuaded to believe, or to subscribe to the least part of them : autfraudem 
no7i detegere: but that as ^ Yanninus answers, ob publicce potestatisf3rmidinem 
allatrare pliilosophi non aiidebant, they durst not speak for fear of the law. But 
I will descend to particulars : read their several sj^mptoms and then guess. 

Of such symptoms as properly belong to superstition, or that irreligious 
religion, I may say as of the rest, some are ridiculous, some agan feral to 
relate. Of those ridiculous, there can be no better testimony than the multi- 
tude of their gods, those absurd names, actions, offices they put upon them, 
their feasts, holy days, sacrifices, adorations, and the like. The Egyptians 
that pretended so great antiquity, 300 kings before Amasis : and as Mela 
writes, 13,000 years from the beginning of their Chronicles, that bragged so 
much of their knowledge of old, for they invented arithmetic, astronomy, 
geometry : of their wealth and power, that vaunted of 20,000 cities : yet at 
the same time their idolatry and superstition was most gross : they worshipped, 

t Meditat. 19. de coena domin. ^Li^. 1, ^e txin. cap. 2. si decepti snmus, &c. dVide Samsatis 

Isphocanis objectiones in monachnm Milesium. ^Lege Hossman. Mus exenteralus. f As tme as 

Homer's Iliad, Ovid's Metamorphoses, ^tsop's fables. 8 Dial. 52. de oraculis. 



638 ICeligious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

as Diodorus Siculus records, sun and moon under tlie name of Isis and Osiris 
and after, such men as were beneficial to them, or any creature that did them 
good. In the city of Bubasti they adored a cat, saith Herodotus, Ibis and 
storks, an ox (saith Pliny) ^^leeks and onions, Macrobius, 

"iPoiTum et cfepe deos imponere nubibus ausi, 
Hos tu Nile deos colis." 

Scoffing ^Lucian in his vera Historia: which, as he confesseth himself, was 
not persuasively written as a truth, but in comical fashion to glance at the 
monstrous fictions and gross absurdities of writers and nations, to deride with- 
out doubt this prodigious Egyptian idolatry, feigns this story of himself; that 
when he had seen the Elysian fields, and was now coming away, Rhadamanthus 
gave him a mallow root, and bade him pray to that when he was in any peril 
or extremity ; which he did accordingly ; for when he came to Hydamordia in 
the island of treacherous women, he made his prayers to his root, and was 
instantly delivered. The Syrians, Chaldeans, had as many proper gods of 
their own invention ; see the said Lucian de ded Syrid. Morney, cap. 22. de 
veritat. relig. Guliel. Stuckius, ^ Sacrorum Sacrijiciorumque Gentil. descript, 
Peter Faber Semester, I. 3. c. 1, 2, 3. Selden de diis Syris, Purchas' pil- 
grimage, "^Eosinus of the Romans, and Lilius Giraldus of the Greeks. The 
Romans borrowed from all, besides their own gods, which were majorum and 
minorum gentium, as Varro holds, certain and uncertain; some celestial, select, 
and great ones, others indigenous and Semi-dei, Lares, Lemures, Dioscuri, 
Soteres, and Parastatse, dii tutelares amongst the Greeks : gods of all sorts, 
for all functions; some for the land, some for sea; some for heaven, some for 
hell; some for pxssions, diseases, some for birtli, some for weddings, hus- 
bandry, woods, waters, gardens, orchards, &c. All actions and offices, Pax- 
Quies, Salus, Libertas, Foelicitas, Strenua, Stimula, Horta, Pan, Sylvanus, 
Priapus, Flora, Cloacina, Stercutius, Febris, Pallor, Invidia, Protervia, Risus, 
Angerona, Volupia, Yacuna, Yiriplaca, Veneranda, Pales, Neptunia, Doris, 
kings, emperors, valiant men that had done any good offices for them, they did 
likewise canonise and adore for gods, and it was usually done, usitatum apud 
antiquos, as " Jac. Boissardus well observes, deijicare homines qui henejiciis 
mor tales juvar en t, and the devil was still ready to second their intents, statim 
se ingessit illorum sepulchris, statuis, teniplis^ aris, &c. he crept into their 
temples, statues, tombs, altars, and was ready to give oracles, cure diseases, do 
miracles, &c. as by Jupiter, ^Esculapius, Tiresias, Apollo, Mopsus, Amphiaraus, 
<fec. dii et Semi-dii. For so they were Semi-dii, demi-gods, some medii inter 
Deos et homines, as Max. °Tyrius, the Platonist, ser. 26, et 27, maintains and 
justifies in many words. " When a good man dies, his body is buried, but his 
soul, ex homine dmmon evadit, becomes forthv/ith a demi-god, nothing dispa- 
raged with malignity of air, or variety of forms, rejoiceth, exults and sees that 
perfect beauty with his eyes. Now being deified, in commiseration he helps 
his poor friends here on earth, his kindred and allies, informs, succours, &c. 
punisheth those that are bad and do amiss, as a good genius to protect and 
govern mortal men appointed by the gods, so they will have it, ordaining some 
for provinces, some for private men, some for one office, some for another. 
Hector and Achilles assist soldiers to this day; ^sculapius all sick men, the 
Dioscuri seafaring men, &c. and sometimes upon occasion they show them- 
selves. The Dioscuri, Plercules and ^sculapius, he saw himself (or the devil 
in his likeness) non soninians sed vigilans ipse vidi : " So lar Tyrius. And not 

h sanctas gentes quibiis h«c nascuntur in horto Numina! Juven. Sat. 15. iPnidentius. 

" Having proceeded to deify leelcs and onions, you, O Egypt, worhhip such gods." kPrsefat. ver. liist. 

iTiguii, fol. 1494. '^ Rosin, antiq. iioni. 1. 2. c. 1. etdeinceps. '^Lib. de divinatione et magicis 

prsestigiis in Mopso. ° Cosmo Paccio Interpret, nihil ab aeris caligine aut tigurai'um varietate impeditus 

meram pulchritudinem meruit, exultans et misericordia motus, cognatos amicos qui adhuc morantur in terra 
tnttur, errantibus succurrit, &c. Deus hoc jutsit ut essent genii dii tutelares homiuibus, binos juvanteSj 
nuilos punieiites, &c. 



Mem. 1. Subs, 3.] Symptoms of Religious Melancholy, G89 

good men only do they thus adore, but tyrants, monsters, devils (as ^ Stukius 
inveighs), Neros, Domitians, Heliogabaluses, beastly women, and arrant whores 
amongst the rest. " Por all intents, places, creatures, they assign godsj" 

*' Et domibus, tectis, thermis et equis soleatis 
Assignare solent genios " 

saith Prudentius. Cuna for cradles, Diverra for sweeping houses, Nodina 
knots, Prema, Prumunda, Hymen, Hymeneus, for weddings ; Comus the god 
of good fellows, gods of silence, of comfort, Hebe goddess of youth. Mena 
rneustruariim, &c., male and female gods, of all ages, sexes and dimensions, 
with beards, without beards, married, unmarried, begot, not born at all, but, 
as Minerva, start out of Jupiter's head. Hesiod reckons up at at least 30,000 
gods, Yarro, 300 Jupiters. As Jeremy told them, their gods were to the 
multitude of cities ; 

" Qnicqiid humus, pelagus, coelnm miserabile gignit, I " MTiatever heavens, sea and land'begat, 
Id dixere deos, colles, freta, flumina, flammas." | Hills, seas and rivers, God was this and that" 

And which was most absurd, they made gods upon such ridiculous occasions ; 
" As children make babies (so saiih '^Morneus), their poets make gods," et 
quos adorcmi in templis, ludunt in Theatris, as Lactantius scoifs. Saturn, a 
man, gelded himself^ did eat his own children, a cruel tyrant driven out of his 
kingdom by his son Jupiter, as good a god as himself, a wicked, lascivious 
paltry king of Crete, of whose rapes, lusts, murders, villainies, a whole volume 
is too little to relate. Yenus, a notorious strumpet, as common as a barber's 
chair, Mars, Adonis, Anchises' whore, is a great she-goddess as well as the 
rest, as much renowned by their poets, with many such; and these gods so 
fabulously and foolishly made, ceremoniis, hymrds, et canticis celebrant ; their 
errors, lad us et gaudia, amoves, iras, nuptias et liherorum procreationes (^ as 
Eusebius well taxeth), weddings, mirth, and mournings, loves, angers, and 
quarrelling they did celebrate in hymns, and sing of in their ordinary songs, as 
it wei'e publishing their villainies. But see more of their originals. When 
Bomulus was made away by the sedition of the senators, to pacify the people, 
Julius Proculus gave out that Romulus was taken up by Jupiter into heaven, 
and therefore to be ever after adored for a god amongst the Pomans. Sj^ro- 
phanes of Egypt had one only son whom he dearly loved; he erected his 
statue in his house, which his servants did adorn with garlands to pacify their " 
master's wrath when he was angry, so by little and little he was adored for a 
god. This did Semiramis for her husband Belus, and Adrian the emperor by 
his minion Antinous. Flora was a rich harlot in Rome, and for that she made 
the commonwealth her heir, her birthday was solemnised long after; and to 
make it a more plausible holiday, they made her goddess of flowers, and sacri- 
ficed to her amongst the rest. The matrons of Rome, as Dionysius Halicar- 
nassEeus relates, because at their entreaty Coriolanus desisted from his wars, 
consecrated a church Fortunce muliehri; and * Yenus Barbata had a temple 
erected, for that somewhat was amiss about hair, and so the rest. The citizens 
"of Alabanda, a small town in Asia Minor, to curry favour with the Romans 
(who then warred in Greece with Perseus of Macedon, and were formidable to 
these paits), consecrated a temple to the city of Rome, and made her a god- 
dess, with annual games and sacrifices; so a town of houses was deified, with 
shameful flattery on the one side to give, and intolerable arrogance on the other 
to accej^t, upon so vile and absurd an occasion. Tully writes to Attieus, t4iat 
his daughter TuUiola might be made a goddess, and adored as Juno and 

P Sacrnmm gent, descript. non bene meritos solum, sed et tyrannos pro diis colunt, qui genus hunianum 
horieiidnm in modum poitentosa immunitate divexaruut, &c. foedas meretrices, <fcc. iCap. 22. de ver. 

rel. Deos finxerunt eorum poeta3, ut iniantium puppas. ^' Proem, lib. Contra philos. ^Livius, lib. 1. 

Deus vohis inpostenim propitius, Quirites. t Anth. Verdure, Imag. deorum. ^^Mulicris cand^do 

splencUnies amiciniine varioque laitantes gestimine, verno florentes conamine, solum sternentes, &c Apu- 
leius, lib. 11, de AsLao aureo. 

2y 



690 Reciyious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

Minerva, and as well slie deserved it. Their holy days and adorations were all 
out as ridiculous ; those Lupercals of Pan, Florales of Flora, Bona dea, Anna 
Perenna, Saturnals, &c., as how they were celebrated, with what lascivious 
and wanton gestures, bald ceremonies, ^by what bawdy priests, how they hang 
their noses over the smoke of sacrifices, saith -^Lucian, and lick blood like flies 
that was spilled about the altars. Tlieir carved idols, gilt images of wood, iron, 
ivory, silver, brass, stone, olini truncus eram, kc. were most absurd, as being 
their own workmanship ; for as Seneca notes, adorant ligneos deos, et fabros 
interim quifecerunt, contemnunt, they adore work, contemn the workman ; and 
as Tertullian follows it, Si homines non esseiit diispropitii non essent c?w, had 
it not been for men they had never been gods, but blocks still and stupid, 
statues in which mice, swallows, birds made their nests, spiders their webs, 
and in their very mouths laid their excrements. Those images, I say, were 
all out as gross as the shapes in which they did represent them : Jupiter with 
a ram's head, Mercury a dog's. Pan like a goat, Hecate with three heads, one 
with a beard, another without; see more m Carterius and ^ Verdurius of theic 
monstrous forms and ugly pictures : and which was absurder yet, they told 
them these images came from heaven, as that of Minerva in her temple at 
Athens, quod e ccelo cecidisse credebant accolts, saith Pausanias. They formed 
some like storks, apes, bulls, aud yet seriously believed ; and that which was 
impious and abominable, they made their gods notorious whoremasters, inces- 
tuous Sodomites (as commonly they were all, as well as Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, 
Mercury, Neptune, (fcc), thieves, slaves, drudges (for Apollo and Neptune made 
tiles in Phrygia), kept sheep, Hercules emptied stables, Vulcan a blacksmith, 
unfit to dwell upon the earth for their villainies, much less in heaven, as 
"Mornay well saith, and yet they gave them out to be such; so weak and 
brutish, some to whine, lament, and roar, as Isis for her son and Cenocephaius, 
as also her weeping priests ; Mars in Homer to be wounded, vexed : Venus 
ran away crying, and the like ; than which what can be more ridiculous ? 
JVonne ridiculum lugere quod colas, vel colere quodlugeas 1 (which ^Minutius 
objects) Sidii, cur plangitis? si mortui, cur adoratis? that it is no marvel if 
*^Lucian, that adamantine persecutor of superstition, and Pliny could so scoff 
at them and their horrible idolatry as they did ; if Diagoras took Hercules' 
image, and put it under his pot to seethe his pottage, which was, as he said, 
Lis 13th labour. But see more of their fopperies in Cypr. 4. tract, de Idol. 
varietat. Chrysostom advers. Gentil. Arnobius adv, Gentes. Austin de civ. 
Del. Theodoret. de curat Grcec. affec. Clemens Alexandrinus, Minutius Felix, 
Eusebius, Lactantius, Stuckius, &c. Lamentable, tragical, and fearful those 
symptoms are, that they should be so far forth affrighted with their fictitious 
gods, as to spend the goods, lives, fortunes, precious time, best days in their 
honour, to *^sacrifice unto them, to their inestimable loss, such hecatombs, so 
many thousand sheep, oxen v.^ith gilded horns, goats, as ® Croesus, king of 
Lydia, ^Marcus Julianus, surnamed oh crebras hostias Viciimarius, et Tauricre- 
nius, and the rest of the Boman emperors usually did with much labour and 
cost ; and not emperors only and great ones, ^ro communi bono, were at this 
charge, but private men for their ordinary occasions. Pythagoras offered a 
hundred oxen for the invention of a geometrical problem, and it was anoi'dinary 
thing to sacrifice in ^ Lucian's time, " a heifer for their good health, four oxen 

^ Jlagna religione quseritur quss possit adulteria plura nunierare. Minut. ^ Lib. de sacrificiis, Fumo 

inhiantes, et muscarum in morem sanguinem exugentes circum aras effusum. ^ Iinagines Deorum, lib. sic 
inscript. ^De ver. relig. cap. 22. Indigni qui terram calcent, &c. bOctaviano. ^^ Jupiter Tra- 

goedus, de sacrificiis, et passim alias. d 666 several kinds of sacrifices in Egypt Major reckons up, torn. 2. 
coll. of which read more in cap. 1. of Laurentius Pignorius his Egypt characters, a cause of which Sanubius 
gives subc:s, lib. 3. cap. 1. ® Her> d. Clio, Immolavit lecta pecora ter mille Delphis, una cum lectis phialis 
tribus. f Superstitiosus Julianus innumeras sine parsimonia peciides mactavit. Araianus 25. Boves albi. 
M. Cassari salutem, si tu viceiis perimus: lib. 3. Romani observantlssimi sunt ceremoniaruin, bello prse- 
senim. s De sacrificiis : buculam pro bona valetudine, boves quatuor pi'o divitiis, centum pro regno, 

liuvenique tamos pro sospite a Troja reditu, &c. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] Symiytoms of Religious Melancholy, 691 

for wealth, a hunclred for a kingdom, nine bulls for tlieir safe return from 
Troja to Pylus," &c. Every god almost had a peculiar sacrifice — the Sun 
horses, Vulcan fire, Diana a white hart, Venus a turtle, Ceres a hog, Proser- 
pine a black lamb, JSTeptune a bull (read more in ^ Stukius at large), besides 
sheep, cocks, corals, frankincense, to their undoings, as if their gods were 
affected with blood or smoke. " And surely ( ^ saith he) if one should but repeat 
the fopperies of mortal men, in tlieir sacrifices, feasts, worshipping their gods, 
their rites and ceremonies, what they think of them, of their diet, houses, 
orders, (fee, what prayers and vows they make ; if one should but observe their 
absurdity and madness, he would burst out a laughing, and pity their folly." 
For what can be more absurd than their ordinary prayers, petitions, ^ requests, 
sacrifices, oracles, devotions % of which we have a taste in Maximus Tyrius, 
serm.l. Plato's Alcibiades Secundus, Persius, Sat. 2. Juvenal. Sat. 10. there 
likewise exploded, 3Iactant opirnas et pingues hostias deo quasi esurienti, pro- 
fandunt vina tanquam sitienti, lumina accendunt velut in tenebris agenti (Lac- 
tantius, lib. 2. cap. 6). As if their gods v/ere hungry, athirst, in the dark, 
they light candles, offer meat and drink. And what so base as to reveal their 
counsels and give oracles, e vlscerum sterquiliniis, out of the bowels and excre- 
mental parts of beasts ? sordidos deos Varro truly calls them therefore, and well 
he might. I say nothing of their magnificent and sumptuous temples, those 
majestical structures : to the roof of Apollo Didymeus' temple, adhranchidas, 
as ^ Strabo writes, a thousand oaks did not suffice. Who can relate the glorious 
si)lendour, and stupend magnificence, the sumptuous building of Diana at 
Ephesus. Jupiter Amnion's temple in Africa, the Pantheon at Eome, the 
Capitol, the Sarapium fit Alexandria, Apollo's temple at Daphne in the suburbs 
of Antioch. The great temple at Mexico so richly adorned, and so capacious 
(for 10,000 men might stand in it at once), that fair Pantheon of Cusco, 
described by Acosta in his Indian History, which eclipses both Jews and 
Christians. There were in old Jerusalem, as some write, 408 synagogues ; 
but new Cairo reckons up (if "^ Raclzivilus may be believed) G800 mosques. 
Fez 400, v.'-hereof 50 are most magnificent, like St. Paul's in London. Helena 
built 300 fair churchesinthe PIolyLand, but one Bassa hatlibuilt400 mosques. 
The Mahometans have 1000 monks in a monastery; the like saith Acosta of 
Americans ; Ricciusof the Chinese, for men and women, fairly built ; and more 
richly endowed some of them, than Arras in Artois, Fulda in Germany, or 
St. Edmund's-Bury in England with us : v/ho can describe those curious and 
costly statues, idols, images, so frequently mentioned in Pausanias? I conceal 
their donaries, pendants, other offerings, presents, to these their fictitious gods 
daily consecrated. "Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king of Macedonia, sent 
two statues of pure gold to Apollo at Delphos. ^ Croesus, king of Lydia, dedi- 
cated a hundred golden tiles in the same place with a golden altar: no man 
came empty-handed to their shrines. But these are base offerings in respect ; 
they offered men themselves alive. The Leucadians, as Strabo writes, sacrificed 
every year a man, averruncandcE deorum irm catisa, to pacify their gods, de 
moittis prcecijntio dejecerunf, &c. and they did voluntarily undergo it. The Decii 
did so sacrifice, Diis manibus ; Curtius did leap into the gulf Were they not 
all strangely deluded to go so far to their oracles, to be so gulled by them, both 
ill war and peace, as Poly bins relates (which their augurs, priests, vestal virgins 
can witness), to be so superstitious, that they would rather lose goods and lives 
than omit any ceremonies, or offend their heathen gods? Nicias, that generous 
and valiiiit captain of the Greeks, overthrew the Athenian navy, by reason of 

h De sacris Gcntil. et sacrific. Tyg. 159G. i Enimvero si quis recenseret qiise stulti mortales in festis, 

Bacrificiis, diis adorandis, &c. quae vota faciant, quid de lis statuaiit, &c. haud scio an risurus, <fcc. k Max. 

Tyrius, ser. 1. Croesus regum omnium stultissimus de lebete consulit, alius de numero arenarum, dimensiouo 
maris, &c. 1 Lib. 4. ^ Perigr. HitrosoL ^^ Soliuus. o Herodotus. 



692 ' Meligiotis Melancliohj. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

his too mucli superstition, ^ because the augurs told him it was ominous to set 
sail from the haven of Syracuse whilst the moon was eclipsed ; he tarried so 
long till his enemies besieged him, he and all his army were overthrown. The 
^ Parthians of old were so sottish in this kind, they would rather lose a victory, 
nay lose their own lives, than fight in the night, 'twas against their religion. 
The Jews would make no resistance on the Sabbath, when Pompeius besieged 
Jerusalem ; and some Jewish Christians in Africa, set upon by the Goths, 
suffered themselves upon the same occasion to be utterly vanquished. The 
superstition of the Dibrenses, a bordering town in Epirus, besieged by the 
Turks, is miraculous almost to report. Because a dead dog was flung into the 
only fountain which the city had, they would die of thirst all, rather than drink 
of that ^ unclean water, and yield up the city upon any conditions. Though 
the prsetor and chief citizens began to drink first, using all good persuasions, 
their superstition was such, no saying would serve, they must all forthwith die 
or yield up the city. Vix ausum ipse credere (saith ^ Barletius) tantam super- 
stitionem, vel affirmare levissimam hanc causam tantce rei vel magis ridicula7n, 
quum non duhitem risum potius quam admirationem posteris excitaturam. The 
story was too ridiculous, he was ashamed to report it, because he thought 
nobody would believe it. It is stupend to relate what strange effects this 
idolatry and superstition hath brought forth of the latter years in the Indies 
and these bordering parts : * in what feral shapes the ^ devil is adored, ne quid 
mcdi intentent, as they say; for in the mountains betwixt Scanderoon and 
Aleppo, at this day, there are dwelling a certain kind of people called Coords, 
coming of the race of the ancient Parthians, who worship the devil, and allege 
this reason in so doing : God is a good man and will do no harm, but the devil 
is bad and m.ust be pleased, lest he hurt them. It is wonderful to tell how the 
devil deludes them, how he terrifies them, how they offer men and women 
sacrifices unto him, a hundred at once, as they did infants in Crete to Saturn 
of old, the finest children, like Agamemnon's Iphigenia,&c. At ^ Mexico, 
when the Spaniards first overcame them, they daily sacrificed viva ho^ninum 
corda e viventium corporibus extracta, the hearts of men yet living, 20,000 in 
a year (Acosta, lib. 5. cap. 20) to their idols made of flour and men's blood, 
and every year 6000 infants of both sexes : and as prodigious to relate, ^ how 
they bury their wives with husbands deceased, 'tis fearful to report, and harder 
to believe, 

" 2 Nam certamen habent IsetM qusB viva sequatur 
Conjugium, pudor est non licuisse mori," 

and burn them alive, best goods, servants, horses, when a grandee dies, ^ twelve 
thousand at once amongst the Tartars, when a great cham departs, or an 
emperor in America : how they plague themselves, which abstain from all that 
hath life, like those old Pythagoreans, with immoderate fastings, ^ as the 
Bannians about Surat, they of China, that for sui)erstition's sake never eat 
flesh nor fish all their lives, never marry, but live in deserts and by-places, 
and some pray to their idols twent j -four hours together without any intermission, 
biting of their tongues when they have done, for devotion's sake. Some again 
are brought to that madness by their superstitious priests (that tell them such 
vain stories of immortality, and the joys of heaven in that other life), ^ that 

P Botenis, polit. lib. 2. cap. 16. ^ Plutarch, vit. Crassi. ^ They were of the Greek church, 

s Lib. 5. de gestis Scanderbegis. t in templis immanialdolorum monstra conspiciuntur, marmorea, 

lignea, lutea, &c. Riccius. ^ Deum enim placare non est opus, qira non nocet ; sed dsemonem sacrifieiis 

plttcant, &c. ^ Fer. Cortesius. y M. Polus, Lod. Vertoraannus, navig. lib. 6. cap. 9. P. Martyr. 

Ocean, dec. ^ Propertius, lib. 3. eleg. 12. " There is a contest amongst the living wives as to which shall 
follow the husband, and not be allowed to die for him is accounted a dis^n-ace." ^Mathias a Michou. 

bEpist Jesuit, anno 1549. a Xaverto et sociis. Idemque Riccius, expedit. ad Sinas, 1. 1. per totum Jejuna- 
tores apud eos toto die carnibus abstinent et piscibus ob religionem, nocte et die Idola colentes; nusquam 
egredientes. '^ Ad immortalitatem morte aspirant summi magistratus, &c. Et multi mortales hac insai^ia. 
et prsepostero immortalitatis studio laborant, et misere pereunt : rex ipse clam venenum hausisset, nisi a servo 
fuisset detentus. 



Mem, 1. Subs. 3.] Symptoms of Religious Melancholy. 693 

many thovisands voluntarily break their own necks, as Cleombrotus Ambor- 
ciatus, auditors of old, preciiDitate themselves, that tliey may participate of 
that unspeakable happiness in the other world. One poisons, another strangles 
himself, and the King of China had done as much, deluded with the vain hope, 
had he not been detained by his servant. But who can sufficiently tell of 
their several superstitions, vexations, follies, torments? I may conclude with 
^ Possevinus, i?e%ioy«ci^ asperos mites, homines eferis; super stitio exhominibus 
/era, religion makes wild beasts civil, superstition makes wise men beasts 
and fools ; and the discreetest that are, if they give way to it, are no better 
than dizzards ; nay more, if that of Plotinus be true, is unus religionis scopus, 
ut ei quern colimus similes Jiamus, that is the drift of religion to make us like 
him whom we worship : what shall be the end of idolaters, but to degenerate 
into stocks and stones ? of such as worship these heathen gods, for dii gentium 
d(Emonia, ®but to become devils themselves? 'Tis therefore ea;i^io5ws error, et 
maxime periculosus, a most perilous and dangerous error of all others, as 
^Plutarch holds, turhulenta passio honiinem consternans, Si-pes,ti\.ejit, a trouble-^ 
some passion, that utterly undoeth men. Unhappy superstition, ^ Pliny calls 
it, morte nonfinitur, death takes away life, but not supf^rstition. Impious and 
ignorant are far more happy than they which are superstitious, no torture like 
to it, none so continuate, so general, so destructive, so violent. 

In this superstitious row, Jews for antiquity may go next to Gentiles : what 
of old they have done, what idolatries they have committed in their groves and 
high places, what their Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Essei, and such sectaries 
have maintained, I will not so much as mention : for the present, I presume 
no nation under heaven can be more sottish, ignorant, blind, superstitious, 
wilful, obstinate, and peevish, tiring themselves with vain ceremonies to no 
purpose j he that shall but read their rabbins' ridiculous comments, their 
strange interpretation of scriptures, their absurd ceremonies, fables, childish 
tales, which they stedfastly believe, will think they be scarce rational crea- 
tures ; their foohsh ^ customs, when they rise in the morning, and how they 
prepare themselves to prayer, to meat, with what superstitious washings, how 
to their sabbath, to their other feasts, weddings, burials, &c. Last of all, the 
expectation of their Messiah, and those figments, miracles, vain pomp that 
shall attend him, as how he shall terrify the Gentiles, and overcome them by 
new diseases ; how Michael the archangel shall sound his trumpet, how he 
shall gather all the scattered Jews in the Holy Land, and there make the;n a 
great banquet, "^ Wherein shall be all the birds, beasts, fishes, that ever God 
made, a cup of wine that grew in Paradise, and that hath been kept in Adam's 
cellar ever since." At the first course shall be served in that great ox in 
Job iv. 10, "that every day feeds on a thousand hills," Psal. 1. 10, that 
great Leviathan, and a great bird, that laid an egg so big, " ^that by chance 
tumbling out of the nest, it knocked down three hundred tall cedars, and 
breaking as it fell, drowned one hundred and sixty villages :" this bird stood 
up to the knees in the sea, and the sea was so deep, that a hatchet would not 
fall to the bottom in seven years : of their Messiah's %ives and children ; 
Adam and Eve, &c., and that one stupend fiction amongst the rest : when a 
Poman prince asked of rabbi Jehosua ben Hanania, why the Jews' God was 
compared to a lion ; he made answer he compared himself to no ordinary lion, 
but to one in the wood Ela, which, when he desired to see, the rabbin prayed 

A Cantione in lib. 10. Bonini de repub. foL 111. ® Quin ipsius diaboli ut neqtiitiam referant. f Lib. 

de siiperstit. SHominibus vitaB finis mors, non antem superstitionis, profert hpec sues terminos ultra viiaa 
finem. h Buxtorflus, Synagog. Jud. c. 4. Inter precandum nemo pediculos attingat, vel pulicem, aut per 
guttur inferius ventum eniittat, &c. Id. c. 5. et seq. cap. 36. i lllic omnia animalia, pisces, ares, quns 

Deus unquam creavit mactabuntur, et vinum generosum, &c. k Cujus lapsu cedri altissimi 300 dejecli 

stmt, quumque e lapsu ovum fuerat confractum, pagi 160 inde submersi, et alluvione inundati. lEsery 

^king of .the world shall send him one of his daughters to be his wife, because it is written, Ps. xlv. jO, " Kinds' 
daughters shall attend on him," &c. 



694 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

to God lie might, and forthwith the lion set forward, "™ But when he was 
four hundred miles from Rome he so roared that all the great-bellied women 
in Rome made abortions, the city walls fell down, and when he came a hun- 
dred miles nearer, and roared a second time, their teeth fell out of their heads, 
the emperor himself fell down dead, and so the lion went back." With an 
infinite number of such lies and forgeries, which they verily believe, feed 
themselves with vain hope, and in the mean time will by no persuasions be 
diverted, but still crucify their souls with a company of idle ceremonies, live 
like slaves and vagabonds, will not be relieved or reconciled. 

Mahometans are a compound of Gentiles, Jews, and Christians, and so 
absurd in their ceremonies, as if they had taken that which is most sottish out 
of every one of them, full of idle fables in their superstitious law, their Alco- 
ran itself a gallimaufry of lies, tales, ceremonies, traditions, precepts, stolen 
from other sects, and confusedly heaped up to delude a company of rude and 
barbarous clowns. As how birds, beasts, stones, saluted Mahomet when he 
came from Mecca, the moon came down from heaven to visit him, ^ how God 
sent for him, spake to him, &c., with a comj^any of stupend figments of the 
angels, sun, moon, and stars, &c. Of the day of judgment, and three sounds 
to prepare it, which must last fifty thousand years of Paradise, which wholly 
consists in coeundi et comedendi voluptate, and 27ecorinis hominibus scriptum, 
hestialis beatitude, is so ridiculous, that Virgil, Dante, Lucian, nor any poet 
can be more fabulous. Their rites and ceremonies are most vain and super- 
stitious, wine and swine's flesh are utterly forbidden by their law, ° they must 
pray five times a day; and still towards the south, wash before and after all 
tJieir bodies over, with many such. For fasting, vows, relig'ous orders, pere- 
grinations, they go far beyond any Papists, ^they fast a month together many 
times, and must not eat a bit till sun be set. Their kalenders, dervises, and 
torlachers, &c., are more "^ abstemious some of them, than Carthusians, Fran- 
ciscans, Anchorites, forsake all, live solitary, fare hard, go naked, &c. 
''Their pilgrimages are as far as to the river ^Ganges (which the Gentiles of 
those tracts likewise do), to wash themselves, for that river as they hold hath 
a sovereign virtue to purge them of all sins, and no man can be saved that 
hath not been washed in it. For which reason they come far and near from 
the Indies ; Maximus gentium omnium confiiixus est; and infinite numbers 
yearly resort to it. Others go as far as Mecca to Mahomet's tomb, which 
journey is both miraculous and meritorious. The ceremonies of flinging stones 
to stone the devil, of eating a camel at Cairo by the way; their fastings, their 
running till they sweat, their long prayers, Mahomet's temple, tomb, and 
building of it, would ask a whole volume to dilate : and for their pains taken 
in this holy pilgrimage, all their sins are forgiven, and they reputed for so 
many saints. And diverse of them with hot bricks, when they return, will 
put out their eyes, "Hhat they never after see any profane thing, bite out 
their tongues," &c. They look for their prophet Mahomet as Jews do for their 
Messiah. Bead more of their customs, rites, ceremonies, in Lonicerus, Turcic. 
hist. torn. 1. from the tenth to the twenty-fourth chapter. Bredenbacliius, 
cap. 4, 5, 6. Leo Afer, lib. 1. Busbequius, Sabellicus, Purchas, lib. 3. cap. 
3, et 4, 5. Theodorus Bibliander, &c. Many foolish ceremonies you shall 
find in them; and which is most to be lamented, the people are generally 
so curious in observing of them, that if the least circumstance be omitted^ 

™Qnuin quadringentis adhuc milliaribus at) imperatore Leo hie abesset, tam fortiter rugiebat, ut mulieres 
Romanas abortieriiit omnes, mutique, &c. iStrozias Cicogna, omnif. mag. lib. I.e. 1. putida multa recenset 
ex Alcorano, de eoelo, stellis, Angelis, Lonicerus, c. 21, 22. 1. 1. oQuiaquies in die orare Turcse tenentur 
ad meridiem. Bredenbacliius, cap. 5. P In quolibet anno mensem integrum jejunant interdiu, nee come- 
d elites nee bibentes, &c. <iNullis unquammulti per totam setatem carnibus vescuntur. Leo Afer. 

r Lonicerus, to. 1. cap. 17. 18. SQotardus Arthus, ca. 33. hist, orient. Indl«: opinio est expiatorium esse 

Giiigdm; et nee muadam ab omni peccato nee salvum fieri posse, qui non hoc flumiue se abluat: quam ob 
causam ex tota India, &c. t Quia nil voluut deinceps vwlere. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] Symptoms of Religious MelancUoly. 605 

they think they shall be daimed, 'tis an irremissible offence, and can hardly 
be forgiven. I kept in my house amongst my followers (saith Busbequius, 
sometime the Turk's orator in Constantinople) a Turkey boy, that by chance 
did eat shell-fish, a meat forbidden by tlieir law, but the next day when he 
knew what he had done, he was not only sick to cast and vomit, but very much 
troubled in mind, would weep and ^grieve many days after, torment himself 
for his foul offence. Another Turk being to drink a cup of wine in his cellar, 
first made a huge noise and filthy faces, "^to warn his soul, as he said, that 
it should not be gTiilty of that foul fact which he was to commit." With such 
toys as these are men kept in awe, and so cowed, that they dai'e not resist, 
or offend the least circumstance of their law, for conscience'-sake misled by 
superstition, which no human edict otherwise, no force of arms, could have 
enforced. 

In the last place are Pseudo- Christians, in describing of whose superstitious 
symptoms, as a mixture of the rest, I may say that which St. Benedict once 
saw in a vision, one devil in a market-place, but ten in a monastery, because 
there was more work ; in populous cities they would swear and forswear, lie, 
falsify, deceive fast enough of themselves, one devil could circumvent a thou- 
sand; but in their religious houses a thousand devils could scarce tempt one 
silly monk. All the principal devils, I think, busy themselves in subverting 
Christians; Jews, Gentiles, and Mahometans, are extra caulem, out of the 
fold, and need no such attendance, they make no resistance, ^ eos enim pulsare 
7iegligit, quos quieto jure possidere se sentit, they are his own already : but 
Christians have that shield of faith, sword of the Spirit to resist, and must 
have a great deal of battery before they can be overcome. That the devil is 
most busy amongst us that are of the true church, appears by those several 
oppositions, heresies, schisms, which in all ages he hath raised to subvert it, 
and in that of E-ome especially, wherein Antichrist himself now sits and plays 
his prize. This mystery of iniquity began to work even in the Apostles' time, 
many Antichrists and heretics were abroad, many sprung up since, many now 
present, and will be to the world's end, to dementate men's minds, to seduce 
and captivate their souls. Their symptoms I know not how better to express, 
than in that twofold division, of such as lead and are led. Such as lead are 
heretics, scliismatics, false prophets, impostors, and their ministers : they have 
some common symptoms, some peculiar. Common, as madness, folly, pride, 
insolency,arrogancj, singularity, peevishness, ob=;tinacy, impudence, scorn, and 
contempt of all other sects: Nullius addicti jurare in verba magistri;^ they 
will approve of nought but what they first in vent themselves, no interpretation 
good but what their infallible spirit dictates : none shall be in secundis, no not 
m tertiis, they are only wise, only learned in the truth, all damned but they 
and their followers, coidem scripturarmii faciunt ad matenam suam, saith 
TertuUian, they make a slaughter of Scriptures, and turn it as a nose of wax 
to their own ends. So irrefragable, in the meantime, that what they have 
once said, they must and will maintain, in whole tomes, duplications, triplica- 
tions, never yield to death, so self-conceited, say what you can. As '^Bernard 
(erroneously some say) speaks of P. Aliardus, omnes patres sic, atque ego sic. 
Though all the Fathers, Councils, the whole world contradict it, they care not, 
they are all one: and as ^Gregory well notes " of such as are vertiginou.s, 
they think all turns round and moves, all err; when as the error is wliolly in 
their own brains." Magallianus, the Jesuit, in his Comment on 1 Tim. 
xvi. 20, and Alphonsus de castro lib. 1. adversus hareses, gives two more 
eminent notes, or probable conjectures to know such men by (they might have 

"^ Xnllum se conflictandi finem facit. ^ Ut in aliquem angulum se reciperet, ne reus fleret ejus delicti 

quod ipse erat admissurus. y Gvegor. Horn. ^ " Bound to the dictates of no master." * Epist. 190. 
b Orat. 8. ut vertigine correptis ridentur omnia moveri, omnia iis falsa sunt, quura error in ipsorum cerebro sit. 



606 Religious Mela7icholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

taken themselves by the noses when they said it), " ^ First they affect novelties 
and toys, and prefer falsehood before truth ; *^ secondly, they care not what 
they say, that which rashness and folly hath brought out, pride afterward, 
peevishness and contumacy shall maintain to the last gasp." Peculiar symp- 
toms are prodigious paradoxes, new doctrines, vain phantasms, which are many 
and diverse as they themselves. *^Nicholaites of old would have wives in 
common : Montanists will not marry at all, nor Tatians, forbidding all flesh, 
Severians wine; Adamians go naked; ^because Adam did so in Paradise; and 
some ^ barefoot all their lives, because God, Exod. iii. and Joshua v. bid Moses 
so to do ; and Isaiah xx. was bid put off his shoes ; Manichees hold that 
Pythagorean transmigration of souls from men to beasts ; " ^the Circumcellions 
in Africa, with a mad cruelty, made away themselves, some by fire, water, 
breaking their necks, and seduced others to do the like, threatening some if they 
did not," with a thousand such ; as you may read in ^Austin (for there were 
fourscore and eleven heresies in his times, besides schisms and smaller factions) 
Ejoiphanius, Alphonsus de Castro, Danceus, Gab, Prateolus, &c. Of prophets, 
enthusiasts and impostors, our Ecclesiastical stories afford many examples; 
of Elias and Christs, as our ^Eudo de stellis, a Briton in King Stephen's 
time, that went invisible, translated himself from one to another in a moment, 
fed thousands with good cheer in the wilderness, and many such ; nothing so 
common as miracles, visions, revelations, prophecies. ISTow what these brain- 
sick heretics once broach, and impostors set on foot, be it never so absurd, 
false, and prodigious, the common people will follow and believe. It will run 
along like murrain in cattle, scab in sheep. Nulla scabies, as ^he said, super- 
stitione scabiosior : as he that is bitten with a mad dog bites others, and all in 
the end become mad ; either out of affection of novelty, simplicity, blind zeal, 
hope and fear, the giddy-headed multitude will embrace it, and without farther 
examination approve it. 

Sed Vetera querimur, these are old, hcBc prius fuere. In our days we have a 
new scene of superstitious impostors and heretics. A new company of actors, of 
Antichrists, that great Antichrist himself: a rope of popes, that by their greatness 
and authority bear down all before them : who from that time they proclaimed 
themselves universal bishops, to establish their own kingdom, sovereignty, great- 
ness, and to enrich themselves, brought in such a company of human traditions, 
purgatory, Limbus Patrum, Infantum, and all that subterranean geography, 
mass, adoration of saints, alms, fastings, bulls, indulgences, orders, friars, images, 
shrines, musty relics, excommunications, confessions, satisfactions, blind obe- 
diences, vows, pilgrimages, peregrinations, with many such curious toys, 
intricate subtleties, gross errors, obscure questions, to vindicate the better and 
set a gloss upon them, that the light of the Gospel was quite eclipsed, darkness 
over all, the Scriptures concealed, legends brought in, religion banished, 
hyjDOcritical superstition exalted, and the church itself ™ obscured and per- 
secuted , Christ and his members crucified more, saith Benzo, by a few necro- 
mantical, atheistical popes, than ever it was by ^Julian the Apostate, Porphy- 
rins the Platonist, Celsus the physician, Libanius the Sophister; by those 
heathen emperors, Huns, Goths, and Yandals. What each of them did, by 
w-hat means, at what times, quibus auxiliis, superstition climbed to this height, 
traditions increased, and Antichrist himself came to his estate, let Magdeburg- 

® Res novas affectant et inutiles, falsa veris prsefenint. 2, quod temeritas eflfutierit, idsuperMa posttnodum 
tuebitur et coutumacise, &c. d See more in Vincent. Lyrin. ® Aust. de haeres. nsus mulienim 

indifterens. f Quod ante peccavit Adam, nudus erat. S Alii nudis pedibus semper ambulant, 

h Insana feritate sibi non parcunt, nampermortes varias prascipitiorum, aquarum, et ignium, seipsos necant, 
et in istum furorem alios cogunt, mortem minantes ni faciant. 1 Elencb. hgeret, ab orbe condito. 

k Nubiigens.islib. cap. 19. 1 Jovian. Pont. Ant. Dial. ™ Cum per Paganos nomen ejus persequi non 

potcrat, sub specie relisionis fraudulenter subvertere disponebat. ^ That wi-it deprofesso a-jainst 

Christians, et palestinum deum (ut Socrates lib. 3. cap. 19.), scripturam nugis plenam, &c. vide Cyrilium in 
J lUianum, Origenem in Celsum, &c. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] Symjotoms of Religious Melancholy. 697 

enses, Kemnisius, Osiander, Bale, Mornay, Fox, Usher, and many others 
relate. In the mean time, he that shall but see their profane rites and 
fooKsh customs, how superstitiously kept, how strictly observed, their multitude 
of saints, images, that rabble of Komish deities, for trades, professions, diseases, 
persons, ofHces, countries, places; St. George for England; St, Denis for 
France; Patrick, Ireland; Andrew, Scotland; Jago, Spain; &c, Gregory 
for students; Luke for painters; Cosmus and Damian for philosophers; 
Crispin, shoemakers; Katherine, spinners; &c. Anthony for pigs; G-allus, 
geese; Wenceslaus, sheep; Pelagius, oxen; Sebastian, the plague; Valen- 
tine, falling sickness : Apollonia, tooth-ache; Petronella for agues; and the 
Yirgin Mary for sea and land, for all parties, offices : he that shall observe 
these things, their shrines, images, oblations, pendants, adorations, pilgrim- 
ages they make to them, what creejDing to crosses, our Lady of Loretto's rich 
'^ gowns, her donaries, the cost bestowed on images, and number of silitors; 
St. Nicholas Burge in France ; our St, Thomas's shrine of old at Canterbury ; 
those relics at Home, Jerusalem, Genoa, Lyons, Pratum, St. Denis ; and how 
many thousands come yearly to offer to them, with what cost, trouble, anxiety, 
superstition (for forty several masses arc daily said in some of their ^ churches, 
and they rise at all hours of the night to mass, come barefoot, &c.), how they 
spend themselves, times, goods, lives, fortunes, in such ridiculous observations ; 
their tales and figments, false miracles, buying and selling of pardons, in- 
dulgences for 40,000 years to come, their processions on set days, their strict 
fastings, monks, anchorites, friar mendicants, Franciscans, Carthusians, (fee. 
Their vigils and fasts, their ceremonies at Christmas, Shrovetide, Candlemas, 
Palm-Sunday, Blaise, St. Martin, St. Nicholas' day ; their adorations, exor- 
cisms, &c,, will think all tkose Grecian, Pagan, Mahometan superstitions, 
gods, idols, and ceremonies, the name, time and place, habit only altered, to 
have degenerated into Christians. Whilst they prefer traditions before 
Scriptures ; those Evangelical Councils, poverty, obedience, vows, alms, fasting, 
supererogations, before God's Commandments; their own ordinances instead 
of his precepts, and keep them in ignorance, blindness, they have brought the 
common people into such a case by their cunning conveyances, strict discipline 
and ser^ale education, that upon pain of damnation they dare not break the 
least ceremony, tradition, edict ; hold it a greater sin to eat a bit of meat in 
Lent, than kill a man : their consciences are so terrified, that they are ready 
to despair if a small ceremony be omitted ; and will accuse their own father, 
mother, brother, sister, nearest and dearest friends of heresy, if they do not as 
they do, will be their chief executioners, and help first to bring a faggot to 
burn them. What mulct, what penance soever is enjoined, they dare not but 
do it, tumble with St. Francis in the mire amongst hogs, if they be appointed, 
go woolward, whip themselves, build hospitals, abbeys, &c., go to the East 
or West Indies, kill a king, or run upon a sword point: they perform 
all, without any muttering or hesitation, believe all. 



' 1 Ut pueri infantes credimt signa omnia ahena 
Vivere, et esse homines, et sic isti omnia ficta 
Vera putant, credunt signis cor inesse ahenis." 



' As chUdren think their hahies live to he, 
Do they these hrazen images they see." 



And whilst the ruder sort are so carried headlong with blind zeal, are so 
gulled and tortured by their superstitions, their own too credulous simplicity 
and ignorance, their epicurean popes and hypocritical cardinals laugh in their 
sleeves, and are merry in tlieir chambers with their punks, they do indulgere 
■genio, and make much of themselves. The middle sort, some for private gain, 
hope of ecclesiastical preferment {quis expedivit psittaco suum ^al^i), popu- 
larity, base flattery, must and will believe all their paradoxes and absurd 

®One image had one go\m worth 400 crowns and more. P As at oar lady's chiuch at Bergamo in Italy. 
^ Lucilius, lib. 1. cap. 22. de falsa rehg. 



698 Eeligious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

tenets, without exception, and as obstinately maintain and put in practice all 
their traditions and idolatrous ceremonies (for their religion is half a trade) to 
the death; they will defend all, the golden legend itself with all the lies and 
tales in it : as that of St. George, St. Christopher, St. Winifred, St. Denis, &c. 
It is a wonder to see how Nic. Harpsfield, that pharisaical impostor, amongst 
the rest, Ecclesiast. Hist. cap. 22. scbg, prim, sex., puzzles himself to vindicate 
that ridiculous fable of St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins, as when 
they lived,^' how they came to Cologne, by whom martyred, &c., though he 
can say nothing for it, yet he must and will approve it : nobilitavit {inquit) hoc 
scecul'um Ursula cum comitibus, cujus historia utinam tarn mihi esset expedita 
et certa, quam in animo meo cerium ac expeditum est, earn esse cum sodalibus 
beatam in coelis virginem. They must and will (I say) either out of blind zeal 
believe, vary their compass with the rest, as the latitude of religion varies, 
apply* themselves to the times and seasons, and for fear and flattery are con- 
tent to subscribe and to do all that in them lies to maintain and defend their 
present government and slavish religious schoolmen, canonists, Jesuits, friars, 
priests, orators, sophisters, who either for that they had nothing else to do, 
luxuriant wits knew not otherwise how to busy themselves in those idle times, 
for the Church then had few or no open adversaries, or better to defend their 
lies, fictions, miracles, transubstantiations, traditions, pope's pardons, purgato- 
ries, masses, impossibilities, &c. with glorious shows, fair pretences, big words, 
and plausible wits, have coined a thousand idle questions, nice distinctions, 
subtleties, Obs and Sols, such tropological, allegorical expositions, to salve all 
appearances, objections, such quirks and quiddities, quodlibetaries, as Bale 
saith of Ferribrigge and Strode, instances, ampliations, decrees, glosses, 
canons, that instead of sound commentaries, good preachers, are come in a 
company of mad sophisters, primo secundo secundarii, sectaries, Canonists, 
Sorbonists, Minorites, with a rabble of idle controversies and questions, ^ wn 
Papa sit Deus, an quasi Deus ? An participet utramque Christi natura/ni ? 
"Whether it be as possible for God to be a humble bee or a gourd, as a man? 
Whether he can produce respect without a foundation or term, make a whore a 
virgin? fetch Trajan's soul from hell, and how? with a rabble of questions 
about hell-fire : whether it be a gi'eater sin to kill a man, or to clout shoes 
upon a Sunday? whether God can make another God like unto himself? 
Such, saith Kemnisius, are most of your schoolmen (mere alchemists), 200 
commentators on Peter Lambard; (Fitsius catal. scriptorum Anglic, reckons 
up 180 English commentators alone, on the matter of the sentences), Scotists, 
Thomists, Reals, Nominals, &c., and so perhaps that of St. * Austin may be 
verified. Indocti rapiunt caelum docti interim descendunt ad infernum. Thus 
they continued in such error, blindness, decrees, sophisms, superstitions; idle 
ceremonies and traditions were the sum of their new- coined holiness and 
religion, and by these knaveries and stratagems they were able to involve multi- 
tudes, to deceive the most sanctified souls, and, if it were possible, the very 
elect. In the mean time the true Church, as wine and water mixed, lay hid 
and obscure to speak of, till Luther's time, who began upon a sudden to 
defecate, and as another sun to drive away those foggy mists of superstition, 
to restore it to that purity of the primitive Church. And after him many 
good and godly men, divine spirits, have done their endeavours, and still do. 

'"* And what their ignorance esteem'd so holy, 
Our wiser ages do account as folly." 

But see the devil, that will never suffer the Church to be quiet or at rest : no 
garden so well tilled but some noxious weeds grow up in it, no wheat but it 

'An. 441. s Hospinian Osiander. An hsec propositio Deus sit cucurhita vel scarabeus, sit seqne 

possibilis ac Deus et homo? An possit respectom producere sine fiindamento et terniino. An levius sit 
hominem jugulare quam die dominico calceum consuere ? tDe doct. Christian. ^ Daniel. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 3.] Symptoms of lieliyious MelancJwly. 609 

hath some tares: we have a mad giddy company of precisians, schismatics, 
and some heretics, even in our own bosoms in another extreme, '■'■^ Dum vitaut 
stulti vitia in contraria currunt;' that out of too much zeal in opposition ia 
Antichrist, human traditions, those Romish rites and superstitions, will quite 
demolish all, they will admit of no ceremonies at all, no fasting days, no cross 
in baptism, kneeling at communion, no church music, &c., no bishop's courts, 
no church government, rail at all our church discipHne, will not hold their 
tongues, and all for the peace of thee, O Sion ! No, not so much as degrees 
some of them will tolerate, or universities, all human learning ('tis cloaccb 
diaboli), hoods, habits, cap and surplice, such as are things indifferent in them- 
selves, and wholly for ornament, decency, or distinction-sake, they abhor, hate, 
and snuff at, as a stone- horse when he meets a bear : they make matters of 
conscience of them, and will rather forsake their livings than subscribe to 
them. They will admit of no holidays, or honest recreations, as of hawking, 
hunting, &c., no churches, no bells some of them, because Papists use them ; 
no discipline, no ceremonies but what they invent themselves; no interpreta- 
tions of scriptures, no comments of fathers, no councils, but such as their own 
fantastical spirits dictate, or recta ratio, as Socinians, by which spirit misled, 
many times they broach as prodigious paradoxes as Papists themselves. Some 
of them turn prophets, have secret revelations, will be of privy council with 
God himself, and know all his secrets, ^ Per capillos spiritum sanctum tenent^ 
et omnia sciunt cum sint asini omniuin obstinatissimi, a company of giddy 
heads will take upon them to define how many shall be saved and who damned 
in a parish, where they shall sit in heaven, interpret Apocalypses, {Commenta- 
tores prcBcipites et veriiginosos^ one calls them, as well he might) and those 
hidden mysteries to private persons, times, places, as their own spirit informs 
them, private revelations shall suggest, and precisely set down when the world 
shall come to an end, what year, what month, what day. Some of them again 
have such strong faith, so presimiptuous, they will go into infected houses, 
expel devils, and fast forty days, as Christ himself did; some call God and 
his attributes into question, as Yorstius and Socinus; some princes, civil 
magistrates, and their authorities, as anabaptists, will do all their own private 
spirit dictates, and nothing else. Brownists, Barrowists, Eamilists, and those 
Amsterdamian sects and sectaries, are led all by so many private spirits. It 
is a wonder to reveal what passages Sleidan relates in his commentaries, of 
Cretinck, Knipj^erdoling, and their associates, those madmen of Munster in 
Germany ; what strange enthusiasms, sottish revelations they had, how ab- 
surdly they carried themselves, deluded others ; and as profane Machiavel in his 
political disputations holds of Christian religion, in general it doth enervate, 
debilitate, take away men's spirits and courage from t\ie\i\,simpliGiores reddit 
homines^ breeds nothing so courageous soldiers as that Roman : we may say 
of these peculiar sects, their religion takes away not spirits only, but wit and 
judgment, and deprives them of their understanding; for some of them are so 
far gone with their private enthusiasms and revelations, that tliey are quite 
mad, out of their wits. What greater madness can there be, than for a man. 
to take upon him to be a God, as some do? to be the Holy Ghost, Elias, and 
what not? In ^Poland, 1518, in the reign of King Sigismund, one said he 
was Christ, and got him twelve apostles, came to judge the world, and strangely 
deluded the commons. ^One David George, an illiterate painter, not many 
years since, did as much in Holland, took upon him to be the Messiah, and had 
many followers. Benedictus Yictorinus Faventinus, consil. 15, writes as much 
of one Honorius, that thought he was not only inspired as a prophet, but that 

" ^Whilst these fools aroid one vice they run into another of an opposite character." y Agrlp. ep. 29. 

^ Alex. Gaguin. 22. Discipulis ascitis mirum In modum popnlmn decepit. ^Gaicciiivd. desci'ipt. iJel^t 

conipiures habuit asseclas ab iisdem honoratus. 



700 Religious Melancholy, [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

lie was a God himself, and had ^ familiar conference with God and his angels. 
Lavat. de sped. c. 2. part. 8. hath a story of one John Sartorius, that thouglit 
he was the prophet Elias, and cap. 7. of divers others that had conference 
with angels, were saints, prophets, Wierus, lib. 3. de Lamiis, c. 7. makes 
mention of a prophet of Groning that said he was God the Father; of an 
Italian and Spanish prophet that held as much. We need not rove so far 
abroad, we have familiar examples at home : Hackett that said he was Christ ; 
Coppinger and Arthington his disciples; '^ Bnrchet and Hovatus, burned at 
Norwich. We are never likely seven years together without some such new 
prophets that have several inspirations, some to convert the Jews, some fast 
forty days, go with Daniel to the lion's den ; some foretell strange things, some 
for one thing, some for another. Great precisians of mean conditions and very 
illiterate, most part by a preposterous zeal, fasting, meditation, melancholy, 
are brought into those gross errors and inconveniences. Of those men I may 
conclude, generally, that howsoever they may seem to be discreet, and men of 
understanding in other matters, discourse well, Icesam kabent imaginationem, 
they are like comets, round in all places but where they blaze, ccetera sani, 
they have impregnable wits many of them, and discreet otherwise, but in this 
their madness and folly breaks out beyond measure, in infinitum erwmpit 
stuUitia. They are certainly far gone with melancholy, if not quite mad, and 
have more need of physic than many a man that keeps his bed, more need of 
hellebore than those that are in Bedlam. 

Subs EOT. lY. — Prognostics of Religious Melancholy. 

You may guess at the prognostics by the symptoms. What can these signs 
foretell otherwise than folly, dotage, madness, gross ignorance, despair, obsti- 
nacy, a reprobate sense, ^ a bad end 1 What else can superstition, heresy, 
produce, but wars, tumults, uproars, torture of souls, and despair, a desolate 
land, as Jeremy teacheth, cap. vii. 34. when the}^ commit idolatry, and walk 
after their own ways? how should it be otherwise with them ? what can they 
expect but " blasting, famine, dearth," and all the plagues of Egypt, as Amos 
denounceth, cap. iv. vers. 9. 10. to be led into captivity? If our hopes be 
frustrate, " we sow much and bring in little, eat and have not enough, drink 
and are not filled, clothe and be not warm, &c. Haggai, i. 6. we look for much 
and it comes to little, whence is it ? His house was waste, they came to their 
own houses, vers. 9. therefore the heaven stayed his dew, the earth his fruit." 
Because we are superstitious, irreligious, we do not serve God as we ought, all 
these plagues and miseries come upon us ; what can we look for else but mutual 
wars, slaughters, fearful ends in this life and in the life to come eternal 
damnation? What is it that hath caused so many feral battles to be fought, 
so much Christian bloodshed, but superstition ? That Spanish inquisition, racks, 
wheels, tortures, torments, whence do they proceed ? from superstition. Bodine 
the Frenchman, in his ^ method, hist, accounts Englishmen barbarians, for their 
civil wars : but let him read those Pharsalian fields ^ fought of late in France for 
religion, their massacres, wherein by their own relations in twenty-four years 
I know not how many millions have been consumed, whole families and cities, 
and he shall find ours to be but velitations to theirs. But it hath ever been 
the custom of heretics and idolaters, when they are plagued for their sins, and 
God's just judgments come upon them, not to acknowledge any fault in them- 
selves, but still impute it unto others. In Cyprian's time it was much contro- 
verted between him and Demetrius an idolater, who should be the cause of those 

b Hen. Nicholas at Leiden 1580, such a one. ^ See Camden's Annals, fo. 242. et 285. d Arius his 

bowels burst, Montanus hanged himself, &c. Eudo de stellis, his disciples, ardere potius quam ad vitam 
corrigi maluerunt ; tanta vis infixi semel erroris, they died blaspheming. Nubiigensis, c. 9. lib. I. Jer. vii 23. 
Amos 7. 5. *5 cap. fPophneriusLerius, prgef. hist. Rich. Dinoth. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 4.] Prognostics of Religious Mdancholy, 701 

present calamities. Demetrius laid all tlie fault on Christians, (and so tliey did 
ever in the primitive church, as appears by the first book of ^ Arnobius,) 
*' ^ that there were not such ordinary showers in winter, the ripening heat in 
summer, so seasonable springs, fruHful autumns, no marble mines in the moun- 
tains, less gold and silver than of old ; that husbandmen, seamen, soldiers, all 
were scanted, justice, friendship, skill in arts, all was decayed," and that 
through Christians' default, and all their other miseries from them, quod clii 
nostri a vobis non colantur, because they did not worship their gods. But 
Cyprian retorts all upon him again, as appears by his tract against him. 'Tis 
trae the world is miserably tormented and shaken with wars, dearth, famine, 
fire, inundations, plagues, and many feral diseases rage amongst us, sednon ut 
tu quereris ista accidunt quod dii vestri d, nobis non colantur sed quod a vobis 
non colatur Deus, a quibus nee quceritur, nee timetur, not as thou complainest, 
that we do not worship your gods, but because you are idolaters, and do not 
serve the true God, neither seek him, nor fear him as you ought. Our papists 
object as much to us, and account us heretics, we them; the Turks esteem of 
both as infidels, and we them as a company of pagans, Jews against all; when 
indeed there is a general fault in us all, and something in the very best, which 
may justly deserve God's wrath, and pull these miseries upon our heads. I will 
say nothing here of those vain cares, torments, needless works, penance, pil- 
grimages, pseudomartyrdom, &c. We heap upon ourselves unnecessary 
troubles, observation ; we punish our bodies, as in Turkey (saith ^ Busbequius, 
Leg. Turcic. ep. 3.) " one did, that was much affected with music, and to hear 
boys sing, but very superstitious; an old sybil coming to his house, or a holy 
woman (as that place yields many), took him down for it, and told him, that in 
that other world he should suffer for it ; thereupon he flung his rich and costly 
instruments which he had bedecked with jewels, all at once into the fire. He 
was served in silver plate, and had goodly household stuff: a little after, 
another religious man reprehended him in like sort, and from thenceforth he 
Was served in earthen vessels, last of all a decree came forth, because Turks, 
might not drink wine themselves, that neither Jew nor Christian then living in 
Constantinople, might drink any ^vine at all." In like sort amongst papists, 
fasting at first was generally proposed as a good thing ; after, from such meats 
at set times, and then last of all so rigorously proposed, to bind tlie consciences 
U[;on pain of damnation. " First Friday," saith Erasmus, " then Saturday," 
et nunc periclitatur dies 3Iercurii, and Wednesday now is in danger of a fast. 
" ^ And for such like toj^s, some so miserably afflict themselves to despair, and 
death itself, rather than ofiend, and think themselves good Christians in it, 
when as indeed they are superstitious Jews." So saith Leonardus Fuchsius, 
a great physician in his time. " ^ We are tortured in Germany with these 
popish edicts, our bodies so taken down, our goods so diminished, that if God 
had not sent Luther, a worthy man, in time, to redress these mischiefs, we 
should have eaten hay with our horses before this." ™ As in fasting, so in all 
other superstitious edicts we crucify one another without a cause, barring our- 
selves of many good and lawful things, honest disports, pleasures and recrea- 
tions; for wherefore did God create them but for our use? Feasts, mirth, 
music, hawking, hunting, singing, dancing, &c. 7ion tarn necessitatibus nostris 

B Advers. gentes, lib. 1. postqtiam in mundo Christiana gens coepit, terrarum ortem periisse, et mnltis 
mails atfectum esse genus humanum videmiis. li Quod nee hyeme, nee aastate tanta imbrium copia, nee 
frugibus torrendis solita flagrantia, nee vernali temperie sata tarn lata sint, nee arboreis foetibus autu^imi 
fcecundi, minus de montibus manner eruatur, minus aurum, &c. i Solitus erat oblectare se fidibus, et 

voce musica canentium; sed hoc omne sublatum Sybillje cujusdam interventu, <fcc. Inde quicquid erat 
instrumentorum SjTiiphoniacorum, auro gemmisque egregio opere distinctorum comminuit, et in ignera 
injecit, &c. k Qb id genus observatiunculas videmus homines misere atHiiii, et denique mori, et sibii;;si3 
Christianos videri quum revera sint Judai. 1 Ita in corpora nostra fortanasque decretis suis sajviit, ut 

param abfuerat, nisi Deas Lutherum virum perpetua memoria dignissimum excitasset, quin nobis foeno mox 
communi cum jumentis cibo utendum fuisset. ^ The Gentiles in India will eat no sensible creatures, or 
auidxt that hath blood in it. 



702 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

Deus inservit, sed in delicias mnamut*, as Seneca notes, God would have it so. 
And as Plato 2. de legib?is gives out, deos laboriosam hominum vitam miseratos, 
the gods in commiseration of human estate sent Apollo, Bacchus, and the 
Muses, qui cum voluptate tripudia et saltationes 7iobis ducant, to be merry with 
mortals, to sing and dance with ns. So that he that will not rejoice and enjoy 
himself, making good use of such things as are lawfully permitted, nan est te7)i~ 
peratus, as he will, sed super stitiosus. " There is nothing better for a man, 
than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good 
in his labour," Eccles. ii. 24. And as " one said of ha,wking and hunting, 
tot solatia in hac cegri orhis calamitate mortalibus tcediis deus objecit, 1 say of all 
honest recreations, God hath therefore indulged them to refresh, ease, solace 
and comfort us. But we are some of us too stern, too rigid, too precise, too 
grossly superstitious, and whilst we make a conscience of every toy, with touch 
not, taste not, &c., as those Pythagoreans of old, and some Indians now, that 
will eat no flesh, or suffer any living creature to be killed, the Bannians about 
Guzzerat ; we tyrannize over our brother's soul, lose the right use of many 
good gifts ; honest ° sports, games and pleasant recreations, ^ punish ourselves 
without a cause, lose our liberties, and sometimes our lives. Anno 1270, at 
^ Magdeburg in Germany, a Jew fell into a privy upon a Saturday, and without 
help could not possibly get out ; he called to his fellows for succour, but they 
denied it, because it was their Sabbath, nan llcebat opus rtianuum exercere; 
the bishop liearing of it, the next day forbade him to be pulled out, because 
it was our Sunday. In the mean time the wretch died before Monday. We 
have myriads of examples in this kind amongst those rigid Sabbatarians, and 
therefore not without good cause, ^' lutolerabilem perturbationem Seneca calls 
it, as well he might, an intolerable perturbation, that causeth such dire events, 
folly, madness, sickness, despair, death of body and soul, and hell itself. 

SuBSECT. V. — Cure of Religious Melancholy. 

To purge the world of idolatry and superstition, will require some monster- 
taming Hercules, a divine ^^sculapius, or Christ himself to come in his own 
person, to reign a thousand years on earth before the end, as the Millenaries 
will have him. They are generally so refractory, self-conceited, obstinate, so 
firmly addicted to that religion in which they have been bred and brought up, 
that no persuasion, no terror, no persecution, can divert them. The considera- 
tion of which, hath induced many commonwealths to suffer them to enjoy their 
consciences as they will themselves : a toleration of Jews is in most provinces 
of Europe. In Asia they have their synagogues : Spaniards permit Moors 
to live amongst them : the Mogullians, Gentiles : the Turks all religions. In 
Europe, Poland and Amsterdam are the common sanctuaries. Some are of 
opinion, that no man ought to be compelled for conscience'-sake, but let him be 
of what religion he will, he may be saved, as Cornelius was formerly accepted, 
Jew, Turk, Anabaptist, &c. If he be an honest man, live soberly, and 
civilly in his profession, (Yolkelius, Crellius, and the rest of the Socinians, that 
now nestle themselves about Cracow and E,akow in Poland, have renewed this 
opinion), serve his own God, with that fear and reverence as ho ought. Sua 
cuique civitati (Lseli) religio sit, nostra nobis, Tuily thought fit every city 
should be free in this behalf^ adore their own Custodes et Topicos deos, tutelar 

"^Vandormilius deAucupio. cap. 27. ° Some explode all human authors, arts, and sciences, poets, 

histories, &c., so precise, their zeal overruns their wits; and so stupid, they oppose all humane teaming, 
because they are ignorant themselves and illiterate, nothing must be read but Scriptures; but these men 
deserve to be pitied, rather than confuted. Others are so strict they will admit of no honest game and 
pleasure, no dancing, singing, other plays, recreations and games, hawking, hunting, cock-fighting, bear- 
baiting, &c., because to see one beast kill another is the fruit of our rebellion against God, &c. P Nuda 
ac tremebunda cruentis Irrepet genibus si Candida jusserit Ino. Juvenalis, Sect. 6. 1 Munster, Cosmoj^. 
lib. 3. cap. 444. Incidit in cloacam, unde se non possit eximere, implorat opem sociorura, sed illi negant, &c. 
TDebenefic. 7. 2. 



Mem. 1. Subs. 5.] Cure of Religious Melancholy, 703 

and local gods, as Symmaclius calls tliem, Isocrates advi.^,etli Demouiciis 
"when he came to a strange city, to ^worship by all means the gods of the 
place,"j.e^ iinumquemque Topicum deum sic coll oportere, quomodo ipse prcece- 
perii: which Cecilius in *^Minutius labours, and would have every nation 
sacrorum ritus gentiles habere et deos colere municipes, keep their own cere- 
monies, worship their peculiar gods, which Pomponius Mela reports of the 
Africans, Deos suos patrio more veiierantur, they worship their own gods 
according to their own ordination. For why should any one nation, as he there 
pleads, challenge that universality of God, Deum suum quern nee ostendunt, 
nee vident, dlscurrentem scilicet et uhique prcesentem^ in omnium mores, actus, 
et occultas cogitationes inqidrentem, &c., as Christians do : let every province 
enjoy their liberty in this behalf, worship one God, or all as they will, and are 
informed. The Komans built altars Diis Asise, Europ?e, Lybise, diis ignotis et 
peregrinis: others otherwise, &c. Plinius Secundus, as appears by his Epistle 
to Trajan, would not have the Christians so persecuted, and in some time of the 
reign of Maximinus, as we find it registered in Eusebius, lib. 9. cap. 9. there 
was a decree made to this purpose, Nulhis cogatur invitus ad huncsvel ilium 
deoTwn cultuni, " let no one be compelled against his will to worship any 
particular deity," and by Constantiue in the 19th year of his reign as "Baronius 
informeth us, Nemo alteri exkibeat molestiam, quod cujusque animus vult, hoc 
quisque transigat, new gods, new lawgivers, new priests, will have new cere- 
monies, customs and religions, to which every wise man as a good formalist 
should accommodate himself. 

" ^ Saturnus periit, perierunt et sna jura, 

Sub Jove nunc mundus, jussa sequare Jovis." 

The said Constantine the Emperor, as Eusebius writes, flung down and demo- 
lished all the heathen gods, silver, gold statues, altars, images and temples, 
and turned them all to Christian churches, infestus gentilium monumentis ludi- 
hrio exposuit; the Turk now converts them again to Mahometan mosques. 
The like edict came forth in the reign of Arcadius and Honorius. -^Symmaclms, 
the orator, in his days, to procure a general toleration, used this argument, 
"^Because God is immense and infinite, and his nature cannot perfectly be 
known, it is convenient he should be as diversely worshipped, as every man 
shall perceive or understand." It was impossible, he thought for one religion 
to be universal : you see that one small province can hardly be ruled by one 
law, civil or spiritual; and "how shaU so many distinct and vast empires of 
the world be united into one? It never was, never will be." Besides, if there 
be infinite planetary and firmamental worlds, as ^some will, there be infinite 
genii or commanding spiiits belonging to each of them ; and so, per consequens 
(for they will be all adored), infinite religions. And therefore let every terri- 
tory keep their proper rites and ceremonies, as their dii tutelares will, so Tyrius 
calls them, " and according to the quarter they hold," their own institutions, 
revelations, orders, oracles, which they dictate from time to time, or teach 
their priests or ministers. This tenet was stifBy maintained in Turkey not 
long since, as you may read in the third epistle of Busbequius, "^that all 
those should participate of eternal happiness, that lived a holy and innocent 
life, what religion soever they professed." Bustan Bassa was a great patron 
of it j though Mahomet himself was sent virtute gladii, to enforce all, as he 
writes in his Alcoran, to follow him. Some again will approve of this for Jews, 
Gentiles, infidels, that are out of the fold, they can be content to give them all 
respect and favour, but by no means to such as are within the precincts of our 

8 Numen venerare prpesei-tim quod civitas colit. tOctaviodial. ^^Annal torn. 3. ad annum 324. 1. 

^ Ovid. " Saturn is dead, his laws died with him ; now that Jupiter rules the world, let us obey his laws.' 
y In epist. Sym. ^ Quia deus immensum quiddam est, et inflnitura cujus natura perfecte cognosci non 

potest, sequum ergo est, ut diversa ratione colatur prout quisque aliquid de Deo perciijit aut intelligit. 
* Campanella, Cnlcaginus and others. 1> ^Eternje beatitudinis consortes fore, qui sancte inuocenterque 

banc vitam traduxerint, quamcunque illi relisionem sequuti sunt. 



704 Religious Melancholy, [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

own cliurch, and called Christians, to no heretics, schismatics, or the like; let 
the Spanish inquisition, that fourth fury, speak of some of them, the civil wars 
and massacres in France, our Marian times. '^Magallianus the Jesuit will not 
admit of conference with a heretic, but severity and rigour to be used, non 
illis verba reddere, sed f ureas Jig ere oportet; and Theodosiusis commended in 
Nicephorus, lib. 12. cap. 15. "^ That he put all heretics to silence." Bernard. 
Epist, 190, will have club law, fire and sword for heretics, "^compel them, 
stop their mouths not with disputations, or refute them with reasons, but with 
fists;" and this is their ordinary practice. Another company are as mild on 
the other side ; to avoid all heart-burning, and contentious wars and uproars, 
they would have a general toleration in every kingdom, no mulct at all, no 
man for religion or conscience be put to death, which ^Thuanus the French 
historian much favours ; our late Socinians defend ; Yaticanus against Calvin 
in a large Treatise in behalf of Servetus, vindicates; Castillo, &c., Martin 
Ballius and his companions, maintained this opinion not long since in France, 
whose error is confuted by Beza in a just volume. The medium is best, and 
that which Paul prescribes. Gal. i. " If any man shall fall by occasion, to 
restore such a one with the spirit of meekness, by all fair means, gentle admo- 
nitions;" but if that will not take place, Post unam et alteram admonitionem 
hoereticum devita, he must be excommunicate, as Paul did by Hymenseus, 
delivered over to Satan. Immedicabile vulnus ense reddendum est As Hip- 
pocrates said in physic, I may well say in divinity, Qiimferro non curantur^ 
ignis curat. For the vulgar, restrain them by laws, mulcts, burn their books, 
forbid their conventicles; for when the cause is taken away, the effect will 
soon cease. Now for proj^hets, dreamers, and such rude silly fellows, that 
through fasting, too much meditation, preciseness, or by melancholy are dis- 
tempered : the best means to reduce them adsaiiam mentem, is to alter their 
course of life, and with conference, threats, promises, persuasions, to intermix 
physic. Hercules de Saxonia had such a prophet committed to his charge in 
Venice, that thought he was Elias, and would fast as he did ; he dressed a fellow 
in angel's attire, that said he came from heaven to bring him divine food, and 
by that means stayed his fast, administered his physic; so by the mediation 
of this forged angel he was cured. ^Bhasis, an Arabian, cont. lib. 1. caj). 9, 
speaks of a fellow that in like case complained to him, and desired his help : 
" I asked him (saith he) what the mattjer was ; he replied, I am continually 
meditating of heaven and hell, and methinks 1 see and talk with fiery spirits, 
and smell brimstone, &c., and am so carried away with these conceits, that I 
can neither eat, nor sleep, nor go about my business : I cured him (saith 
Bhasis) partly by persuasion, partly by physic, and so have I done by many 
others." We have frequently such prophets and dreamers amongst us, whom 
we persecute with fire and faggot : I think the most compendious cure, for 
some of them at least, had been in Bedlam. Sed de his satis. 



MEMB. II. 

SuBSECT. I. — Religious Melancholy in defect; parties affected, Epicures, Atheists, 
Hypocrites, worldly secure, Carnalists, all impious persons, impenitent sin- 
ners, Sfc, 

In that other extreme or defect of this love of God, knowledge, faith, fear, 
hope, &c. are such as err both in doctrine and manners, Sadducees, Herodians, 

^ Comment in C. Tim. 6. ver. 20. et 21. severitate cum agendum, etnon aliter. dQuod silentium 

lijcreticis indixerit. ® I^ne et fuste potius agendum cum hajreticis quam cum disputatinnibus ; os alia 

loquens, &c. f Prasfat. Hist. S Quidam conquestus est mihi de hoc morbo, et deprecatus est ut ego 

ilium curarem; ego qu . sivi ab eo quid sentiret; respondit, semper iraaginor et cogito de Deo et angelis, 
&c. et ita demersus sum hac imaginatione, ut nee edam nee dormiam, nee negotiis, &c. Ego cuiiivi 
medicina et persuasione; et sic plures alios. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 1.] Religious Melancholy in Defect 705 

libertines, politicians ; all manner of atheists, epicures, infidels, that are secure, 
in a reprobate sense, fear not God at all, and sucli are too distrustful and 
timorous, as desperate persons be. That grand sin of atheism or impiety, 
^Melancthon calls it monstrosam melancholiam, monstrous melancholy; or 
venenatam melancholiam, poisoned melancholy. A company of Cyclops or 
giants, that war with the gods, as the poets feigned, antipodes to Christians, 
that scoff at all religion, at God himself, deny him and all his attributes, his 
wisdom, power, providence, his mercy and judgment. 

"iEsse aliquos manes, et subterranea regna, 
Et contum, et Stygio ranas in gurgite uigras, 
Atque una transire vadum tot millia cymba, 
Nee pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum sere lavantur." 

That there is either heaven or hell, resurrection of the dead, pain, happiness, 
or world to come, credat JudcBus Apella; . for their parts they esteem them as 
so many poet's tales, bngbears, Lucian's Alexander; Moses, Mahomet, and 
Christ are all as one in their creed. When those bloody wars in France for 
nip^tters of religion (saith ^Richard Dinoth) were so violently pursued between 
Huguenots and Papists, there Vv^as a company of good fellows laughed them all 
to scorn, for being such superstitious fools, to lose their wives and fortunes, 
accounting faith, religion, immortality of the soul, mere fopperies and illusions. 
Such lose ^atheistical spirits are too predominant in all kingdoms. Let them 
contend, pray, tremble, trouble themselves that will, for their parts, they fear 
neither God nor the devil; but with that Cyclops in Euripides. 



" Haud uUa numina espavescunt calituia, 
Sed victim as \xn\ deorum maxim o, 
Ventri ofierunt, deos ignorant caateros." 



'They fear no God but one, 
They sacrifice to none, 
But belly, and him adore. 
For gods tUey know no mon 



" Their god is their belly," as Paul saith, Sancta mater saturilas; quibus 

in solo vivejidi causa palato est The idol, which they worship and adore, is 
their mistress; with him in Plautus, mallem hcBC muHer me amet quam dii, 
they had rather have her favour than the gods'. Satan is their guide, the flesh 
is their instructor, hypocrisy their counsellor, vanity their fellow-soldier, their 
will their law, ambition their captain, custom their rule; temerity, boldness, 
impudence their art, toys their trading, damnation tlieir end. All their endea- 
vours are to satisfy their lust and appetite, how to please their genius, and to 
be merry for the present, Ede, hide, bibe, post 7nortem nulla voluptas^ "The 
same condition is of men and of beasts; as the one dieth, so dieth the other," 
Eccles. iii. 19. The world goes round. 

'"^truditur dies die, 

NovEeque pergunt interire Lunse : " 

°They did eat and drink of old, marry, bury, bought, sold, planted, built, and 
will do still. "^ Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there 
is no recovery, neither was any man known that hath returned from the grave ; 
for we are born at all adventure, and we shall be hereafter as though we had 
never been; for the breath is as smoke in our nostrils, &c., and the spirit 
vanisheth as the soft air. ^Come let us enjoy the pleasures that are present, 
let us cheerfully use the creatures as in youth, let us fill ourselves with costly 
wine and ointments, let not the flower of our life pass by us, let us crown our- 
selves with rose-buds before they are withered," &c. ^ Vivamus mea Lesbia et 
amemus, &c. ^Come let us take our fill of love, and pleasure in dalliance, for 
this is our portion, this is our lot. Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus 

hDe anima, c. de humoribus. i Juvenal. " That there are many ghosts and subterranean realms, 

end a boat-pole, and black frogs in the Stygian gulf, and that so many thousands pass over in one boat, 
not even boys believe, unless those not as yet washed for monej'." kLi. 5. Gal. hist, quamplurimi reperti 
sunt qui tot pericula subeuntes inidebant ; et qute de fide, religione, &c. dicebant, ludihrio habebant, nihil 
eorum admittentes de futura vita. 150,000 atheists at this day in Paris, Mercennus thinks. '^ "Eat, 
drink, be merry ; there is no more pleasure after death." ^ Hor. 1 . 2. od. 18. " One day succeeds another, 
and new moons hasten to their wane." ° Luke xvii. P Wisd. ii. 2. <l Vers. 6, 7, 8. ^Catullus, 
BProv. vii. 18. 

2 z 



705 ReUgious 3Ielancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

annis^ For tlie rest of heaven and hell, let children and superstitious fools 
believe it: for their parts, they are so far from trembling at the dreadful da/ 
of judgment that they wish with Nero, Me vivo fiat, let it come in their times : 
so secure, so desperate, so immoderate in lust and pleasure, so prone to revenge 
that, as Paterculus said of some caitiffs in his time in Kome, Quod nequiter 
ausi, fortiter executi: it shall not be so wickedly attempted, but as desperately 
performed, whatever they take in hand. Were it not for God's restraining 
grace, fear and shame, temporal punishment, and their own infamy, they would 
Lycaon4ike exenterate, as so many cannibals eat up, or Cadmus' soldiers con- 
sume one another. These are most impious, and commonly professed atheists, 
that never use the name of God but to swear by ; that express nought else 
but epicurism in their carriage or hypocrisy ; with Pentheus they neglect and 
contemn these rites and religious ceremonies of the gods; they will be gods 
themselves, or at least socii deoruDi. Divisum imperium cum Jove Ccesar habet. 
" Caesar divides the empire with Jove." Aproyis, an Egyptian tyrant, grew, 
saith "Herodotus, to that height of pri'j.e, insolency of impiety, to that contempt 
of gods and men, that he held his kingdom so sure, ut a iiemine deorum out 
liGniivmn sibi eripi posset, neither God nor men could take it from him. ^A 
certain blasphemous king of Spain (as -^Lansius reports) made an edict, that 
no subject of his, for ten years' space, should believe in, call on, or worship any 
god. And as ^ Jovius relates of " Mahomet the Second, that sacked Constan- 
tinople, he so behaved himself, that he believed neither Chdst nor Mahomet; 
and thence it came to pass, that he kept his word and promise no farther than 
for his advantage, neither did he care to commit any offence to satisfy his lust." 
I could say the like of many princes, mauy private men (our stories are full of 
them) in times past, this present age, that love, fear, obey, and perform aL 
civil duties as they shall find them expedient or behoveful to their own ends. 
Securi adversus Decs, seciiri adoersus homines, volts non est opus, which 
^Tacitus reports of some Germans, they need not pray, fear, hope, for they are 
secure, to their thinking, both from gods and men. Bulco Opiliensis, sometime 
Duke of ^Silesia, was such a one to a hair; he lived (saith '^^neas Sylvius) 
at ^Uratislavia, "and was so mad to satisfy his lust, that he believed neither 
heaven nor hell, or that the soul was immortal, but married wives, and turned 
them up as he thought fit, did murder and mischief, and what he list himself" 
This duke hath too many followers in our days: say what you can, dehort, 

exhort, persuade to the contrary, they are no more moved, quam si dura 

silexaulstetMarpesia cautes,ih.sM^o m anystocks and stones ; tell them of heaven 
and hell, 'tis to no purpose, later em lavas, they answer as Ataliba that Indian 
prince did friar Yincent, "^when he brought him a book, and told him all the 
mysteries of salvation, heaven and hell were contained in it : he looked upon 
it, and said he saw no such matter, asking withal, how he knew it:" they 
will but scoff at it, or wholly reject it. Petronius in Tacitus, when he was 
now, by Nero's command, bleeding to death, audiebat amicos nihil rcferentes 
de immortalitate animm, aut sapientum placitis, sed Isvia carmina etfaciles 
versus; instead of good counsel and divine meditations, he made his friends 
sing him bawdy verses and scurrilous songs. Let them take heaven, paradise, 
and that future happiness that will, bonum est esse Mc, it is good being here: 
there is no talking to such, no hope of their conversion, they are in a reprobate 
sense, mere carnalists, fleshly-minded men, which hov/soever they may be 

t "Time glides away, and we grow old by years insensibly accvimiil.iting." "Lib. 1. ^M. Montan. 
lib. 1. cap. 4. y Orat. Cent. Hispan. ne proximo decennio deum adorarent, &c. ^^alem se exhibuit, 
ut nee in Christum, nee Mahometem crederet, unde elfectum ut jiromissa nisi quatentis in suum commodura 
cederent mininie servaret, nee ullo scelere peccatum statueret, ut sais desideriis satisf tceret. '^ Lib. ds 



mor. Germ. b Or Breslau. ^ Usque adeo insanus, ut nee inferos, nee superos esse dicat, animasqi 

cum corporibus interire credat, &c. dEuropce deser. cap. 24. « Fratres a Bry Amer. par. 6. librum 
Vincentio monacho datum adjecit, nihil se videre Ibi hujusmodi dicens rogansque unde ha;c sciret, quura 
de ccelo et Tartaro contineri ibi diceret. 



Mem. 2. Sabs. 1.] Religious Melancltoly in Defect. 707 

applauded in tHs life by some few parasites, and held for worldly wise men, 
"^Tliey seem to me (saitli Melancthon) to be as mad as Hercules was when 
he raved and killed his wife and children." A milder sort of these atheistical 
spirits there are that profess religion, but timide et hcesitanter, tempted there- 
unto out of that horrible consideration of diversity of religions, which are and 
have been in the world (which argument, Campanella, A theismi Triumphati, 
cap. 9. both urgeth and answers), besides the covetonsness, imposture, and 
knavery of priests, qucefaciunt (as ^"Postellus observes) ut rebus sacris minus 
faciant fiderii ; and those religions some of them so fantastical, exorbitant, so 
violently maintained with equal constancy and assurance; whence they infer, 
that if there be so many religious sects, and denied by the rest, why may 
they not be all false? or why should this or that be preferred before the rest ? 
The sceptics urge this, and amongst others it is the conclusion of Sextus 
Empericus, lib. 8. adversus Mathematicos: after many philosophical arguments, 
and reasons pro and con that there are gods, and again that there are no gods, 
he so concludes, cum tot inter se piugnent, &c. Una tantum potest esse vera, as 
TuUy likewise disputes : Christians say, they alone worship the true God, pity 
all other sects, lament their case; and yet those old Greeks and Romans that 
worshipped the devil, as the Chinese now do, aut deos topicos their own gods; 
as Julian the apostate, ^ Cecilius in Minutius, Celsus and Porphyrins the 
philosopher object : and as Machiavel contends, were much more noble, ge- 
nerous, victorious, had a more flourishing commonwealth, better cities, better 
soldiers, better scholars, better v/its. Their gods often overcame our gods, 
did as many miracles, &c. Saint Cyril, Arnobius, Minutius, with many other 
ancients of late, Lessius, Morneus, Grotius de Verit. Eelig. Christiance, Sava- 
narola de Verit. Fidei Christiance, well defend ; but Zanchius, ^ Campanelia, 
Marinus Marcennus, Bozius, and Gentillettus answer all these atheistical 
arguments at large. But this again troubles many as of old, wicked men 
generally thrive, professed atheists thrive, 

" 1 Nullos esse deos, inane coelum, 
AfHrmat Selius : probatque, quod se 
Factum, dum negat lisec, videt beatum." 



' There are no jrcds, heavens are toys, 
Selius in piiblic justifies; 
Because that whilst he thus denies 
Their deities, he hetter thrives." 



This is a prime argument : and most part your most sincere, upright, honest, 
and ^good men are depressed, " The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to 
the strong (Eccles. ix. 11.), nor yet bread to the wise, favour nor riches to 
men of understanding, but time and chance comes to all." There was a great 
plague in Athens (as Thucydides, lib. 2. relates), in which at last every man, 
with great licentiousness, did what he list, not caring at all for God's or men's 
laws. " Neither the fear of God nor laws of men (saith he) awed any man, 
because the plague swept all away alike, good and bad; they thence concluded 
it was alike to v/orship or not worship the gods, since they perished all alike." 
Some cavil and make doubts of scripture itself: it cannot stand with God's 
mercy, that so many should be damned, so many bad, so few good, such have 
and hold about religions, all stiff on their side, factious alike, thrive alike, 
and yet bitterly persecriting and damning each other; " It cannot stand with 
God's goodness, protection, and providence (as ™ Saint Chrysostom in the 
Dialect of such discontented persons) to see and suffer one man to be lame, 
another mad, a thii-d poor and miserable all the days of his life, a fourth 

f Non minnshl ftirunt quam Hercules, qui conjugem et liheros interfecit; hahet haec setas plura hujus- 
modi portentosa monstra. SDe orbis con. lib. 1. cap. 7. h Nonne Romani sine Deo vestro regnant et 
fruuntur orbe toto, et vos et Deos vestros captives tenent, &c. Minutius Octaviano. i Comment, in Genesin 
copiosus in hoc subjecto. k Ecce pars vestrum et major et melior alget, famelaborat, et deus patitur, 

dissimulat, non vult, non potest opiiulari suis, et vel invaidus vel iniquus est. Cecilius in Jlinut. Dura 
rapiunt mala fata bonos, ignoscite fasso, Solicitor nullos esse putare deos. Ovid. Vidi ego diis fretos. multos 
decipi. Plautus, Casina act. 2. seen. 5. iMartial 1. 4. epig. 21. ™Ser. 30. in •=). cap. ad Ephes. hie 

mactis est pedibns, alter furit, alius ad extremam senectam progressus omnem vitam paupertate peragit, ill© 
frorbis gravissimis : sunt haic ProYidentiee opera ? hie sm-dus, ille mutus, &c. 



708 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

grievously tormented with sickness and acLes, to his last hour. Are these 
signs and works of God's providence, to let one man be deaf, another dumb % 
A poor honest fellow lives in disgrace, woe and want, wretched he is; when 
as a wicked caitiff abounds in superfluity of v/ealth, keeps whores, parasites, 
and what he will himself:" Audis^ Jupiter, hcec ? Talia multa connectentes, 
longum reprehensionis sermonem erg a Deiprovidentiam contexunt. ^^ Thus they 
mutter and object (see the rest of their arguments in Marcennus in Genesin, 
and in Campanella, amply confuted), with many such vain cavils, well known, 
not worthy the recapitulation or answering : whatsoever they pretend, they 
are interim of little or no religion. 

Cousin-germans to these men are many of our great philosophers and deists, 
who, though they be more temperate in this life, give many good moral 
precepts, honest, upright, and sober in their conversation, yet in effect they 
are the same (accounting no man a good scholar that is not an atheist), nimis 
altum sapiunt, too much learning makes them mad. Whilst they attribute all 
to natural causes, ° contingence of all things, as Melancthon calls them. Per- 
tinax hominum genus, a peevish generation of men, that misled by philosophy 
and the devil's suggestion, their own innate blindness, deny God as much as 
the rest, hold all religion a fiction, opposite to reason and philosophy, though 
for fear of magistrates, saith ^ Yaninus, they durst not jDublicly profess it. 
Ask one of them of what religion he is, he scoffingly replies, a philosopher, 
a Galenist, an ^ Averroist, and with Rabelais a physician, a peripatetic, an 
epicure. In spiritual things God must demonstrate all to sense, leave a pawn 
with them, or else seek some other creditor. They will acknowledge Nature 
and Fortune, yet not God : though in effect they grant both : for as Scaliger 
defines, Nature signifies God's ordinary power; or, as Calvin writes, Nature is 
God's order, and so things extraordinary may be called unnatural : Fortune his 
unrevealed will; and so we call things changeable that are beside reason and 
expectation. To this purpose ^ Minutius in Octavio, and ^ Seneca well dis-- 
courseth with them, lib. 4. de heneficiis, cap. 5, 6, 7. " They do not under- 
stand what they say; what is Nature but God? call him what thou wilt. Nature, 
Jupiter, he hath as many names as offices : it comes all to one pass, God is the 
fountain of all, the first Giver and Preserver, from whom all things depend, 
*a quo, et per quern omnia. Nam quocunque vides Deus est, quocunque moveris, 
*'God is all in all, God is everywhere, in every place." And yet this Seneca, 
that could confute and blame them, is all out as much to be blamed and con- 
futed himself, as mad himself; for he holds faticin Stoicum, that inevitable 
Necessity in the other extreme, as those Chaldean astrologers of old did, 
against whom the prophet Jeremiah so often thunders, and those heathen 
mathematicians, Nigidius Fingulus, magicians, and Priscilianists, whom St. 
Austin so eagerly confutes, those Arabian questionaries, Novem Judices, Albu- 
mazer, Dorotheus, (fcc, and our countryman ^ Estuidus, that take upon them 
to defiDe out of those great conjunctions of stars, with Ptolomeus, the periods 
of kingdoms, or religions, of all future accidents, wars, plagues, schisms, 
heresies, and what not? all from stars, and such things, saith Maginus, Quce 
sibi et intelligentiis suis reservavit Deus, which God hath reserved to himself 
and his angels, they will take upon them to foretel, as if stars were immediate, 
inevitable causes of all future accidents. C£esar Yaninus, in his book de admi- 
randis naturce Arcanis, dial. 52. de oraculis, is more free, copious and open 
in the explication of this astrological tenet of Ptolemy, than any of our modem 

» " Oh ! Jupiter, do you hear those things ? Collecting many such facts, they weave a tissue of reproaches 
against God's providence." o Omnia contingenter fieri volunt. Melanctlionin preeceptum primum. 

PDial. 1. lib. 4. de admir. nat. Arcanis. <l Anima mea sit cum animis philosophorum. ^ Deum 

unum multis designant nominihus, &c. ^ISon intelligis te quum h«c dicis,'negare teipsum nomen Dei : 
-quid enim est aliud Natura quam Deus ? &c. tot hahet appellationes quot munera. t Austin. ^ rrincioio 
phsemer. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 1.] Religious Melancholy in Defect 709 

writers, Cardan excepted, a true disciple of iiis master Pom ponatius; according 
to the doctrine of peripatetics, lie refers all apparitions, prodigies, miracle.i, 
oracles, accidents, alterations of religions, kingdoms, &c. (for wliicli lie is 
soundly lashed by Marinus Mercennus, as well he deserves), to natural causes 
(for spirits he will not acknowledge), to that light, motion, influences of heavens 
and stars, and to the intelligences that move the orbs. Intelligentia quce 
movet orhem mecUante ccelo, &c. Intelligences do all : and after a long discourse 
of miracles done of old, si hcec dcEmoncs possint, cur non et intellig entice 
ccelorum onotrices ? And as these great conjunctions, aspects of planets, begin 
or end, vai7, are vertical and predominant, so have religions, rites, ceremonies, 
and kingdoms their beginning, progress, periods, in urbibus, regibus, religi- 
onibus, ac in 2JCirticularibiis hjminibus,hcec vera ac nianifesta sunt, ut Aristo- 
teles innuere videtur, et quotidiana docet experientia, ut historias ^3erZe(/e?2S 
videbit; quid olim in Gentili lege Jove sanctiiis et illusirius ? quid nunc vile 
Qiiagis et execrandum ? Ita codestia corpora pro mortalium benejicio religiones 
cedificant, et cum cessat infiuxus, cessat lex^ &c. And because, according to 
their tenets, the world is eternal, intelligences eternal, influences of stars eternal, 
kingdoms, religions, alterations shall be likewise eternal, and run round after 
many ages; Atque iterum ad Troiam inagnus mittetur Achilles; renascentur 
Q^eligiones, et ceremonice, res humanm in idem recident, nihil mine est quod 
non olimfuit, et 2')ost scecidorurii revolutiones alias, eritj &c. idem sioecie, saith 
"Vaninus, non individuo quod Plato signijicavit. These (saith mine ^ author), 
these are the decrees of peripatetics, which though I recite, in obsequium Chris- 
tiancefidei detestor, as I am a Christian T detest and hate. Thus peripatetics 
and astrologers held in former times, and to this effect of old in Rome, saith 
Dionysius Halicarnassus, lib. 7, when those meteors and prodigies appeared in 
the air, after the banishment of Coriolanus, " " Men were diversely affected : 
some said they w^ere God's just judgments for the execution of that good man, 
some referred all to natural causes, some to stars, some thought they came by 
chance, some by necessity," decreed ab initio, and could not be altered. The 
two last opinions of necessity and chance were, it seems, of greater note than 
the rest. 

"b Sunt qui in Fortiinte jam casibus omnia ponunt, 
Et nniuduni credunt nullo rectore moveri, 
iNatura volvente vices," &c. 

For the first of chance, as ^ Saliust likewise informeth us, those old Romans 
generally received; " They supposed fortune alone gave kingdoms and empires, 
wealth, honours, offices : and that for two causes; first, because every wicked 
base unworthy wretch was preferred, rich, potent, &c. ; secondly, because of 
their uncertainty, though never so good, scarce anyone enjoyed them long : but 
after, they began upon better advice to think otherwise, that every man made 
his own fortune." The last of Necessity was Seneca's tenet, that God was 
alligatus causis secundis, so tied to second causes, to that inexorable Necessity, 
that he could alter nothing of that which was once decreed ; sic erat infatis, it) 
cannot be altered, semel jussit, semper paret Deus, nidla vis rumpit, niillce 
preces, nee ipsum ftdmen, God hath once said it, and it must for ever stand 
good, no prayers, no threats, nor povf er, nor thunder itself can alter it. Zeno, 

3^ " In cities, kings, religions, and in individual men, these things are true and obvious, as Aristotle appears 
to imply, and daily experience teaches to the reader of history: for what was more sacred and illustrious, 
hy Gentile law, than Jupiter? what now more vile and execrable? In this way celestial objects suggest 
religions for worldly motives, and when the influx ceases, so does the law," <tc. y " And again a great 
Achilles shall be sent against Troy : religions and their ceremonies shall be born again; however attairs relapse 
into the same tract, there is nothing now that was not formerly and will not be again," &c. ^ Vaninus 
dial. 52. de oraculis. '^Varie homines affecti, alii dei judicium ad tam pii exilium, alii ad naturam 

referebant, nee ab indignatione dei, scd humanis causis, &c. 12. Natural. qua;st. 33. 31). b Juv. Sat. 13. 

" 'ihere are those who "ascribe everything to chance, and believe thar the world is made without a director, 
riature influencing the vicissitudes, ' &c. ^ Epist. ad C. Caesar. Romani olim putabant fortunam regna 

et imperia daie : Credebant antea mortales fortunam solam opes et honores largiri, idque duabus de causis: 
primum quod indignusquisque dives, honoratus.potens; alteram, vixquisquamperpetuo bonis iis fruivisus. 
Postea prudentiores didicere fortunam suam quemque hngere. 



710 Religious Mela7U)holy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

Cliiysippns, and these other Stoics, as you may read in Tully, 2. de dimnatione, 
Gellius, lib. 6. cap. 2. &c., maintained as much. In all ages, there have been 
such, that either deny God in all, or in part ; some deride him, they could have 
made a better world, and ruled it more orderly themselves, blaspheme him, 
derogate at their pleasure from him. 'Twas so in ^ Plato's time, " Some say 
there be no gods, others that they care not for men, a middle sort grant both." 
Si non sit Deus, unde bona 1 si sit Deus, unde 7nala ? So Cotta argues in 
Tully, why made he not all good, or at least tenders not the welfare of such 
as are good? As the woman told Alexander, if he be not at leisure to hear 
causes, and redress them, why doth he reign 1 ^ Sextus Empericus hath many 
such arguments. Thus perverse men cavil. So it will ever be, some of all 
sorts, good, bad, indifferent, true, false, zealous, ambidexters, neutralists, 
lukewarm, libertines, atheists, &c. They will see these religious sectaries 
agree amongst themselves, be reconciled all, before they will participate with, 
or believe any : they think in the meantime (which ^ Celsus objects, and whom 
Origen confutes), " We Christians adore a person put to ^dmth with no more 
reason than the barbarous Getes worshipped Zamolxis, the Cilicians Mopsus, 
the Thebans A_mphiaraus, and the Lebadians Trophonius ; one religion is as 
true as another, new fangled devices, all for human respects;" great- witted 
Aristotle's works are as muchauthenticalto them as Scriptures, subtle Seneca's 
Epistles as canonical as St. Paul's, Pindarus' Odes as good as the Prophet 
David's Psalms, Epictetus' Enchiridion equivalent to wise Solomon's Proverbs. 
They do openly and boldly speak this and more, some of them, in all places 
and companies. " ^ Claudius the emperor was angry with Heaven, because it 
thundered, and challenged Jupiter into the field; with v/hat madness! saith 
Seneca; he thought Jupiter could not hurt him, but he could hurt Jupiter,"^ 

IHagoras, Demonax, Epicurus, Pliny, Lucian, Lucretius, Contemptorque 

Deum Mezentius, "professed atheists all" in their times: though not simple 
atheists neither, as Cicogna proves, lib. 1. cap. 1. they scoffed only at those 
Pagan gods, their plurality, base and fictitious ojKces, Gilbertus Cognatus 
labours much, and so doth Erasmus, to vindicate Lucian from scandal, and 
there be those that apologize for Epicurus, but all in vain ; Lucian scoffs at all, 
Epicurus he denies all, and Lucretius his scholar defends him in it : 

♦'i Humana ante oculos fordfe cum vita jaceref, I " Wlipn human kind was drenched in superstition. 

In terris oppressa gravi cum reliuione, | With ghastly looks aloft, which frighted mortgl 

Quse caput a cceli regionibus ostendehat, I men," &.c. 
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans,"&c. [ 

He alone, like another Hercules, did vindicate the world from that monster. 
"Uncle ^ Pliny, lib. 2. cap. 1 . nat. hist, and lib. 7. c^xp. 55, in express words 
denies the immortality of the soul. ^ Seneca doth little less, lib. 7. epist. 55. 
ad Lucilium, et lib. de consol. ad Marticim, or rather more. Some Greek 
Commentators would put as much upon Job, that he should deny resurrection, 
&c., whom Pineda copiously confutes in cap 7. Job, vers. 9. Aristotle is hardly- 
censured of some, both divines and philosophers. St. Justin in Parmnetica 
ad Gentes, Greg. Nazianzen. in disput. adversus jE'ti?2., Theodoret, lib.5. de curat, 
grcec. affec, Origen. lib. de principiis. Pomponatius justifies in his Tract (so 
styled at least) De immortalitate Animcs, Scaliger (who would forswear himself 
at any time, saith Patritius, in defence of his great master Aristotle), and 
Dandinus, lib. 3. de animd, acknowledge as much. Averroes oppugns all 
spirits and supreme pov/ers ; of late Brunus (in/celix Brunus, "^ Kepler calls 
him), Machiavel, Csssar Yaninus lately burned at Toulouse in France, and Pet. 

d 10 de legib. Alii negant esse deos, alii deos non curare res humanas, alii utraqueconcedunt. ® Lib. 8. 
ad mathem. f Origen. contra Celsum. 1.3 hos immerito nobiscum conferri fuse deelarat. S Crucifixura 
deum ignominiose Lucianus vita peregrin. Chi-istum vocat. h De ira, 16. 34. Iratus ccelo quod obstreperet, 
ad pugnam vocans Jovem, quanta dementia? putavit sibi nocere non posse, et se nocere tameu Jovi 
posse. i Lib. 1. 1. k idem status post mortem, ac fuit anteqnam nasceremur, et Seneca. Idem 

erit post me quod ante me fuit, 1 LuceniEe eadem conditio quum extinguitur, ac fuit anteq.uara accen- 
deretur; ita et honiinia. ^ Dissert, cum nunc, sider. 



Mem. 2. Subs. L] ReRgious Melancholy in Defect. 71 1 

Aretine, have publicly maintained such atheistical paradoxes, ^with that Italian 
Bocaccio with his fable of three rings, &c., ex quo infert haud posse internosci, 
quce sit verior religio, Judaica, Mahometana, an Christiana, quoniam eadem 
signa, &c., '•from which he infers, that it cannot be distinguished which is the 
true religion, Judaism, Mahommedanism, or Christianity," &c. °MarinusMer- 
cennus suspects Cardan for his subtleties, Campanella, a,nd Charron's Book of 
Wisdom, with som.e other Tracts to savour of ^^atheism : but amongst the rest 
that pestilent book de tribiis mundiimiwstoribus, quern sine how ore {in quit) iion 
legas, et mundi Cymbalum dialogis quatuor conlentuTii, anno 1538, auctore 
Peresio, Parisiis excusum, ^&c. And as there have been in all ages such 
blasphemous spirits, so there have not been wanting their patrons, protectors, 
disciples and adherents. Is'ever so many atheists in Italy and Germany, saith 
^Colerus, as in this age: the like complaint Mercennus makes in France, 
50,000 in that one city of Paris, Frederic the Emperor, as ^Matthew Paris 
records, licet non sit recitdbile (I use his own words), is reported to have said, 
TrespT(Bstigiatores',3Ioses, Christus, etMaliomet, utimundodoniinarentur, totum 
populum sibi contemporaneum seduxisse. (Henry, the Landgrave of Hesse, 
heard him speak it,) Si jjrincipes imyerii ijistitutioni mece adhcsrerent, ego 
multo meliorem modum credendi et vivendi ordijiarem. 

To these professed atheists we may well add that impious and carnal crew 
of w^orldly-minded men, impenitent sinners, that go to hell in a lethargy, or in 
a dream; v^ho though they be professed Christians, yet they will nulla palles- 
cere culpa, make a conscience of nothing they do, they have cauterizecf con- 
sciences, and are indeed in a reprobate sense, " past all feeling, have given 
themselves over to wantonness, to work all manner of uncleanness even with 
greediness," Ephes. iv. 19, They do know there is a God, a day of judgment 
to come, and yet for all that, as Hugo saith, ita, comedimt ac dormiunt, acsi 
diemjudiciievasissent; italudunt acrident, ac si in ccelis cum Deo regnarent: 
they are as merry for all the sorrow, as if they had escaped all dangers, and 
were in heaven already : 

-"tMetus omnes, et inexorabile fatura 



Subjecit pedijus, strepitumque Aclierontis avari," 

Those rude idiots and ignorant persons, that neglect and contemn the means of 
their salvation, may march on with these; but above all others, those Plerodian 
temporizing statesmen, political Machiavelians and hypocrites, that make a 
show of religion, but in their hea,rts laugh at it. Simulata sanctitas duplex 
iniquitas; they are in a double fault, "that fashion themselves to this world," 
which ^ Paul forbids, and like Mercury, the planet, are good with good, bad 
with bad. When they are at Rome, they do there as they see done, puritans 
with pmitans, papists with papists ; omnium horarum Aommeif, formalists, ambi- 
dexters, lukewarm Laodiceans, ^ All their study is to please, and their god is 
their commodity, their labour to satisfy their lust.-, and their endeavours to their 
own ends. Whatsoever they pretend, or in public seem to do, " -^ With the fool 

in their hearts they say there is no God," Heus tu de Jove quid sends 2 

" Hulloa! what is your opinion about a ^Jupiter?" Their words areas soft as 
oil, but bitterness is in their hearts; like Alexander YI. so cunning dissemblers, 
that what they think, they never speak. Many of them are so close, you can 
hardly discern it, or take any just exceptions at them; they are not factious, 
oppressors as most are,no bribers, no si moniacal contractors, no such ambitious, 
lascivious persons as some others are, no drunkards, sohrii solem vident orien- 
tem, sobrii vident occideniem, they rise sober, and go sober to bed, plain deal- 

^ Campanella, cap. 18. Atheism, triumpliat. ^ Comment, in Gen. cap. 7. P ?o that a man may 

meet an atheist as s; on in his study as in the street. Itinionis religio incerto auctore Cracovia edit. 

1.58S, conclubio libri est, Ede itaque, hibe, lude, &c. jam Dens tiiiinentum est. ^' Lib. de immortal, 

animaj, s pgg. 645. an. 1208. au finem Henrici tertii Idem Pisterius pag. 743. in compilat. 

sua. t Virg. " They place fear, fate, and the sound of cravintr Acheron iinder their feet." ^Kom, 

xii. 2, ^ Oimiis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et vcs. ^Psal. xiii. 1. ^Guicciardini. 



712 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

ing, upright, honest men, they do wrong to no man, and are so reputed in the 
world's esteem at least, very zealous in religion, very charitable, meek, humble, 
peace-makers, keep all duties, very devout, honest, well spoken of, beloved of 
all men j but he that knows better how to judge, he that examines the heart, 
saith they are hypocrites. Cor dolo plenwm; sonant vitium percussa maligne, 
they are not sound within. As it is with writers '''oftentimes, Plus sanctimonice 
in libello, quam libelli aiictore, more holiness is in the book than in the author 
of it : so 'tis vv'ith them : many come to church with great Bibles, whom Car- 
dan said he could not choose but laugh at, and will now and then dare o^peram 
Augustino, read Austin, frequent sermons, and yet professed usurer.^, mere 
gripes, tota vitcB ratio epicurea est; all their life is epicurism and atheism, 
come to church all day, and lie with a courtezan at night. Qui Curios simu- 
lant et Bacchanalia vivunt, they have Esau's hands, and Jacob's voice : yea, 
and many of those holy friars, sanctified men, Gappam, saith Hierom, et cili- 
cium induunt, sed intus latroner)i tegunt. They are wolves in sheep's clothing, 
Introrsum turpes, speciosi pelle decord, " Fair without, and most foul within." 
^ Latetplerumque sub tristi aniictu lascivia, et deformis horror vili veste tegitur ; 
ofttimes under a mourning weed lies lust itself, and horrible vices under a 
poor coat. But who can examine all those kinds of hypocrites, or dive into 
their hearts ? If we may guess at the tree by the fruit, never so many as in 
these days; show me a plain-dealing true honest man: Et pudor, etp)robitas, 
et timor omnis abest. He that shall but look into their lives, and see such 
enormous vices, men so immoderate in lust, unspeakable in malice, furious in 
their rage, flattering and dissembling (all for their own ends), will surely think 
they are not truly religious, but of an obdurate heart, most part in a reprobate 
sense, as in this age. But let them carry it as they will for the present, dis- 
semble as they can, a time will come when they shall be called to an account, 
their melancholy is at hand, they pull a plague and curse upon their own heads, 
thesaurisant irani Dei. Besides all such as are in deos contumeliosi, blaspheme, 
contemn, neglect God, or scoff at him, as the poets feign of Salmoneus, that 
would in derision imitate Jupiter's thunder, he was precipitated for his pains, 
Jupiter intonuit contra, &c.,so shall they certainly rue it in the end, i^in se spuit 
qui in coelum spuit), their doom's at hand, and hell is ready to receive them. 

Some are of opinion, that it is in vain to dispute with such atheistica.1 spirits 
in the meantime, 'tis not the best way to reclaim them. Atheism, idolatry, 
heresy, hypocrisy, though they have one common root, that is, indulgence to 
corrupt affection, yet their growth is different, they have divers symptoms, 
occasions, and must have several cures and remedies. 'Tis true some deny 
there is any God, some confess, yet believe it not : a third sort confess and 
believe, but will not live after his laws, worship and obey him : others allow 
God and gods subordinate, but not one God, no such general God, non talem 
Deum, but several topic gods' for several places, and those not to persecute one 
another for any difference, as Socinus will, but rather love and cherish. 

To describe them in particular, to produce their arguments and reasons, 
would require a just volume, I refer them therefore that expect a more ample 
satisfaction, to those subtle and elaborate treatises, devout and famous tracts 
of our learned divines (schoolmen amongst the rest, and casuists), that have 
abundance of reason to prove there is a God, the immortality of the soul, &c., 
out of the strength of wit and philosophy bring irrefragable arguments to such 
as are ingenuous and well disposed; at the least, answer all cavils and objec- 
tions to confute their folly and madness, and to reduce them, si fieri posset, ad 
eanam mentem, to a better mind, though to small purpose many times. 
Amongst others consult with Julius Caesar Lagalla, professor of philosophy in 

^ Erasmus. b Hierom. °Senec. consol. ad Polyb. ca. 21. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 2.] Despairs Definition. 713 

Home, who hath written a large volume of late to confute atheists : of tlie im- 
mortality of the soul, Hierom. Montanus de immortalitate Aninics: Lelius 
Vincentius of the same subject : Thomas Giaminus, and Franciscus Collins de 
Pnganorum animahus post mortem, a famous doctor of the Ambrosian College 
in Milan. Bishop Fotherby in his Atheomastix, Doctor Dove, Doctor Jackson, 
Abernethy, Corderoy, have written well of this subject in our mother tongue : 
in Latin, Colerus, Zanchius, Paleareus, Illyricus, ^Philippus, Faber Faven- 
tinus, (fee. But instar omnium, the most coj^ious confater of atheists is 
Marinus Mercennus in his Commentaries on Genesis: '^with Campanella's 
Atheismus Triumphatus. He sets down at large the causes of this brutisli 
passion (seventeen in number 1 take it), answers all theii' arguments and 
sophisms, which he reduceth to twenty-six heads, proving withal his own 
assertion ; " There is a God, such a God, the true and sole God," by thirty- 
five reasons. His Colophon is how to resist and repress atheism and to that 
purpose he adds four especial means or ways, wliich whoso will may profitably 
peruse. 

SuBSECT. II. — Despair. Despairs, Equivocations, Definitions, Parties and 

Parts affected. 

Theke be many kinds of desperation, whereof some be holy, some unholy, 
as ^one distinguislieth j that unholy he defines out of Tully to be ^gritudineni 
animi sine ulla rerum expectatione meliore, a sickness of the soul without any 
hope or expectation of amendment : which commonly succeeds fear; for whilst 
evil is expected, we fear: but when it is certain, we despair. According to 
Thomas, 2. 2ce. distinct. 40. art. 4. it is Recessus a re desiderata, propter impos- 
sibilitatem existimatam, a restraint from the thing desired, for some impossi- 
bility supposed. Because they cannot obtain what they would, they become 
desperate, and many times either yield to the passion by death itself, or else 
attempt impossibilities, not to be performed by men. In some cases, this 
desperate humour is not much to be discommended, as in wars it is a cause 
many times of extraordinary valour ; as Joseph., lib. 1. de hello Jud. cap. 14. 
L. Danseus in Aphoris. polit. pag. 226. and many politicians hold, It makes 
them improve their worth beyond itself, and of a forlorn impotent company 
become conquerors in a moment. Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem, 
" the only hope for the conquered is despair." In such courses when they see 
no remedy, but that they must either kill or be killed, they take coura^ge, and 
oftentimes, prceter spem, beyond all hope vindicate themselves. Fifteen 
thousand Locrenses fought against a hundred thousand Crotonienses, and 
seeing now no way but one, they must all die, ^thought they would not depart 
unrevenged, and thereupon desperately giving an assault, conquered their 
enemies. Nee alia causa victorice (saith Justin mine author) qiiam quod de- 
speraverant. William the Conqueror, when he first landed in England, sent 
back his ships, that his soldiers might have no hope of retiring back. ^ Bodine 
excuseth his countrymen's overthrow at that famous battle at Agincourt, in 
Henry the Fifth his time {cui simile, '&2k\)si Froissard, ^oto historia producers non 
possit,^Y\i\Gh. no history can parallel almost, wherein one handful of Englishmen 
overthrew a royal army of Frenchmen), with this refuge of despair, pauci 
desperaii, a few desperate fellows being compassed in by their enemies, j:)ast all 
hope of life, fought like so many devils; and gives a caution, that no soldiers 
hereafter set upon desperate persons, which ^ after Frontinus and Vigetius, 
Guicciardini likewise admonisheth, Hypomnes, part. 2. pag. 25. not to stop an 
enemy that is going his way. Many such kinds there are of desperation, when 

dDispiit. 4. Philosophic acTver. Atheos. Venetiis 1627, quarto, ^Edit. Romae, fol. 1631. f her- 

nethy, c. 24. of his Physic of the Soul, s Omissa spe victoviEe in destinatam mortem eonspirant, tantusqne 
ardor singulos cepit, ut victores se putarent si nou inulti morerentur. Justin. 1. 20. hMeiliod. hist. cap. 5. 
iHosti abire volenti iter minime interscindas. Sec. 



714 Eeligious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

men are past hope of obtaining any suit, or in despair of better fortune; 
Desperatio facit monachum, as the saying is, and desperation causeth death 
itself; how many thousands in such distress have made away themselves, and 
many others! For he that cares not for his own, is master of another man's 
life. A Tuscan soothsayer, as ^Paterculus tells the story, perceiving himself 
and Fulvius Flaccus his dear friend, now both carried to prison by Opimius, 
and in despair of pardon, seeing the young man weep, quin tu yotius hoc, inquit, 
Jacis, do as I do; and with that knocked out his brains against the door- 
cheek, as he was entering into prison, protinusque illiso capite in carcerisja- 
nuam effuso cerebro expiravii, and so desperately died. But these are eqai vocal, 
improper. "When I speak of despair," saith '""Zanchie, "I speak not of 
every kind, but of that alone which concerns God. It is opposite to hope, and 
a most pernicious sirj, wherewith the devil seeks to entrap men." Musculus 
makes four kinds of desperation, of God, ourselves, our neighbour, or any thing 
to be done; but this division of his may be reduced easily to the former : all 
kinds are opposite to hope, that sweet moderator of passions, as Simonides 
calls it ; I do not mean that vain hope which fantastical fellows feign to them- 
selves, which, according to Aristotle is insomnium vigilantmm, a waking 
dream; but this divine hope which proceeds from confidence, and is an anchor 
to a floating soul ; spes nlit agricolas, even in our temporal affairs, hope revives 
us, but in spiritual it farther animateth; and were it not for hope, '' we of all 
others were the most miserable," as Paul saith, in this life; were it not for 
hope, the heart would break; " for though they be punished in the sight of 
men," (Wisdom iii. 4.) yet is " their hope full of immortality : " yet doth it not 
so rear, as despair doth deject; this violent and sour passion of despair, is of 
all perturbations most grievous, as ^Patritius holds. Some divide it into final 
and temporal; "^ final is incurable, which befalleth reprobates; temporal is a 
rejection of hope and comfort for a time, which may befal the best of God's 
children, and it commonly proceeds "^from weakness of faith," as in David 
when he was oppressed he cried out, " O Lord, thou hast forsaken me," but 
this for a time. This ebbs and flows with hope and fear; it is a grievous sin 
howsoever: although some kind of despair be not amiss, when, saith Zanchius, 
we despair of our own means, and rely wholly upon God : but that species is 
not here meant. This pernicious kind of desperation is the subject of our dis- 
course, homicida animcE, the murderer of the soul, as Austin terms it, a fearful 
passion, wherein the party oppressed thinks he can get no ease but by death, 
and is fully resolved to offer violence unto himself; so sensible of his burden, 
and impatient of his cross, that he hopes by death alone to be freed of his 
calamity (though it prove otherwise), and chooseth with Job vi. 8. 9. vii. 15. 
"Eather to be strangled and die, than to be in his bonds." °The part 
affected is the whole soul, and all the faculties of it; there is a privation of 
joy, hope, trust, confidence, of present and future good, and in their place 
succeed fear, sorrow, &c., as in the symptoms shall be shown. The heart is 
grieved, the conscience wounded, the mind eclipsed with black fumes arising 
from those perpetual terrors. 

SuBSECT. III. — Causes of Despair, the Devil, Melancholy, Meditation^ Dis- 
trust, Weakness of Faith, Rigid Ministers, Misunderstanding Scriptures, 
Guilty Consciences, &c. 

The principal agent and procurer of this mischief is the devil ; those whom 
God forsakes, the devil by his permission lays hold on. Sometimes he perse- 

k Poster, vokim. * Super prteceptum primum de Relig. et partib;is ejus. Non loquor de omni 

desperatione, sed tautum de ea qua desperare solent homines de Deo ; opponitur spei, et est peccatura gra- 
Tissinium, &c. I Lib. 5. tit. 2 1 . de regis institut. Omnium perturbationum deternima. '^ Reprobi 

usque ad finem pertinaciter persistunt. zanchius. ^ Vitium ab infldelitate proficiscens. ° Aberuetliy. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Despair his Cruises. 715 

cutes tliem \\dth that worm of conscience, as he did Judas, ^Saul, and others. 
The poets call it Nemesis, but it is indeed God's just judgment, sero sed serio, 
he strikes home at last, and setteth upon them " as a thief in the night," 
1 Thes. ii. ^This temporary passion made David cry out, " Lord, rebuke me 
not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thine heavy displeasure; for thine 
arrows have light upon me, &c. there is nothing sound in my flesh, because of 
thine anger." Again, I roar for the very grief of my heart: and Psalm xxii. 
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, and art so far from my health, 
and the words of my crying? I am like to water poured out, my bones are out 
of joint, mine heart is like wax, that is molten in the mids. of my bowels. So 
Psalm Ixxxviii. 15 and 16 vers, and Psalm cii. " I am in niiser}^ at the point 
of death, from my youth I suffer thy terrors, doubting for my life ; thine 
indignations have gone over me, and thy fear hath cut me off." Job doth often 
complain in this kind; and those God doth not assist, the devil is ready to try 
and torment, "still seeking whom he may devour." If he find them merry, 
saith Gregory, " he tempts them forthwith to some dissolute act ; if pensive 
and sad, to a desperate end." Aut suadendo blanditur, aut minando terret, 
sometimes by fair means, sometimes again by foul, as he perceives men severally 
inclined. His ordinary engine by which he produces this effect, is the melan- 
choly humour itself, which is balneum dlaboli, thQ devil's bath; and as in 
Saul, those evil spirits get in ^as it were, and take possession of us. Black 
choler is a shoeing-horn, a bait to allure them, insomuch thcit many writers 
make melancholy an ordinary cause, and a symptom of despair, for that such 
men are most apt, by reason of their ill-disposed temper, to distrust, fear, grief, 
mistake, and amplify whatsoever they preposterously conceive, or falsely appre- 
hend. Conscientia scrupulosa nasciiur ex vitio naturali, complexione melan- 
cholica (saith Navarrus, cap. 27. num. 2$,'2. torn. 2. cas. conscien.) The body 
works upon the mind, by obfuscating the spirits and corrupted instruments, 
which ^Perkins illustrates by simile of an artificer, that hath a bad tool, his 
skill is good, ability correspondent, by reason of ill tools his work must needs 
be lame and imperfect. But melancholy and despair, though often, do not 
always concur; there is much difference : melancholy fears without a cause, 
this upon great occasion ; melancholy is caused by fear and grief, but this tor- 
ment procures them and all extremity of bitterness; much melancholy is with- 
out affliction of conscience, as * Bright and Perkins illustrate by four reasons ; 
and yet melancholy alone again may be sometimes a sufficient cause of this 
terror of conscience. ^Pcslix Plater so found it in his observations, e melan- 
cholicls alii damnatos se putant, Deo curce non sunt, nee prcedestinati, <fec. 
"They think they are not predestinate, God hath forsaken them;" and yet 
otherwise very zealous and religious; and 'tis common to be seen, "melan- 
choly for fear of God's judgment and hell fire, drives men to desperation ; fear 
and sorrow, if they be immoderate, end often with it." Intolerable pain and 
anguish, long sickness, captivity, misery, loss of goods, loss of friends, and those 
lesser griefs, do sometimes effect it, or such dismal accidents. Si non. stcdni 
relevantur, ^Mercennus, dubitant an sit Deus, if they be not eased forthwith, 
they doubt whether there be any God, they rave, curse, " and are desjjerately 
mad because good men are oppressed, wicked men flourish, they have not as 
they think to their desert," and through impatience of calamities are so mis- 
affected. Democritus put out his eyes, ne malorum civiuni prosperos videret 
successus, because he could not abide to see wicked men prosper, and was there- 

Pl Sam. ii. J6. iPsal. xxxviii. vers. 9. 14. ^Immiscent se mali genii, Lem. lib. 1. cap. 16. ^Cases 
of conscience, 1. I. 16. t Tract. Melan. cap. 33 et 34. " C. 3. de n entis alien. Deo minus se cu £e 

esse, nee ad s. lulem prscdestin itos esse. Ad desperationem ssepe ducit hac melancholia, et est freqaen- 
tissima ob supplied metmn teternumque judicium : moeror et metus in desperationem plerun que desinunt. 
^Comment, in 1. cai). gen. artic. 3. quia impii florent, boni opprimuntur, &c. alius ex consideratione hujus 
seria desperabundos. 



716 



Religious Melancholy. 



[Part. 3. Sec. 4. 



fore ready to make away himself, as ^ Agellius writes of Mm. Foelix Plater 
hath a memorable example in this kind, of a painter's wife in Basil, that was 
melancholy for her son's death, and for melancholy became desperate ; she 
thought God would not pardon her sins, "^and for four months still raved, 
that she was in hell-fire, already damned." When the humour is stirred up, 
every small object aggravates and incenseth it, as the parties are addicted. 
^The same author hath an example of a merchant man, that for the loss of a 
little wheat, which he had over long kept, was troubled in conscience, for that 
he had not sold it sooner, or given it to the poor, yet a good scholar and a great 
divine; no persuasion would serve to the contrary but that for this fact he was 
damned : in other matters very judicious and discreet. Solitariness, much 
fasting, divine meditation, and contemplations of God's judgments, most j)art 
accompany this melancholy, and are main causes, as ^Navarrus holds; to 
converse with such kind of persons so troubled, is sufficient occasion of trouble 
to some men. Nonnulli ob longas inedias, studia et meditationes ccelestes, de 
rebus sacris et religions semper agitant, &c. Many (saith P. Forestus) through 
long fasting, serious meditations of heavenly things, fall into such fits; and as 
Lemnius adds, lib. 4. cap. 21. "^If they be solitary given, superstitious, 
precise, or very devout : seldom shall you find a merchant, a soldier, an inn- 
keeper, a bawd, a host, a usurer so troubled in mind, they have cheveril 
consciences that will stretch, they are seldom moved in this kind or molested : 
young men and middle age are more wild and less apprehensive ; but old folks, 
most part, such as are timorous and religiously given." Pet. Forestus, observat. 
lib. 10. cap. 12. de morbis cerebri, hath a fearful example of a minister, that 
through precise fasting in Lent, and overmuch meditation, contracted this mis- 
chief, and in the end became desperate, thought he saw devils in his chamber, 
and that he could not be saved; he smelled nothing, as he said, but fire and 
brimstone, was already in hell, and would ask them, still, if they did not ^smell 
as much. I told him he was melancholy, but he laughed me to scorn, and 
replied that he saw devils, talked with them in good earnest, would spit in my 
face, and ask me if I did not smell brimstone, but at last he was by him cured. 
Such another story T find in Plater, observat. lib. 1. A poor fellow had done 
some foul ofience, and for fourteen days would eat no meat, in the end became 
desperate, the divines about him could not ease him, ® but so he died. Continual 
meditation of God's judgments troubles mSinj.Multi ob timoremfuturi judicii, 
saith Guatinerius, cop. 5. tract. 1 5. et suspicionem, desperabundi sunt. David 
himself complains that God's judgments terrified his soul. Psalm cxix. part 16. 
vers. 8. " My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments." 
Quotiesdiem ilium cogito (saith ^Hierome) toto corpore contremisco^ltvQmhlQ as 
often as I think of it. The terrible meditation of hell fire, and eternal punisb- 
ment much torments a sinful silly soul. What's a thousand years to eternity'^ 
Ubi ?nceror, uUfletus, ubi dolor semp)iternus. Mors sine morte, finis sine fine; 
a finger burnt by chance we may not endure, the pain is so grievous, we may 
not abide an hom^, a night is intolerable; and what shall this unspeakable fire 
then be that burns for ever, innumerable infinite millions of years, in ornne 
cevum, in (Eternum. O eternity ! 



"SJi^ternitas est ilia vox, 
Vox ilia fulminatrix, 
Tonitruis minaclor, 
Fragoribusque coeli, 



iEternitas est ilia vox, 
— meta cavens et ortu, &c. 

Tormenta nulla territant, 
Quae finiuntur annis; 



jEternitas, seternitas 
Versat coquitque pectus. 

Auget hjec pcenas indies, 
Centuplicatque flammas," &c. 



yLib. 20. c. 17. ^Damnatam se putavit, et per quatuor menses Gehennse pcenam sentire. ^ 1566. 

ob triticum dlutius servatum conscientise stimulis agitatur, &c. bTora. '2. c. 27 num. 282. conversatio 

cum scrupulosis, vigiliae, jejunia. . ^ Solitaries et superstitiosos plerumque exagitat conscientia, non 

mercatores, lenones, caupones, fseneratores, &c. largiorem hi nacti sunt eonscientiam. Juvenes plerumque 
conscientiam negligunt, senes autem, &c. d Annon sentis sulphur, inquit ? ^ Desperabundus misere 

periit. fin 17. Johannis. Non pauci se cruciant, et excarnificant in tantum, ut non parum absmt 

ab insania; neque tamen aliud hac mentis anxietate etficiunt, quam ut diabolo potestatem faciant ipsosper 
desperationem ad inferos producendi. S Drexelius Nicet. lib. 2. cap. 1 1 . " Eternity, that word, that 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Despair his Causes. 717' 

This meditation terrifies these poor distressed souls, especially if their bodies 
be predisposed by melancholy, they religiously given, and have tender con- 
sciences, every small object affrights them, the very inconsiderate reading of 
Scripture itself, and misinterpretation of some places of it; as, " Many are 
called, few are chosen. Not every one that saith Lord. Fear not little flock. 
He that stands, let him take heed lest he fall. Work out your salvation with 
fear and trembling. That night two shall be in a bed, one received, the 
other left. Strait is the way that leads to heaven, and few there are that 
enter therein." The parable of the seed and of the sower, " some fell on 
barren ground, some was choaked. Whom he hath predestinated he hath 
chosen. He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy." Non est volentis 
oiec currentis, seel miserentis Dei. These and the like places terrify the souls 
of many; election, predestination, reprobation, preposterously conceived, 
offend divers, with a deal of foolish presumption, curiosity, needless specula- 
tion, contemplation, solicitude, wherein they trouble and puzzle themselves 
about those questions of grace, free will, perseverance, God's secrets ; they 
will know more than is revealed of God in his word, human capacity, or igno- 
rance can apprehend, and too importunate inquiry after that which is revealed ; 
mysteries, ceremonies, observation of Sabbaths, laws, duties, &c,, with many 
such which the casuists discuss, and schoolmen broach, which divers mistake, 
misconstrue, misa-pply to themselves, to their own undoing, and so fall into this 
gulf. " They doubt of their election, how they shall know it, by what signs. 
And so far forth," saith Luther, " with such nice points, torture and crucify 
themselves, that they are almost mad, and all tliey get by it is this, they lay 
open a gap to the devil by desperation to carry them to hell ; " but the greatest 
harm of all proceeds from those thundering ministers, a most frequent cause 
they are of this malady : " ^ and do more harm in the church (saith Erasmus) 
than they that flatter; great danger on both sides, the one lulls them asleep 
in carnal security, the other drives them to despair." Whereas, St. Bernard 
well adviseth, " ^ We should not meddle with the one without the other, nor 
speak of judgment without mercy; the one alone brings desperation, the other 
security." But these men are wholly for judgment ; of a rigid disposition them- 
selves, there is no mercy with them, no salvation, no balsam for their diseased 
souls, they can speak of nothing but reprobation, hell fire, and damnation ; as 
they did, Luke xi. 46. lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, which they 
themselves touch not with a finger. 'Tis familiar with our papists to terrify 
men's souls with purgatory, tales, visions, apparitions, to daunt even the most 
generous spirits, " to ^ require charity," as Brentius observes, " of others, 
bounty, meekness, love, patience, when they themselves breathe nought but 
lust, envy, covetousness." They teach others to fast, give alms, do penance, 
and crucify their mind with superstitious observations, bread and water, hair 
clothes, whips, and the like, when they themselves have all the dainties the 
world can afford, lie on a down-bed with a courtezan in their arms : Heic quan- 
tum patimur pro Chrisfo, as ^he said, what a cruel tyranny is this, so to insult 
over and terrify men's souls ! Our indiscreet pastors many of them come not 
far behind, whilst in their ordinary sermons they speak so much of election, pre- 
destination, reprobation, a6(eienzo, subtraction of grace, prseterition, voluntary 
permission, &c., by what signs and tokens they shall discern and try themselves, 



tremendous worrl, more threatening than thunders and the artillery of heaven— Eternity, that word, 
without end or origin. No torments affright us which are limited to years: Eternity, eternity, occupies 
and inflames the heart — this it is that daily augments our sufferings, and multiplies our heart-burnings a 
hundred-fold." hEcclesiast. 1. 1. Haud scio an majus discrimen ah his qui hlandiuntur, an ah his 

qui territant ; ingens utriuque periculum ; alii ad securitatem ducunt, alii afflictionum magnitudine mentem 
absorbent, et in desperationem trahunt. IBern. sup. 16. cant. 1. alteram sine altero proferre non expedit; 
recordatio solius judicii in desperationem praacipitat, et misericordise fallax ostentatio pessimam generat 
securitatem. kin Luc. hom. 103. exigunt ah aliis charitatem, beneficentiam, cum ipsi nil spectent 

praeter libidinem, invidiam, avaritiam, ILeo decimus. 



718 J^eliffious 3Ielancholt/. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

whether they be God's true children elect, an sint reprobi, jjrcedestinati, &c., 
with such scrupulous points, they still aggravate sin, thunder out God's judo-- 
ments without respect, intern pestively rail at and pronounce them damned in 
all auditories, for giving so much to sports and honest recreations, making every 
small fault and thing indifferent an irremissible offence, they so rent, tear and 
wound men's consciences, that they are almost mad, and at their wits' end. 

*' These bitter potions (saith ™ Erasmus) are still in their mouths, nothing 
but gall and horror, and a mad noise, they make all their auditors desperate : " 
many are wounded by this means, and they commonly that are most devout 
and precise, have been formerly presumptuous, and certain of their salvation; 
they that have tender consciences, that follow sermons, frequent lectures, that 
have indeed least cause, they are most apt to mistake, and fall into these 
miseries. I have heard some complain of Parson's Resolution, and other 
books of like nature (good otherwise), they are too tragical, too much dejecting 
men, aggravating offences: great care and choice, much discretion is required 
in this kind. 

The last and greatest cause of this malady, is our own conscience, sense of 
our sins, and God's anger justly deserved, a guilty conscience for some foul 

offence formerly committed, ^ miser Oreste, quid morhi te iderdifi Or: 

Conscientia, Sum enim mild conscius de mails perpetTatis^ " A good con- 
science is a continual feast," but a galled conscience is as great a torment as 
can possibly happen, a still baking oven (so Pierius in his Hieroglyph, compares 
it), another hell. Our conscience, which is a great ledger book, wherein are 
written all our offences, a register to lay them up, (which those ^ Egyptians in 
their hieroglyphics expressed by a mill, as well for the continuance, as for the 
torture of it.) grinds our souls with the remembrance of some precedent sins, 
makes us reflect upon, accuse and condemn our ownselves. " ^ Sin lies at 
door," &c. I know there be many other causes assigned by Zanchius, 
^Musculus, and the rest; as incredulity, infidelity, presumption, ignorance, 
blindness, ingratitude, discontent, those five grand miseries in Aristotle, igno- 
miny, need, sickness, enmity, death, &c.; but this of conscience is the greatest, 
^ Instar ulceris corpus jugiter percellens: The scrupulous conscience (as * Peter 
Forestus calls it) which tortures so many, that either out of a deep apprehension 
of their unworthiness, and consideration of their own dissolute life, " accuse 
themselves and aggravate every small offence, when there is no such cause, 
misdoubting in the meantime God's mercies, they fall into these inconve- 
niences." The poet calls them " furies dire, but it is the conscience alone which 
is a thousand witnesses to accuse us, ^ Node dieque suum gestant in pectore 
testem. A continual tester to give in evidence, to empanel a jury to examine 
us, to cry guilty, a persecutor with hue and cry to follow, an apparitor to sum- 
mon us, a bailiff to carry us, a seijeant to arrest, an attorney to plead against 
ns, a gaoler to torment, a judge to Cv-mdemn, still accusing, denouncing, tortur- 
ing and molesting. And as the statue of Juno in that holy city near Euphrates 
in ^ Assyria will look still towards you, sit where you will in her temple, she 
stares full upon you, if you go by, she follows with her eye, in all sites, places, 
conventicles, actions, our conscience will be still ready to accuse us. After 
many pleasant days, and fortunate adventures, merry tides, this conscience at 
last doth arrest us. Well he may escape temporal punishment, ^ bribe a cor- 



™ De faturo jndicio, de damnatione horrendum crepunt, et amaras illas potationes in ore semper habent, 
nt multos inde in desperationem cogant. ii Euripides. "0 wretched Orestes, what malady consumes 

you ? " o " Conscience, for I am conscious of evil." P Pierius. ^ Gen. iv. ^ 9 causes Musculus makes, 
s Plutarch. t Alios misere castigat plena scrupulis conscientia, nodum in scirpo qu^runt, et ubi nulla 

causa subest, misericordise divinas dififidentes, se Oreo destinant. " Ccelius, lib. 6 ^Juvenal. .Night 
and day they carry their witnesses in the breast." y Lucian. de dea Syria . Si adstitens, te aspicit; si 
transeas, visu te sequitur. ^VvimB, hsec est ultio, quod se judice nemo nocens absolvitur, improba 

quaravis gratia fallacis prsetoris vicerit urnara. Juvenal. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 3.] Despair his Causes. 719 

rnpt judge, and avoid tlie censure of law, and flourish for a time ; " for** who 
ever saw (saith Chrysostom) a covetous man troubled in mind when he is tell- 
ing of his money, an adulterer mourn with his mistress in his arms ? we are 
then drunk with pleasure, and perceive nothing :" yet as the prodigal son had 
dainty fare, sweet music at first, merry company, jovial entertainment, but a 
cruel reckoning in the end, as bitter as wormwood, a fearful visitation com- 
monly follows. And the devil that then told thee that it was a light sin, or no 
sin at all, now aggravates on the other side, and telleth thee, that it is a most 
irremissible ofieuce, as he did by Cain and Judas, to bring them to despair; 
every small circumstance before neglected and contemned, will now amplify 
itself, rise up in judgment, and accuse the dust of their shoes, dumb creatures, 
as to Lucian's tyrant, lectus et candela, the bed and candle did bear witness, 
to torment their souls for their sins past. Tragical examples in this kind are 
too familiar and common : Adrian, Galba, Nero, Otho, Yitellius, Caracalla, 
were in such horror of conscience for their offences committed, murders, rapes, 
extortions, injuries, that they were weary of their lives, and could get nobody 
to kill them. ^ Kennetus, King of Scotland, when he had murdered his nephew 
Malcom, King DufFe's son, Prince of Cumberland, and with counterfeit tears 
and protestations dissembled the matter a long time, "^at last his conscience 
accused him, his unquiet soul could not rest day or night, he was terrified with 
fearful dreams, visions, and so miserably tormented all his life." It is strange 
to read what ^Cominseus hath written of Louis XL that French king; of 
Charles YIII. ; of Alphonsus, King of Naples ; in the fury of his passion how 
he came into Sicily, and what pranks he played. Guicciardini, a man most 
unapt to believe lies, relates how that Ferdinand his father's ghost who before 
had died for grief, came and told him, that he could not resist the French King, 
he thought every man cried France, France; the reason of it (saith Comingeus 
was because he was a vile tyrant, a murderer, an oppressor of his subjects, he 
bought up all commodities, and sold them at his own price, sold abbeys to Jews 
and Falconers ; both Ferdinand his father, and he himself never made con- 
science of any committed sin ; and to conclude, saith he, it was impossible to 
do worse than they did. Why was Pausanias the Spartan tyrant, Nero, Otho, 
Galba, so persecuted with spirits in every house they came, but for their mur- 
ders which they had committed 1 ® Why doth the devil haunt many men's 
houses after their deaths, appear to them living, and take possession of their 
habitations, as it were, of their palaces, but because of their several villanies ] 
Why had Eichard the Third such fearful dreams, saith Polydore, but for his 
frequent murders 1 Why was Herod so tortured in his mind 1 because he had 
made away Mariamne his wife. Why was Theodoric, the King of the Goths, 
so suspicious, and so affrighted with a fish head alone, but that he had murdered 
Symmachus, and Boethius, his son-in-law, those worthy Romans ? Caelius, 
lib. 27. cap. 22. See more in Plutarch, in his tract De Ms qui sero a Numine 
puniuntur, and in his book Be tranquillitate animi, &c. Yea, and sometimes 
GOD himself hath a hand in it, to show his power, humiliate, exercise, and to 
try their faith, (divine temptation, Perkins calls it, Cas. cons. lib. 1. cap. 8, 
sect. 1.) to punish them for their sins. God the avenger, as ^ David terms 
him, ultor a tergo Leus, his wi-ath is apprehended of a guilty soul, as by Saul 
and Judas, which the poets expressed by Adrastia, or Nemesis : 

" Assequitur Xemesisqiie virum vestigia servat, 
Ne male quid facias." S 

* Quis unquam vidit avarum ringi dum lucrum adest, adulterum dum potitur voto, lugerein perpetrando 
scelere? voluptate sumus ebrii, proinde non sentimus, &c. b Buchanan, lib. 6. Hist. Scot. *= Animus 
conscientiasceleris inquietus, nullum admisit gaudium, sed semper vexatus noctu et interdiu per somnum 
visis horrore plenis pertremefactus, &c. dDe bello Neapol. ^Thireus de locis infestis, part. 1. cap. 2. 
Nero's mother M'as still in his eyes. f Psal. xliv. 1. 8" And Kemesis pursues and notices the steps 

of men, lest you commit any evil." 



t20 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

And she is, as ^ Ammianus, lib. 14. describes her, "the queen of causes, and 
moderator of things, now she pulls down the proud, now she rears and en- 
courageth those that are good j" he gives instance in hisEusebius ; JSTicephorus, 
lib. 10. ca}-). 35. eccles. hist, in Maximinus and Julian. Fearful examples of 
God's just judgment, wrath and vengeance, are to be found in all histories, of 
some that have been eaten to death with rats and mice, as ^Pompelius, the 
second King of Poland, ann. 830, his wife and children ; the like story is of 
Hatto, Archbishop of Mentz, ann. 969, so devoured by these vermin, which 
howsoever Serrarius the Jesuit, Mogunt. rerum lib. 4. cap. "5. impugn by 
twenty-two arguments, Tritemius, ^Munster, Magdeburgenses, and many 
others relate for a truth. Such another example I find in Geraldus Cam- 
brensis, Ilin. Cam. lib. 2. cap. 2. and where not 'i 

And yet for all these terrors of conscience, affrighting punishments which 
are so frequent, or whatsoever else may cause or aggravate this fearful malady 
in other religions, I see no reason at all why a papist at any time should despair, 
or be troubled for his sins ; for let him be never so dissolute a caitiif, so noto- 
rious a villain, so monstrous a sinner, out of that treasure of indulgences and 
merits of which the pope is dispensator, he may have free pardon and plenary 
remission of all his sins. There be so many general pardons for ages to come, 
forty thousand years to come, so many jubilees, so frequent gaol deliveries out 
of purgatory for all souls, now living, or after dissolution of the body, so many 
particular masses daily said in several churches, so many altars consecrated to 
this purpose, that if a man have either money or friends, or will take any j)ains 
to come to such an altar, hear a mass, say so many paternosters, undergo such 
and such penance, he cannot do amiss, it is impossible his mind should be 
troubled, or he have any scruple to molest him. Besides that Taxa Camerce 
Apostolicce, which was first published to get money in the days of Leo Decimus, 
that sharking pope, and since divulged to the same ends, sets down such easy 
rates and dispensations for allofiences,for perjury, murder, incest, adultery, &c., 
for so many grosses or dollars (able to invite any man to sin, and provoke him 
to ofiend, methinks, that otherwise would not) such comfortable remission, so 
gentle and parable a pardon, so ready at hand, with so small cost and suit 
obtained, that I cannot see how he that hath any iiiends amongst them (as I 
say) or money in his purse, or will at least to ease himself, can any way mis- 
carry or be misaffected, how he should be desperate, in danger of damnation, 
or troubled in mind. Their ghostly fathers can so readily apply remedies, so 
cunningly string and unstring, wind and unwind their devotions, play upon their 
consciences with plausible speechesand terrible threats, for their best advantage 
settle and remove, erect with such facility and deject, let in and out, that I 
cannot perceive how any man amongst them should much or often labour of 
this disease, or finally miscarry. The causes above named must more fi equently 
therefore take hold in others. 

SuBSECT. IV. — Symptoms of Despair, Fear, Sorrow, Suspicion, Anxiety, 
Horror of Conscience, Fearful Dreams and . Visions. 

As shoemakers do when they bring home shoes, still cry leather is dearer 
and dearer, may I justly say of those melancholy symptoms : these of despair 
are most violent, tragical, and grievous, far beyond the rest, not to be expressed 
but negatively, as it is privation of all happiness, not to be endured; "for a 
wounded spirit who can bear itf Pro v. xviii. 19. What, therefore, ^Timan- 
thes did in his picture of Iphigenia, now ready to be sacrificed, when he had 
painted Chalcas mourning, Ulysses sad, but most sorrowful Menelaus; and 

hRegina causarum et arbitra rerum, nunc erectas cervices opprimit, &c. i Alex. Gaguinus, catal. 

reg. Pol. k Cosmog. Munster. et Magde. iPliniiiP, cap. 10. 1. 35. Consumptis affectibus, Aga- 

memnonls caput velavit, ut omnes quern possent, maximum moe.orem in virginis patre cogitarent. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 4.] Symptoms of Despair. 721 

Bhowed all his art in expressing a variety of affections, lie covered the maid's 
father Agamemnon's head with a veil, and left it to every spectator to conceive 
what he would himself; for that true passion and sorrow in sivmmo gradu, such 
as his was, could not by any art be deciphered. What he did in his picture, I 
will do in describing the symptoms of despair; imagine what thou canst, fear, 
sorrow, furies, grief, pain, terror, anger, dismal, ghastly, tedious, irksome, &c. 
it is not sufficient, it comes far short, no tongue can tell, no heart conceive it. 
'Tis an epitome of hell, an extract, a quintessence, a compound, a mixture of 
all feral maladies, tyrannical tortures, plagues, and perplexities. There is no 
sickness almost but physic provideth a remedy for it ; to eA^ery sore chirurgery 
will provide a salve ; friendship helps poverty; hope of liberty easeth imprison- 
ment; suit and favour revoke banishment; authority and time Vv^ear away 
reproach ; but what physic, what chirurgery, what wealth, favour, authority 
can relieve, bear out, assuage, or expel a troubled conscience ? A quiet mind 
cureth all them, but all they cannot comfort a distressed soul : who can put 
to silence the voice of desperation? All that is single in other melancholy, 
Horribile, dirum, pestilens, atrox,ferum, concurs in this, it is more than melan- 
choly in the highest degree; a burning fever of the soul; so mad, saith 
"^Jacchinus, by this misery; fear, sorrow, and despair, he puts for ordinary 
symptoms of melancholy. They are in great pain and horror of mind, distrac- 
tion of soul, restless, full of continual fears, cares, torments, anxieties, they 
can neither eat, drink, nor sleep for them, take no rest, 

" ^Perpetua impietas, nee mensse tempore cessat, j " TvTeither at bed nor yet at board, 

Exagitat vesana quies, somnique furentes." | Will any rest despair afford." 

Fear takes away their content, and dries the blood, wasteth the marrow, alters 
their countenance, '' even in their greatest delights, singing, dancing, dalliance, 
they are still (saith ^Lemnius) tortured in their souls." It consumes them to 
nought, " I am like a pelican in the wilderness (saith David of himself, tempo- 
rally affiicted), an owl, because of thine indignation," Psalm cii. 6, 10, and 
Psalm Iv. 4. " My heart trembleth within me, and the terrors of death have 
come upon me ; fear and trembling are come upon me, &c. at death's door," 
Psalm cvii. 18. " Their soul abhors all manner of meats." Their ^ sleep is 
(if it be any) unquiet, subject to fearful dreams and teiTors. Peter in his bonds 
slept secure, for he knew God protected him ; and Tully makes it an argument 
of Roscius Amerinus' innocency, that he killed not his father, because he so 
securely slept. Those martyi's in the primitive church were most "^cheerful 
and merry in the midst of their persecutions ; but it is far otherwise with 
these men, tossed in a sea, and that continually without rest or intermission, 
they can think of nought that is pleasant, "^'their conscience wdll not let them 
be quiet," in perpetual fear, anxiety, if they be not yet apprehended, they are in 
doubt still they shall be ready to betray themselves, as Cain did, he thinks 
every man will kill him ; " and roar for the grief of heart," Psalm xxxviii. 8, 
as David did; as Job did, xx. 3, 21, 22, &c., " Wherefoi-e is light given to 
him that is in misery, and life to them that have heavy hearts ? which long 
for death, and if it come not, searck it more than treasures, and rejoice when 
they can find the grave." They are generally w^eary of their lives, a trembling 
heart they have, a sorrowful mind, and little or no rest. Terror ubique tremor, 
timor undique et undique terror. " Fears, terrors, and affrights in all places, 
at all times and seasons." Cibum et potum pertinaciter aversantur midti, 
nodum in scirpo quceritantes, et culpam imaginantes uhi nidla est, as Wierus 
writes de Lamiis, lib. 3. c. 1. " they refuse many of them meat and drink, 

™Cap. 15. in 9. Ehasis. ^3\vf. Sat. 13. <> Mentem eripit timor hie; vultum, totumque corpors 

habitum immutat, etiam in delieiis, in tripudiis, in symposiis, in araplexu conjugis carnificinam exereet, lib. 4. 
cap. 21. P Non sinit eonscientia tales homines recta verba proferre, aut rectis qiienquam oculis aspicere, 
ab omnihominum coetu eosdem exterminat, et dormientes perterrefacit. riiilost. lib. 1. de vita Apollonii. 
« Eusebius, Isicephorus, eccles. hist. lib. 4. c. 17. i" Seneca, lib. 18. epist. 106. Conscientia aliud agere 

non patitur, perturbatam vitam agunt, nunquam vacant, &c. 

3 A 



722 Religious MelancJioly. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

cannot rest, aggravating still and supposing grievous offences where there are 
none." God's heavy wrath is kindled in their souls, and notwithstanding their 
continual prayers and supplications to Christ Jesus, they have no release or 
ease at all, but a most intolerable torment, and insufferable anguish of con- 
science, and that makes them, through impatience, to murmur against God 
many times, to rave, to blaspheme, turn atheists, and seek to offer violence to 
themselves. Deut. xxviii. 65, QQ. "In the morning they wish for evening, 
and for morning in the evening, for the sight of their eyes which they see, and 
fear of hearts." ^Marinus Mercennus, in his comment on Genesis, makes 
mention of a desperate friend of his, whom, amongst others, he came to visit, 
and exhort to patience, that broke out into most blasphemous atheistical 
speeches, too fearful to relate, when they wished him to trust in God, Quis est 
ille Deus (inquit) ut serviam Hit, quid proderit si oraverim; siprcesens est, cur 
non succurrit? cur nonme career e, inedia, squalor e confectum liberate quid 
ego feci ? &c, ahsit a me hujusmodi Deus, Another of his acquaintance broke 
out into like atheistical blasphemies, upon his wife's death raved, cursed, said 
and did he eared not what. And so for the most part it is with them all, 
many of them, in their extremity, think they hear and see visions, outcries, 
confer with devils, that they are tormented, possessed, and in hell-fire, already 
damned, quite forsaken of God, they have no sense or feeling of mercy, or 
grace, hope of salvation, their sentence of condemnation is already past, and 
not to be revoked, the devil will certainly have them. Never was any living 
creature in such torment before, in such a miserable estate, in such distress of 
mind, no hope, no faith, past cure, reprobate, continually tempted to make 
away themselves. Something talks with them, they spit fire and brimstone, 
they cannot but blaspheme, they cannot repent, believe or think a good thought, 
so far carried ; ut cogantur ad impia cogitandum eiiam contra voluntatem, said 
^Foelix 'Fla,ter,adblasphemiamerga Deum, admulta hori'enda perpetranda,ad 
manus violentas sihi infer endas, &c,, and in their distracted fits and desperate 
humours, to offer violence to others, their familiar and dear friends sometimes, 
or to mere strangers, upon very small or no occasion ; for he that cares not 
for his own, is master of another man's life. They think evil against their 
wills ; that which they abhor themselves, they must needs think, do, and speak. 
He gives instance in a patient of his, that when he would pray, had such evil 
thoughts still suggested to him, and wicked ^meditations. Another instance 
he hath of a woman that was often tempted to curse God, to blaspheme and 
kill herself. Sometimes the devil (as they say) stands without and talks with 
them, sometimes he is within them, as they think, and there speaks and talks 
as to such as are possessed: so Apollodorus, in Plutarch, thought his heart 
spake within him. There is a most memorable example of °^ Francis Spira, 
an advocate of Padua, Ann. 154-5, that being desperate, by no counsel of 
learned men could be comforted : he felt (as he said) the pains of hell in his 
soul j in all other things he discoursed aright, but in this most mad. Frismelica, 
Bullovat, and some other excellent physicians, could neither make him eat, 
drink, or sleep, no persuasion could ease him. Never pleaded any man so well 
for himself, as this man did against himselfj and so he desperately died. 
Springer, a lawyer, hath written his life. Cardinal Crescence died so likewise 
desperate at Yerona, still he thought a black dog followed him to his death-bed, 
no man could drive the dog away, Sleiden. com. 23. cap. lib. 3. Whilst I was 
writing this treatise, saith Montaltus, cap. 2. de mel. " ^A nun came to me for 
help, well for all other matters, but troubled in conscience for five years last 

i Artie. 3. ca. 1. fol. 230. quod horrendum dictu, desperabundus quidam me presente cum ad patientlam 
hortaretur, &c. k Lib. 1. obser. cap. 3. 1 Ad maledicendum Deo. ^ Goulart. ^ Dum hsec scribo, 
implorat opem meam monacha, in reliquis sana, et judicio recta, per 5. annos melancholica ; damnatam se 
dicit, conscientise stimuiis oppressa, &.c. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 6.] Cure of Despair. 723 

past ; she is almost mad, and not able to resist, tliinks slie hath offended God, 
and is certainly damned." Foelix Plater hath store of instances of such as 
thought themselves damned, ^forsaken of God, &c. One amongst the rest, 
that durst not go to church, or come near the Rhine, for fear to make away 
himself, because tlien he was most especially tempted. These and such like 
symptoms are intended and remitted, as the malady itself is more or less ; 
some will hear good counsel, some will not j some desire help, some reject all, 
and will not be eased. 

SuBSECT. V. — Prognostics of Despair, Atheism, Blasphemy, violent death, ^c. 

Most part these kind of persons make ^'away themselves, some are mad, 
blaspheme, curse, deny God, but most offer violence to their own persons, and 
sometimes to others. " A wounded spirit who can be£ir?" Pro v. xviii. 14. 
As Cain, Said, Achitophel, Judas, blasphemed and died. Bede saith, Pilate 
died desperate eight years after Christ, ^^ Felix Plater hath collected many 
examples. " ^ A merchant's wife that was long troubled with such temptations, 
in the night rose from her bed, and out of the window broke her neck into the 
street : another drowned himself desperate as he wa's in the Rhine : some cut 
their throats, many hang themselves. But this needs no illustration. It is 
controverted by some, whether a man so offering violence to himself, dying 
desperate, may be saved, ay or no 1 If they die so obstinately and suddenly, 
that they cannot so much as wish for mercy, the woi*st is to be suspected, be- 
cause they die impenitent. ^If their death had been a little more lingering, 
wherein they might have some leisure in their hearts to cry for mercy, charity 
may judge the best; divers have been recovered out of the very act of hang- 
ing and drowning themselves, and so brought ad sanam Dientem^ they have' 
been very penitent, much abhorred their former act, confessed that they have 
repented in an instant, and cried for mercy in their hearts. If a man put 
desperate hands upon himself, by occasion of madness or melancholy, if he 
have given testimony before of his regeneration, in regard he doth this not so 
much out of his will, as ex vi morhi, we must make the best construction of it, 
as * Turks do, that think all fools and madmen go directly to heaven. 

SuBSECT. YI. — Cure of Despair by Physic, Good Counsel, Comforts, ^^c. 

ExPEHiENCE teacheth us, that though many die obstinate and wilful in this 
malady, yet multitudes again are able to resist and overcome, seek for help 
and find comfort, are taken e faucibus Erebi, from the chops of hell, and out of 
the devil's paws, though they have by "obligation given themselves to him. 
Some out of their own strength and God's assistance, " Though He kill me, 
(saith Job) yet will I trust in Him," out of good counsel, advice, and physic. 
^Bellovacus cured a monk by altering his habit, and course ot life: Plater 
many by physic alone. But for the most part they must concur; and they 
take a wrong course that think to overcome this feral passion by sole physic ; 
and they are as much out, that think to work this effect by good advice alone, 
though both be forcible in themselves, yet vis unita fortior, "they must go 

hand in hand to this disease:" alterius sic altera poscit opem. For physic 

the like course is to be taken with this as in other melancholy : diet, air, 
exercise, all those passions and perturbations of the mind, Ac, are to be recti- 
fied by the same means. They must not be left solitary, or to themselves, 
never idle, never out of company. Counsel, good comfort is to be applied, as 

^ Alios conqiierentes aiidivi se esse ex damnatorum nnmero. Deo non esse curss, aliaqiie infinita quifi pro- 
ferre non audebant, vel abhorrebant. P Musculus, Patritius : ad vim sibi inierendam cogit liomines. 

^ 3 De mentis alienat. observ. lib. 1 . ^'Uxor Mercatoris diu vexationibus tentata, &c. ^ Abernethy. 

t Busbequius. 'i John Major vitis patrum : quidam negavit Cbxistum, per Cliirograpliuin post restitutus. 
* Trincavellius, lib. 3. 



724 Eeligious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. i. 

tliey shall see the parties inclined, or to the causes, whether it be loss, fear, 
be grief, discontent, or some such feral accident, a guilty conscience, or other- 
wise by frequent meditation, too grievous an apprehension, and consideration of 
his former life; by hearing, reading of Scriptures, good divines, good advice 
and conference, applying God's word to their distressed souls, it must be cor- 
rected and counterpoised. Many excellent exhortations, pareenetical discourses, 
are extant to this purpose, for such as are any way troubled in mind : Perkins, 
Greenham, Hay ward. Bright, Abernethy, Bolton, Culmannus,' Helmingius, 
Cselius Secundus, Nicholas Laurentius, are copious on this subject: Azorius, 
Navarrus, Sayrus, &c., and such as have written cases of conscience amongst 
our pontifical writers. But because these men's works are not to all parties at 
hand, so parable at all times, I will for the benefit and ease of such as are 
afflicted, at the request of some "^friends, re-collect out of their voluminous 
treatises, some few such comfortable speeches, exhortations, arguments, advice, 
tending to this subject, and out of God's word, knowing, as Culmannus saith 
upon the like occasion, "^hovv unavailable and vain men's counsels are to com- 
fort an afflicted conscience, except God's word concur and be annexed, from 
which comes life, ease, r^entance, ' (fcc. Pre-supposing first that which Beza, 
Greenham, Perkins, Bolton, give in charge, the parties to whom counsel is 
given be sufficiently prepared, humbled for their sins, fit for comfort, confessed, 
tried how they are more or less afflicted, how they stand affected, or capable 
of good advice, before any remedies be applied : to such therefore as are so 
thoroughly searched and examined, I address this following discourse. 

Two main antidotes, '^Hemmingius observes, opposite to despair, good hope 
out of God's word, to be embraced; pervei'se security and presumption from 
the devil's treachery, to be rejected; Ilia salus animcB hcec loestis ; one saves, 
the other kills, occidit animam , saith Austin, and doth as much harm as despair 
itself ^Navarrus the casuist reckons up ten special cures out of Anton. 1. 
2)art. Tit. 3. cap. 10. 1. God. 2. Physic. 3. ''Avoiding such objects as 
have caused it. 4. Submission of himself to other men's judgments. 5. Answer 
of all objections, &c. All which Cajetan, Gerson, lib. de vit. spirit. Sayrus, 
lib. 1. cas. cons. cap. 14. repeat and approve out of Emanuel Koderiques, cap. 
51 et 52. Greenham prescribes six special rules, Culmannus seven. First, 
to acknowledge all help come from God. 2. That the cause of their present 
misery is sin. 3. To repent and be heartily sorry for their sins. 4. To pray 
earnestly to God they may be eased. 5. To expect and implore the 
prayers of the church, and good men's advice. .6. Physic. 7. To commend 
themselves to God, and rely upon His mercy ; others, otherwise, but all to this 
eflfect. But forasmuch as most men in this malady are spiritually sick, void of 
reason almost, overborne by their miseries, and too deep an apprehension of 
their sins, they cannot apply themselves to good counsel, pray, believe, repent, 
we must, as much as in us lies, occur and help their peculiar infirmities, ac- 
cording to their several causes or symptoms, as we shall find them distressed 
and complain. 

Tlie main matter which terrifies and torments most that are troubled in 
mind, is the enormity of their offences, the intolerable burthen of their sins, 
God's heavy wrath and displeasure so deeply apprehended, that they account 
themselves reprobates, quite forsaken of God, already damned, past all hope of 
grace, incapable of mercy, diaboli maricipia, slaves of sin, and their offences so 
great they cannot be forgiven. But these men must know there is no sin so 



y My brother, George Burton, M. James Whitehall, rector of Checkley, in Staffordshire, my quondam 
chamber-fellow, and late fellow-student in Christ Church, Oxon. ''^ Scio quam vana sit et inefflcax 

humanorum verborum penes afflictos consolatio, nisi verbum Dei audiatur, h quo vita, refrigeratio, solatium, 
poenitentia. ^ Antid. adversus desperationem. b Tom. 2. c. 27. num. 282. ^ Aversio cogitationis 

ii re scrupulosa, contraventio scrupulorum. 



Mem. 2. Subs. C] Cttre of Despair. 725 

heiuous which is not pardonable in itself, no crime so great but by God's mercy 
it may be forgiven, " Where sin aboundeth, grace aboundetli much more," 
E.om. V. 20. And what the Lord said unto Paul in his extremity, 2 Cor. xi. 9. 
" My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is made perfect through w^eak- 
ness :" concerns every man in like case. His promises are made indefinite to 
all believers, generally spoken to all touching remission of sins that are truly 
penitent, grieved for their offences, and desired to be reconciled. Matt. ix. i2, 
13, "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance," that is, such 
as are truly touched in conscience for their sins. Again, Matt, xi, 28, " Come 
unto me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will ease you." Ezek, xviii. 27, 
" at what time soever a sinner shall repent him of his sins from the bottom of 
his heart, I will blot out a. his wickedness out of my remembrance saith the 
Lord." Isaiah xliii, 25, " I even I am He that put away thine iniquity for 
mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." " As a father (saith David, 
Psal. ciii. 13) hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord compassion 
on them that fear him." And v/ill receive them again as the prodigal son was 
entertained, Luke xv., if they shall so come with tears in their eyes, and a 
penitent heart. Peccafor agnoscat, Dens ignoscif, " The Lord is full of com- 
passion and mercy, slow to anger, of great kindness," Psal. ciii. 8. " He will 
not always chide, neither keep His anger for ever," 9. " As high as the 
heaven is above the earth, so great is His mercy towards them that fear Him," 1 L 
" As far as the East is from the West, so far hath He removed our sins from 
us," 12. Though Cain cry out in the anguish of his soul, my punishment is 
greater than I can bear, 'tis not so j thou liest, Cain (saith Austin), " God's 
mercy is greater than thy sins. His mercy is above all His vv^orks," Psal. cxlv. 
9, able to satisfy for all men's sins, antilutroji, 1 Tim. ii. 6. His mercy is a 
panacea, a balsam for an afflicted soul, a sovereign medicine, an alexipharma- 
cum for all sin, a charm for the devil; His mercy was great to Solomon, to 
Manasseh, to Peter, great to all offenders, and whosoever thou art, it may be 
so to thee. For why should God bid us pray (as Austin infers) " Deliver us 
from all evil," nisi ipse misericors perseveraret, if He did not intend to help us? 
He therefore that "^doubts of the remission of his sins, denies God's mercy, 
and doth Him injury, saith Austin. Yea,, but thou repliest, I am a notorious 
sinner, mine offences are not so great as infinite. Hear Fulgentius, "^ God's 
invincible goodness cannot be overcome by sin, His infinite mercy cannot be 
terminated by any : the multitude of His mercy is equivalent to Plis magni- 
tude." Hear ^Chrysostom, " Thy malice may be measured, but God's mercy 
cannot be defined; thy malice is circumscribed, tlis mercies infinite, Asa 
drop of water is to the sea, so are thy misdeeds to His mercy : nay, there is 
no such proportion to be given; for the sea, though great, yet may be mea- 
sured, but God's mercy cannot be circumscribed." Whatsoever thy sins be 
then in quantity or quality, multitude or magnitude, fear them not, distrust not. 
I speak not this, saith ^'Chrysostom, "to make thee secure and negligent, but 
to cheer thee up." Yea, but, thou urgest again, I have little comfort of this 
w'hich is said, it concerns me not : Inanis pcenitentia quani seqiie?is culpa coin- 
quinat, 'tis to no purpose for me to repent, and to do worse than ever I did 
before, to persevere in sin, and to return to my lusts as a dog to his vomit, or 
a swine to the mire : ^to what end is it to ask forgiveness of my sins, and yet 
daily to sin again and again, to do evil out of a habit ? I daily and hourly 
offend in thought, word, and deed, in a relapse by mine own w^eakness and 



^ Magnam injuriam Deo facit qui diffidit de ejus miserieordia. « Bonitas invicti non vincitur; infiniti 

misericordia non finitur. 'Horn. 3. De pcenitentia : Tua qnidem malitia mensiu-am habet. Dei autera 
miserieordia mensuiam non habet. Tua malitia circumscripta est, &c. PeJagus etsi magnum, mensurani 
habet; Dei autem, &c. sNon ut desidiores vos lacium, sed ut alacriores reddam. hPro peccacis 

veniam poscere, et mala de novo iterare. 



726 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

wilfulness : my bonus genius, my good protecting angel is gone, I am fallen 
from that I was or would be, worse and worse, " my latter end is worse than 
my beginning :" Si quotidie peccas, quotidie, saith Qh-vyso^toTH., pceniteniiam age, 
if thou daily offend, daily repent: "^if twice, thrice, a hundred, a hundred 
thousand times, twice, thrice, a hundred thousand times repent," As they do 
by an old house that is out of repair, still mend some part or other ; so do by 
thy soul, still reform some vice, repair it by repentance, call to Him for grace, 
and thou shalt have it; " For we are freely justified by His grace," Rom. iii. 
24. If thine enemy repent, as our Saviour enjoined Peter, forgive him seventy- 
seven times; and why shouldst thou think God will not forgive thee? Why 
should the enormity of thy sins trouble thee? God can do it, he will do it. 
" My conscience (saith ^ Anselm) dictates to me tbrit I deserve damnation, my 
repentance will not suffice for satisfaction : but thy mercy, O Lord, quite 
overcometh all my transgressions." The gods once (as the poets feign) with a 
gold chain would pull Jupiter out of heaven, but all they together could not 
stir him, and yet he could draw and turn them as he would himself; maugre 
all the force and fury of these infernal fiends, and crying sins, " His grace is 
sufficient." Confer the debt and the payment; Christ and Adam; sin, and 
the cure of it; the disease and the medicine; confer the sick man to his 
physician, and thou shalt soon perceive that his power is infinitely beyond it. 
God is better able, as ^Bernard informeth us, "to help, than sin to do us hurt; 
Christ is better alDle to save, than the devil to destroy." "If he be a skilful 
Physician, as *Fulgentius adds, "he can cure all diseases; if merciful, he will.'* 
Non est perfecta honitas a qua non omnis malitia vincitur, His goodness is 
not absolute and perfect, if it be not able to overcome all malice. Submit thyself 
unto Him, as St. Austin adviseth, "°He knoweth best what he doth; and 
be not so much pleased when he sustains thee, as patient when he corrects 
thee; he is omnipotent, and can cure all diseases when he sees his own time." 
He looks down from heaven upon earth, that he may hear the " mourning 
of prisoners, and deliver the children of death," Psal. cii. 19, 20. " And 
though our sins be as red as scarlet. He can make them as white as snow," 
Isai. i. 18. Doubt not of this, or ask how it shall be done : He is all-sufficient 
that promiseth; qui fecit mundum de immundo, saith Chrysostom, he that 
made a fair world of nought, can do this and much more for his part : do thou 
only believe, trust in him, rely on him, be penitent and heartily sorrow for thy 
sins. Repentance is a sovereign remedy for all sins, a spiritual wing to rear 
us, a charm for our miseries, a protecting amulet to expel sin's venom, an 
attractive loadstone to draw God's mercy and graces unto us. Teccatum vul- 
nus, panitentia medicinam : sin made the breach, repentance must help it; 
howsoever thine offence came, by error, sloth, obstinacy, ignorance, exitur per 
poenitentiam, this is the sole means to be relieved. ^ Hence comes our hope of 
safety, by this alone sinners are saved, God is provoked to mercy. "This 
unlooseth all that is bound, enlighteneth darkness, mends that is broken, puts 
life to that which was desperately dying :" makes no respect of offences, or of 
persons. " "^This doth not repel a fornicator, reject a drunkard, resist a proud 
fellow, turn away an idolater, but entertains all, communicates itself to all." 
Who persecuted the church more than Paul, offended more than Peter? and 

1 Si bis, si ter, si centies, si centies millles, toties poenitentiam age. ^ Conscientia mea meruit damna- 

tionem, pcenltentia non sufflcit ad satisfactionem : sed tua misericordia superat omnem offensionem. 
iMulto efficacior Cliristi mors in bonum, quam peecata nostra in malum. Christus potentior ad salvanaum, 
quam daemon ad perdendum. ^ Peritus medicus potest omnes infirmitates sanare; si misencors, vnit. 

n Omnipotenti medico nullus languor insanabilis occuvrit : tu tantum doceri te sine, manum ejus ne repeue : 
novit quid agat; non tantum delecteris cum fovet, sed toleres quum secat. « Clirys. horn. 3. de poemt. 

P Spes salutis per quam peccatores salvantur, Deus ad misericordiam provocatur. Isidor. omnia iigata lu 
solvis, contrita sanas, confusa lucidas, desperata animas, *» Chrys. hom. 5. non fornicatorem abnuit, non 
. ebrium avertit, non superbum repellit, non aversatur Idololatram, non adulterum, sed omnes suscipit, 
omnibus communicat. 



Mem. 2. Subs. G.] Cure of Despair. 727 

yet by repentance (saith Clirysologus) tliey got both Maghterium et ministerium 
sancfitatisj the Magistery of holiness. The prodigal son went far, but by 
repentance he came home at last. " ^"This alone will turn a wolf into a 
sheep, make a publican a preacher, turn a thorn into an olive, makea debauched 
fellow religious," a blasphemer sing halleluja, make Alexander the coppersmith 
truly devout, make a devil a saint. " ^ And him that polluted his mouth with 
calumnies, lying, swearing, and filthy tunes and tones, to purge his throat with 
divine psalms." Hepentance will eflfect prodigious cures, make a stupend 
metamorphosis. " A hawk came into the ark, and went out again a hawk ; 
a lion came in, went out a lion; a bear, a bear; a wolf, a wolf; but if a hawk 
came into this sacred temple of repentance, he will go forth a dove (saith 
*^ Chrysostom), a wolf go out a sheep, a lion a lamb. ^This gives sight to the 
blind, legs to the lame, cures ail diseases, confers grace, expels vice, inserts 
virtue, comforts and fortifies the soul." Shall I say, let thy sin be what it will, 
do but repent,- it is sufficient. ^ Qiiem pcenitet peccdsse jyene estinnocens. 'Tis 
true indeed and all-sufficient this, they do confess, if they could repent; but 
they are obdurate, they have cauterised consciences, they are in a reprobate 
sense, they cannot think a good thought, they cannot hope for grace, pray, 
believe, repent, or be sorry for their sins, they find no grief for sin in them- 
selves, but rather a delight, no groaning of spirit, but are carried headlong to 
their own destruction, '' heaping wrath to themselves against the day of wrath,'* 
Eom. ii. 5. 'Tis a grievous case this I do yield, and yet not to be despaired ; 
God of his bounty and mercy calls all to repentance, Rom. ii. 4, thou mayest 
be called at length, restored, taken to His grace, as the thief upon the cross, at 
the last hour, as Mary Magdalen and many other sinners have been, that were 
buried in sin. "God (saith ^Fulgentius) is delighted in the conversion of a 
sinner, he sets no time; prolixitas temporis Deo non j^rcejiidicot, aut graviias 
jyeccati, deferring of time or grievousness of sin, do not prejudicate his grace, 
things past and to come arc all one to Him, as present :" ' tis never too late to 
repent. "^This heaven of repentance is still open for all distressed souls;'* 
and howsoever as yet no signs appear, thou mayest repent in good time. Hear 
a comfortable speech of St, Austin, " ''^ Wliatsoever thou shalt do, how great a 
sinner soever, thou art yet living ; if God would not help thee, he would surely 
take thee away ; but in sjoaring thy life, he gives thee leisure, and invites thee 
to repentance." Howsoever as yet, I say, thou perceivest no fruit, no feeling, 
fiudest no likelihood of it in thyself, patiently abide the Lord's good leisure, 
despair not, or think thou art a reprobate ; He came to call sinners to repentance, 
Luke V. 32, of which number thou art one; He came to call thee, and in his 
time will surely call thee. And although as yet thou hast no inclination to 
pray, to repent, thy faith be cold and dead, and thou wholly averse from all 
Divine functions, yet it may revive, as trees are dead in winter, but flourish 
in the spring ! these virtues may lie hid in thee for the present, yet hereafter 
show themselves, and peradventure already bud, howsoever thou dost not per- 
ceive. 'Tis Satan's policy to plead against, suppress and aggravate, to conceal 
those sparks of faith in thee. Thou dost not believe, thou sayest, yet thou 
wouldst believe if thou couldst, 'tis thy desire to believe; then pray, " ''Lord 
help mine unbelief;" and hereafter thou shalt certainly believe: ^ Dabitur 
sitieiiti, it shall be given to him that thirsteth. Thou canst not yet repent. 



*■ Chrys. hom. 5. ^ Qui turpitjns cantilenis aliquando iriq-uinavit os, clivinis hymnis animum purgabit. 
tllom. 5. Introivit hie quis accipiter, columba exit; introivit lupus, ovis egreditm-, &c. '^Omnes 

languores sanat, cacis visum, claudis gressum, gratiam confert, &e. ^ Seneca. " He who repents of 

liis sins is well nigh innocent." J'Delectatur Deus conversione peccatoris; omne tempus vitas conversion! 
deputatur ; pro prasentibus habentiu' tam prffiterita quam futura. ^ Austin. Semper poenitentiae portus 
apertus est ne desperemus. ^Quicquid feceris, quantumcunque peccaveris, adhuc in vita es, unde 

te omnino si sanare te noUet Deus, auferret; parcendo clamat ut redeas, &.c. bMatt. vi. 23. 

''liev. xxi. 6. 



728 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

hereafter thou shalt ; a black cloud of sin as yet obnubilates thy soul, terrifies thy 
conscience, but this cloud may conceive a rainbow at the last, and be quite dis- 
sipated by repentance. Be of good cheer; a child is rational in power, not in 
act; and so art thou penitent in affection, though not yet in action. 'Tis thy 
desire to please God, to be heartily sorry ; comfort thyself, no time is overpast, 
'tis never too late. A desire to repent is repentance itself, though not in nature, 
yet in God's acceptance ; a willing mind is sufficient. " Blessed are they that 
hunger and thirst after righteousness," Matt. v. 6. He that is destitute of God's 
grace, and wisheth for it, shall have it. " The Lord (saith David, Psal. x. 17) 
will hear the desire of the poor," that is, such as are in distress of body and 
mind. 'Tis true thou canst not as yet grieve for thy sin, thou hast no feeling 
of faith, I yield ; yet canst thou grieve thou dost not grieve? It troubles thee, 
I am sure, thine heart should be so impenitent and hard, thou wouldst have it 
otherwise ; 'tis thy desire to grieve, to repent, and to believe. Thou lovest 
God's children and saints in the meantime, hatest them not, persecutest them 
not, but rather wishest thyself a true professor, to be as they are, as thou 
thyself hast been heretofore ; which is an evident token thou art in no such 
desperate case. 'Tis a good sign of thy conversion, thy sins are pardonable, 
thou art, or shalt surely be reconciled, " The Lord is near them that are of 
a contrite heart," Luke iv. 18. ^ A true desire of mercy in the want of mercy, 
is mercy itself; a desire of grace in the want of grace, is grace itself; a con- 
stant and earnest desire to believe, repent, and to be reconciled to God, if it 
be in a touched heart, is an acceptation of God, a reconciliation, faith 
and repentance itself For it is not thy feith and repentance, as ® Chryaostom 
truly teacheth, that is available, but God's mercy that is annexed to it, He 
accepts the will for the deed : so that I conclude, to feel in ourselves the 
want of grace, and to be grieved for it, is grace itself. I am troubled with 
fear my sins are not forgiven. Careless objects : but Bradford answers 
they are ; " For God hath given thee a penitent and believing heart, that 
is, a heart which desireth to repent and believe ; for such an one is taken 
of him (He accepting the will for the deed) for a truly penitent and believing 
heart. 

All this is true, thou repliest, but yet it concerns not thee, 'tis verified in 
ordinary offenders, in common sins, but thine are of a higher strain; even 
against the Holy Ghost himself, irremissible sins, sins of the first magnitude, 
written with a pen of iron, engraven with a point of a diamond. Thou art 
worse than a pagan, infidel, Jew, or Turk, for thou art an apostate and more, 
thou hast voluntarily blasphemed, renounced God and all religion, thou art 
worse than Judas himself, or they that crucified Christ : for they did offend out 
of ignorance, but thou hast thought in thine heart there is no God. Thou hast 
given thy soul to the devil, as witches and conjurors do, explicite and implicite, 
by compact, band and obligation (a desperate, a fearful case), to satisfy thy 
lust, or to be revenged of thine enemies, thou didst never pray, come to church, 
hear, read, or do any divine duties with any devotion, but for formality and 
fashion'-sake, with a kind of reluctance, 'twas troublesome and painful to thee 
to perform any such thing, prcBier vohcntatem, against thy will. Thou never 
mad'st any conscience of lying, swearing, bearing false witness, murder, adul- 
tery, bribery, oppression, theft, drunkenness, idolatry, but hast ever done all 
duties for fear of punishment, as they were most advantageous, and to thine 
own ends, and committed all such notorious sins with an extraordinary delight, 
hating that thou shouldest love, and loving that thou shouldest hate. Instead 
of faith, fear and love of God, repentance, &c., blasphemous thoughts have 
been ever harboured in his mind, even against God himself, the blessed Trinity; 

d Afcernethy, Perkins. ^ 2\on est poenitentia, sed Dei ruisericordia annesa. 



Mem. 2, Sub?. 6.] Cure of Despair. 729 

tlie ^Scripture false, rude, harsh, immethodical : heaven, hell, resurrection, 
mere toys and fables, ^iucredible, impossible, absurd, vain, ill contrived; 
religion, policy, and human invention, to keep men in obedience, or for profit, 
invented by priests and law-givers to that purpose. If there be any such 
supreme power, he takes no notice of our doings, hears not our prayers, 
regardeth them not, will not, cannot help, or else he is partial, an excepter of 
persons, author of sin, a cruel, a destructive God, to create our souls, and 
destinate them to eternal damnation, to make us worse than our dogs and 
horses, why doth he not govern things better, protect good men, root out 
wicked livers? why do they prosper and flourish? as she raved in the 

^ tragedy pellices ccelum tenent, there they shine, Suasque Ferseus aureus 

Stellas hahet, where is his providence? how appears it? 

*' Jlarmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Coto parvo, 
Pomponius nullo, quis putet esse deos." ' 

Why doth he suffer Tiirks to overcome Christians, the enemy to triumph over 
his church, paganism to domineer in all places as it doth, heresies to multiply, 
such enormities to be committed, and so many such bloody wars, murders, 
massacres, plagues, feral diseases? why doth he not make us all good, able, 
sound? why makes he ^'venomous creatures, rocks, sands, deserts, this earth 
itself the muck-hill of the world, a prison, a house of correction ; ^Mentimur 
regnare Jovem, &c., with many such horrible and execrable conceits, not fit to 
be uttered; Ter7'ibiUa defide, horrihilia de Divinitate. They cannot some of 
them but think evil, they are compelled volentes nolentes, to blaspheme, 
especially when they come to church and pray, read, &c., such foul and prodi- 
gious suggestions come into their hearts. 

These are abominable, unspeakable offences, and most opposite to God, ten- 
tationes fcedce et impice, yet in this case, he or they that shall be tempted and 
so affected, must know, that no man living is free from such thoughts in part, 
or at some times, the most divine spirits have been so tempted in some sort, 
evil custom, omission of holy exercises, ill company, idleness, solitariness, 
melancholy, or depraved nature, and the devil is still ready to corrupt, trouble, 
and divert our souls, to suggest such blasphemous thoughts into our fantasies, 
ungodly, profane, monstrous and wicked conceits : If they come from Satan, 
they are more speedy, fearful and violent, the parties cannot avoid them : they 
are more frequent, I say, and monstrous when they come ; for the devil he is 
a spirit, and hath means and opportunities to mingle himself with our spirits, 
and sometimes more slily, sometimes more abruptly and openly, to suggest such 
devilish thoughts into our hearts; he insults and domineers in melancholy dis- 
tempered fantasies and persons especially; melancholy is balneum diaholi, as 
Serapio holds, the devil's bath, and invites him to come to it. As a sick man 
frets, raves in his fits, speaks and doth he knows not what, the devil violently 
compels such crazed souls to think such damned thoughts against their wills, 
they cannot but do it; sometimes more continuate, or by fits, he takes his 
advantage, as the subject is less able to resist, he aggravates, extenuates, 
affirms, denies, damns, confounds the spirits, troubles heart, brain, humours, 
organs, senses, and wholly domineers in their imaginations. If they proceed 
from themselves, such thoughts, they are remiss and moderate, not so violent 
and monstrous, not so frequent. The devil commonly suggests things opposite 
to nature, opposite to God and his word, impious, absurd, such as a man would 
never of himself, or could not conceive, they strike terror and horror into the 



f Csecilius Jrinutio : Omnia ista figmenta male sance religionis, et inepta solatia k poetis inventa, vel ab aliis 
Ob commodum, superstitiosa misteria, &c. S These temptations and objections are well answered in 

John Downam's Christian Warfare. b Seneca. » " Licinus lies in a marble tomb, but Cato in a mean 

one ; Pomponius has none, who can think therefore that there are gods ? " ^ Vid. Campanella, cap. 6. 

Arhels. triumphat. et c. 2. ad argumentum 12 ubi plura. Si Deus bonus, unde malum, k.c. 'Lucan. 

"It can't be true that Just Jove reigns." 



730 Beligious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

parties' own hearts. For if lie or tliey be asked whether they do approve of 
such like thoughts or no, they answer (and their own souls truly dictate as 
much) they abhor them as hell and the devil himself, they would fain think 
otherwise if they could ; he hath thought otherwise, and with all his soul 
desires so to think again ; he doth resist, and hath some good motions inter- 
mixed now and then : so that such blasphemous, impious, unclean thoughts, 
are not his own, but the devil's ; they proceed not from him, but from a crazed 
phantasy, distempered humours, black fumes which offend his brain : "^ they 
are thy crosses, the devil's sins, and he shall answer for them, he doth enforce 
thee to do that which thou dost abhor, and didst never give consent to : and 
although he hath sometimes so slily set upon thee, and so far prevailed, as to 
make thee in some sort to assent to such wicked thoughts, to delight in, yet 
they have not proceeded from a confirmed will in thee, but are of that nature 
which thou dost afterwards reject and abhor. Therefore be not overmuch 
troubled and dismayed with such kind of suggestions, at least if they please 
thee not, because they are not thy personal sins, for which thou shalt incur the 
wrath of God, or his displeasure : contemn, neglect them, let them go as they 
come, strive not too violently, or trouble thyself too much, but as our Saviour 
said to Satan in like case, say thou, avoid Satan, I detest thee and them. 
SatancB est mala higerere (saith Austin) nostrum non conse?itire : as Satan 
labours to suggest, so must we strive not to give consent, and it will be suffi- 
cient : the more anxious and solicitous thou art, the more perplexed, the more 
thou shalt otherwise be troubled, and entangled. Besides, they must know 
this, all so molested, and distempered, that although these be most execrable 
and grievous sins, they are pardonable yet, through God's mercy and goodness, 
they may be forgiven, if they be penitent and sorry for them. Paul himself 
confesseth, Kom. vii. 19. ^' He did not the good he would do, but the evil 
which he would not do; 'tis not I, but sin that dwelleth in me." 'Tis not 
thou, but Satan's suggestions, his craft and subtlety, his malice: comfort thy- 
self then if thou be penitent and grieved, or desirous to be so, these heinous 
sins shall not be laid to thy charge; God's mercy is above all sins, which if 
thou do not finally contemn, without doubt thou shalt be saved. " ^ No 
man sins against the Holy Ghost, but he that wilfully and finally renounceth 
Christ, and contemneth him and liis word to the last, without which there is 
no salvation, from which grievous sin, God of his infinite mercy deliver 
us." Take hold of this to be thy comfort, and meditate withal on God's 
word, labour to pray, to repent, to be renewed in mind, " keep thine heart 
with all diligence," Pro v. iv. 23. resist the devil, and he will fly from 
thee, pour out thy soul unto the Lord with sorrowful Hannah, " pray 
continually," as Paul enjoins, and as David did, Psalm i, " meditate on his 
law day and night." 

Yea, but this meditation is that mars all, and mistaken makes many men 
far worse, misconceiving all they read or hear, to. their own overthrow ; the 
more they search and read Scriptures, or divine treatises^ the more they 
puzzle themselves, as a bird in a net, the more they are entangled and preci- 
jtitated into this preposterous gulf i " Many are called, but few are chosen," 
]Matt. XX. 16. and vxii. 14. with such like places of Scripture misinterpreted 
strike them with horror, they doubt presently whether they be of this number 
or no ; God's eternal decree of predestination, absolute reprobation, and such 
fatal tables, they form to their own ruin, and impinge upon this rock of despair. 
How shall they be assured of their salvation, by what signs ? " If the righteous 
scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinners appear?" 1 Pet. iv. 18. 

"" Perkins. " Hemingius. Nemo peccat in Spiritum Sanctum nisi qui finaliter et volimtarierenunciat 
Christum, eumque et ejus verbunx extreme conteranit, sine quanulia salus; a quo peccato liberet nos Domi- 
nus Jesus Christus. Amen. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 6.] Care of Despair. 731 

Who knows, saitli Solomon, whether he be elect ? This grinds their souls, 
how shall they discern they are not reprobates ? But I say again, how shall 
they discern they are ? From the devil can be no certainty, for he is a liar 
from the beginning ; if he suggests any such thing, as too frequently he doth, 
reject him as a deceiver, an enemy of human kind, dispute not with him, give 
no credit to him, obstinately refuse him, as St. Anthony did in the wilderness, 
whom the devil set upon in several shapes, or as the collier did, so do thou by 
bim. For when the devil tempted him with the weakness of his faith, and 
told him he could not be saved, as being ignorant in the principles of religion, 
and urged him moreover to know what he believed, what he thought of such, 
and such points and mysteries; the collier told him, he believed as the church 
did; but what (said the devil again) doth the church believe? as I do (said the 
collier); and what's that thou belie vest; as the church doth, &c., when the 
devil could get no other answer he left him. If Satan summon thee to answer, 
send him to Christ ; he is thy liberty, thy protector against cruel death, raging 
sin, that roaring lion; he is thy righteousness, thy Saviour, and thy life. 
Though he say, thou art not of the number of the elect, a reprobate, forsaken, 
of God, hold thine own still, hie murus aheneus esto, "let this be as a bulwark, 
a brazen wall to defend thee," stay thyself in that certainty of faith ; let that 
be thy comfort, Christ will protect thee, vindicate thee, thou art one of his 
flock, he will triumph over the law, vanquish death, overcome the devil, and 
destroy hell. If he say thou art none of the elect, no believer, reject him, dofy 
him, thou hast thought other w^ise, and may est so be resolved again ; comfort 
thyself; this persuasion cannot come from the devil, and much less can it be 
grounded from thyself? men are liars, and why shouldest thou distrust 1 A 
denying Peter, a persecuting Paul, an adulterous cruel David, have been re- 
ceived ; an apostate Solomon may be converted ; no sin at all but impenitency, 
can give testimony of final reprobation. Why shouldest thou then distrust, 
misdoubt thyself, upon w^hat ground, what suspicion? This opinion alone of 
particularity? Against that, and for the certainty of election and salvation on 
the other side, see God's good will toward men, hear how generally his grace 
is proposed, to him, and him, and them, each man in particular, and to all. 

1 Tim. ii. 4. " God wiU that all men be saved, and come to the knowledge of 
the truth." 'Tis a universal promise, " God sent not his son into the world to 
condemn the world, but that through him the world might be saved." John 
iii. 17. " He that acknowledgeth himself a man in the world, must likewise 
acknowledge he is of that number that is to be saved." Ezek. xxxiii. 11. "I 
will not the death of a sinner, but that he repent and live :" But thou art a 
sinner; therefore he will not thy death. "This is the will of him that sent 
me, that every man that believeth in the Son, should have everlasting life." 
John vi. 40. " He would have no man perish, but all come to repentance," 

2 Pet. iii. 9. Besides, remission of sins is to be preached, not to a few, but 
universally to all men, " Go therefore and tell all nations, baptising them,'* 
&c. Matt, xxviii. 1 9. " Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every 
creature," Mark xvL 15. Now there cannot be contradictory wills in God, 
he will have all saved, and not all, how can this stand together ? be secure 
then, beheve, trust in him, hope well and be saved. Yea, that's the main 
matter, how shall I beheve or discern my security from carnal presumption? 
my faith is weak and faint, I want those signs and fruits of sanctification, 
^ sorrow for sin, thirsting for grace, groanings of the spirit, love of Christians 
as Christians, avoiding occasion of sin, endeavour of new obedience, charity, 
love of God, perseverance. Though these signs be languishing in thee, and 
not seated in thine heart, thou must not therefore be dejected or terrified; 



P Abernethy. 



732 Beligious MdancUoly. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

the effects of the faith and spirit are not yet so fully felt in thee ; conclude 
not therefore thou art a reprobate, or doubt of thine election, because tLie 
elect themselves are without them, before their conversion. Thou mayest in 
the Lord's good time be converted; some are called at the eleventh hour. 
Use, I say, the means of thy conversion, expect the Lord's leisure, if not yet 
called, pray thou mayest be, or at least vt^ish and desire thou mayest be. 

Notwithstandiug all this which might be said to this eflfect, to ease their 
afflicted minds, what comfort our best divines can afford in this case, Zan- 
chius, Beza, &c. This furious curiosity, needless speculation, fruitless medita- 
tion about election, reprobation, free will, grace, such places of Scripture pre- 
posterously conceived, torment still, and crucify the souls of too many, and set 
all the word together by the ears. To avoid which inconveniences, and to settle 
their distressed minds, to mitigate those divine aphorisms (though in another 
extreme some), our late Arminians have revived that plausible doctrine of 
universal grace, which many fathers, our late Lutheran and modern papists do 
still maintain, that we have free will of ourselves, and that grace is common 
to all that will believe. Some again, though less orthodoxal, will have a far 
greater part saved than shall be damned, (as ^CseliusSecundus stifflly maintains 
in his book, De amplitudine regni coelestis, or some impostor under his name,) 
heatorum numerus multo major quam damnatorum. ^He calls that other tenet 
of special " ^election and reprobation, a prejudicate, envious and malicious opi- 
nion, apt to draw all men to desperation. Many are called, few chosen," &c. 
He opposeth some opposite parts of Scripture to it, "Christ came into the world 
to save sinners," &c. And four especial arguments he produceth, one from 
God's power. If more be damned than saved, he erroneously concludes, ^ the 
devil hath the greater sovereignty ! for what is power but to protect? and 
majesty consists in multitude. " If the devil have the greater part, where is 
his mercy, where is his power? how is he Deus Optimus Maximus, misericors? 
&o., where is his greatness, where his goodness?" He proceeds, ""We account 
him a murderer that is accessary only, or doth not help when he can; which 
may not be supposed of God without great offence, because he may do what 
he will, and is otherwise accessary, and the author of sin. The nature of good 
is to be communicated, God is good, and will not then be contracted in his 
goodness : for how is he the father of mercy and comfort, if his good concern 
but a few? O envious and unthankful men to think otherwise ! ^ Why should 
we pray to God that are Gentiles, and thank him for his mercies and benefits, 
that has damned us all innocuous for Adam's offence, one man's offence, one 
small offence, eating of an apple ? why should we acknowledge him for our 
governor that hath, wholly neglected the salvation of our souls, contemned 
us, and sent no prophets or instructors to teach us, as he hath done to the 
Hebrews?" So Julian the apostate objects. Why should these Christians 
(Cselius urgeth) reject us and appropriate God unto themselves, Deum ilium 
suum unicum, &c. But to return to our forged Cselius. At last he comes to 
that, he will have those saved that never heard of, or believed in Christ, ex 
puris naturalihus, with the Pelagians, and proves it out of Origen and others. 
" They (saith ^ Origen) that never heard God's word, are to be excused for 
their ignorance; we may not think God will be so hard, angry, cruel or unjust 
as to condemn any man indicia causd. They alone (he holds) are in the state 

1 See whole books of these arguments. ^ Lib. 3. fol. 122. Prsejudicata opinio, invida, maligna, et apta 
ad impellendos animos in desperation era. ^ See the Antidote in Charaier's torn. 3. lib. 7. Downam's 

Christian Warfare, &c. t Potentior est Deo diabolus et mundi princeps, et in multitudine hominum sita 
est majestas. " Homicida qui non subvenit quum potest; hoc de Deo sine sceleie cogitari non potest, 

utpote quum quod vult licet. Boni natura communicari. Bonus I^eus, quomodo misericordire pater, &c. 
X Vide Cyrillum lib. 4. adversus Jalianum : qui poterimus illigratias agere qui nobis non misit Mosen et 
prophetas, et contempsit bona animarum nostrarum. >' Venia daiida est iis qui non audiunt, ob ignoran- 
tiam. Non est tam iniquus; Judex Deus, ut quenquam indicta causa daiuuare velit. li solum damnantur, 
qui oblatam Christi gratiam rejiciunt. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 6.] Cure of Despair. 733 

of damnation tliat refuse Christ's mercy and grace, \vlien it is offered. Many 
worthy Greeks and Romans, good moral honest men, that kept the law of 
nature, did to others as they would be done to themselves, as certainly saved, 
he concludes, as they were that lived u^Drightly before the law of Moses. They 
were acceptable in God's sight, as Job was, the Magi, the queen of Sheba, 
Darius of Persia, Socrates, Aristides, Cato, Curius, TuUy, Seneca, and many 
other philosophers, upright livers, no matter of what religion, as Cornelius, out 
of any nation, so that he live honestly, call on God, trust in him, fear him, he 
shall be saved. This opinion was formerly maintained by the Yalentinian and 
Basiledian heretics, revived of late in ^ Turkey, of what sect Eustan Bassa was 
patron, defended by ^ Galeatius ^ Erasmus, by Zuinglius in exposit, fidei ad 
Regem Galilee, whose tenet Bullinger vindicates, and Gualter a2Dproves in a 
just apology with many arguments. There be many Jesuits that follow these 
Calvinists in this behalf, Franciscus Buchsius Moguntinus, Andradius, Consil. 
Trident, many schoolmen that out of the Romans!. 18, 19. are verily jDer- 
suaded that those good works of the Gentiles did so far please God, that they 
might viiam ceternam 'promereri, and be saved in the end. Sesellins, and 
Benedictus Justinianus in his comment on the first of the Romans, Mathias 
Ditmarsh the polititian, with many others, hold a mediocrity, they may be 
salute non indigni but they will not absolutely decree it. Hofmannus, a 
Lutheran professor of Helmstad, and many of his followers, with most of our 
church, and papists are stiff against it. Franciscus Collins hath fully censured 
all opinions in his Eive Books, de Paganorum animabics post mortem, and 
amply dilated this question, which whoso will may peruse. But to return to 
my author, his conclusion is, that not only wicked livers, blasphemers, repro- 
bates, and such as reject God's gTace, '* but that the devils themselves shall be 
saved at last," as '^Orio^en himself lono- since delivered in his works, and our late 
*^ Socinians defend, Ostorodias, cap. 41. institid. Smaltius, &c. Those terms 
of all and^r ever in Scripture, are not eternal, but only denote a longer time, 
which by many examples they prove. The world shall end like a comedy, and 
we shall meet at last in heaven, and live in bliss altogether, or else in con- 
clusion, in nihil evanescere. For how can he be merciful that shall condemn, 
any creature to eternal unspeakable punishment, for one small temporary fault, 
all posterity, so many myriads for one and another man's offence, quid mcru- 
istis oves ? But these absurd paradoxes are exploded by our church, we teach 
otherwise. That this vocation, predestination, election, reprobation, 7i07i ex 
corruptd massd, prcevisa fide, as our Arminians, or ex prcevisis operibus, as our 
Papists, 7ion ex prceteritione, but God's absolute decree ante mundum creatum 
(as many of our church hold), was from the beginning, before the foundation of 
the world was laid, or homo condilus, (or from Adam's fall, as others will, homo 
lapsus objectum est reprobationis) with perseverantia sanctorum, wemustbecer- 
tain of our salvation, we may fall but not finally, which our Arminians will not 
admit. According to his immutable, eternal just decree and counsel of saving 
men and angels, God calls all, and would have all to be saved according to the 
efficacy of vocation : all are invited, but only the elect apprehended : the rest 
that are unbelieving, impenitent, whom God in his just judgment leaves to be 
punished for their sins, are in a reprobate sense; yet we must not determine 
who are such, condemn ourselves or others, because we have a universal invi- 
tation j all are commanded to believe, and we know not how soon or how late 
our end may be received. I might have said more of this subject ; but foras- 
much as it is a forbidden question, and in the preface or declaration to the 
-articles of the church, printed 1633, to avoid factions and altercations, we that 



■ 2 Busbequius, Lonicems, Turc. hist. To. 1.1.2. a ciem. Alex. b Paulus Jovius, Elog. vir. Ulust. 

Kon homines sed et ipsi dsmones aliquando servandi. d Vid. Pelsii Harmoniam, art. 22. p. 2. 



734 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

are university divines especially, are prohibited " all curious search, to print or 
preach, or draw the article aside by our own sense and comments upon pain of 
ecclesiastical censure." I will surcease, and conclude with ® Erasmus of such 
controversies : Pugnet qui volet, ego censeo leges majorum reverenter suscipien- 
das, ei religiose observandas, velut ct Deo pro/ecfas; nee esse tutum, nee esse 
pium, de potestate publicd sinistram concipere aut severe suspicionem. Et 
siquid est tyrannicUs, quod tamen non cog at ad impietatem, satius est f err e, 
quam seditiose reluctari. 

Bat to my former task. The last main torture and trouble of a distressed 
mind, is not so much this doubt of election, and that the promises of grace are 
smothered and extinct in them, nay quite blotted out, as they suppose, but 
withal God's heavy wrath, a most intolerable pain and grief of heart seizeth on 
them : to their thinking they are already damned, they suffer the pains of hell, 
and more than possibly can be expressed, they smell brimstone, talk familiarly 
with devils, hear and see chimeras, prodigious, uncouth shapes, bears, owls, 
antiques, black dogs, fiends, hideous outcries, fearful noises, shrieks, lamentable 
complaints, they are possessed, ^ and through impatience they roar and howl, 
curse, blaspheme, deny God, call his power in question, abjure religion, and are 
still ready to offer violence unto themselves, by hanging, drowning, &c. Never 
any miserable wretch from the beginning of the world was in such a woeful 
case. To such persons I oppose God's mercy and his justice ; Jiidicia Dei 
occulta, non injusta: his secret counsel and just judgment, by which he spares 
some, and sore afflicts others again in this life ; his judgment is to be adored, 
trembled at, not to be searched or inquired after by mortal men : he hath 
reasons reserved to himself, which our frailty cannnot apprehend. He may 
punish all if he will, and that justly for sin ; in that he doth it in some, is^ to 
make a way for his mercy that they repent and be saved, to heal them, to try 
them, exercise their patience, and make them call upon him, to confess their 
sins and pray unto him, as David did. Psalm cxix. 137. " Righteous art thou, 
O Lord, and just are thy judgments." As the poor publican, Luke xviii. 13. 
" Lord have m.ercy upon me a miserable sinner." To put confidence and have 
an assured hope in him, as Job had, xiii. 15. Though he kill me I will trust 
in him:" Ure, seca, occide, Domine (saith Austin), modo serves animam, 
kill, cut in pieces, burn my body (0 Lord) to save my soul. A small 
sickness; one lash of affliction, a little misery, many times will more humi- 
liate a man, sooner convert, bring him home to know himself, than all 
those parsenetical discourses, the whole theory of philosophy, law, physic, and 
divinity, or a world of instances and examples. So that this, which they take 
to be such an insupportable plague, is an evident sign of God's mercy and 
justice, of His love and goodness: periissent nisi periissent, had they not thus 
been undone, they had finally been undone. Many a carnal man is lulled 
asleep in perverse security, foolish presumption, is stupefied in his sins, and 
hath no feeling at all of them : " I have sinned (he saith) and what evil shall 
come imto me," Eccles. v. 4, and "Tush, how shall God know it?" and so in 
a reprobate sense goes down to hell. But here, Cynthius aurem vellit, God 
pulls them by the ear, by affliction, he will bring them to heaven and happiness; 
" Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted," Matt. v. 4. a 
blessed and a happy state if considered aright, ib is, to be so troubled. " It 
is good for me that I have been afflicted," Psal. cxix. " before I was afflicted 



e Epist. Erasmi de utilitate colloquior. ad lectorem — Let whoever wishes dispute. I think the laws of otir 
forefathers should be received with reverence, and religiously observed, as comings from God; neither is it 
safe or pious to conceive, or contrive, an injurious suspicion of the public authority ; and should any 
tyranny likely to drive men into the commission of wickedness, exist, it is better to endure it than to resist 
it by sedition, f Vastata conscientia sequitur sensus irse divinae. (Hemingius) fremitus cordis, ingens 
animse cruciatus, &c. 



Mem. 2. Subs. 6.]^ Cure of Despair. 735 

I went astray, but now I keep Tliy word." " Tribulation works patience, 
patience hope," Rom. v. 4, and by sucli like crosses and calamities we are 
driven from the stake of security. So that affliction is a school or academy, 
wherein the best scholars are prepared to the commencements of the Deity. 
And though it be most troublesome and grievous for the time, yet know this, 
it comes by God's permission and providence; He is a spectator of thy groans 
and tears, still present with thee, the very hairs of thy head are numbered, not 
one of them can fall to the ground without the express will of God : he will not 
suffer thee to be tempted above measure, he corrects us all, ^numero, ponder e, 
et mensurd, the Lord will not quench the smoking flax, or break the bruised 
reed, Tentat (saith Austin), nan ut ohruat, sed id coronet, he suffers thee to be 
tempted for thy good. And as a mother doth handle her child sick and weak, 
not reject it, but with all tenderness observe and keep it, so doth God by us, 
not forsake us in our miseries, or relinquish us for our imperfections, but with 
all piety and compassion support and receive us; whom he loves, he loves to 
the end. E,om. viii, " Whom He hath elected, those He hath called, justified, 
sanctified and glorified." Think not then thou hast lost the Spirit, that thou 
art forsaken of God, be not overcome with heaviness of heart, but as David 
said, "I will not fear though I walk in the shadows of death," We must all 
go, 7ion a deliciis ad delicias, ^ but from the cross to the crown, by hell to 
heaven, as the old Romans put Virtue's temple in the way to that of Honour : 
we must endure sorrow and misery in this life. 'Tis no new thing this, God's 
best servants and dearest children have been so visited and tried. Christ in 
the garden cried out, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken mel" His 
Son by nature, as thou art by adoption and grace. Job, in his anguish, said, 
"^he arrows of the Almighty God were in him," Job vi. 4. "His terrors 
fought against him, the venom drank up his spirit," cap. xiii. 26. He saith, 
" God was his enemy, writ bitter things against him (xvi. 9,) hated him." His 
heav}'- wrath had so seized on his soul. David complains, " his eyes were 
eaten up, sunk into his head." Ps. vi. 7, " his moisture became as the drought 
in summer, his flesh was consumed, his bones vexed;" yet neither Job nor 
David did finally despair. Job would not leave his hold, but still trust in Him, 
acknowledging Him to be his good God. The Lord gives, the Lord takes, 
blessed be the name of the Lord," Job i. 21. "Behold I am vile, I abhor 
myself, repent in dust and ashes," Job xxxix. 37. David humbled himseJt) 
Psal. xxxi. and upon his confession received mercy. Faith, hope, repentance, 
are the sovereign cures and x-emedies, the sole comforts in this case; confess, 
humble thyself, repent, it is sufiicient. Quod purpura nan potest, saccus potest, 
saith Chrjsostom; the king of Nineveh's sackcloth and ashes did that which 
his purple robes and crown could not efiect; Quod diadema non potuit, cinis 
perfecit. Turn to Him, he will turn to thee ; the Lord is near those that are 
of a contrite heart, and will save such as be afflicted in spirit, Psal. xxxiv. 18. 
"He came to the lost sheep of Israel," Matt. xv. 14. Si cadtntem intuetur, 
clementice. manum protendit, He is at all times ready to assist. Nunquam 
spernit Deus Foenitentiam, si sincere et simpliciter offer atur. He never rejects 
a penitent sinner, though he have come to the full height of iniquity, wallowed 
and delighted in sin; yet if he will forsake his former ways, lihenter amplexatur, 
He will receive him. Par cam hide Jwmini, saith ^Austin {ex persona Dei), 
quia sibi ipsi non pepercit; ignoscam quia peccatum agnovit. I will spare him 
because he hath not spared himself; I will pardon him because he doth acknow- 
ledge his offence : let it be never so enormous a sin, " His grace is sufficient," 
2 Cor. xii. 9. Despair not then, faint not at all, be not dejected, but rely on 



S Austin. h " Not from pleasures to pleasures." i Super Psal. lii. Convertar ad liberandum eum 

quia conversus est ad peccatum suum puniendum. 



736 Beligious Melancholy. [P;irt. 3. Sec. 4. 

God, call on liim in thy trouble, and lie will hear thee, he will assist, help, and 
deliver thee : " Draw near to Him, he will draw near to thee," James iv. 8. 
Lazarus was poor and full of boils, and yet still he relied upon God, Abraham 
did hope beyond hope. 

Thou exceptest, these were chief men, divine spirits, Deo cari, beloved of 
God, especially respected ; but I am a contemptible and forlorn wretch, forsaken 
of God, and left to the merciless fury of evil spirits, I cannot hope, pray, 
repent, &c. How often shall I say it? thou may est perform all these duties, 
Christian offices, and be restored in good time, A sick man loseth his appe- 
tite, strength and ability, his disease prevaileth so far, that all his faculties are 
spent, hand and foot perform not their duties, his eyes are dim, hearing dull, 
tongue distastes things of pleasant relish, yet nature lies hid, recovereth again, 
and expelleth all those feculent matters by vomit, sweat, or some such like 
evacuations. Thou art spiritually sick, thine heart is heavy, thy mind dis- 
tressed, thou mayest happily recover again, expel those dismal passions of fear 
and grief; God did not suffer thee to be tempted above measure: whom he 
loves (I say) he loves to the end; hope the best, David in his misery pra-yed 
to the Lord, remembering how he had formerly dealt with him; and with that 
meditation of God's mercy confirmed his faith, and pacified his own tumultuous 
heart in his greatest agony. " O my soul, why art thou so disquieted within 
me," &c. Thy soul is eclipsed for a time, I yield, as the sun is shadowed by 
a cloud ; no doubt but those gracious beams of God's mercy will shine upon 
thee again, as they have formerly done: those embers of faith, hope, and 
repentance, now buried in ashes, will flame out afresh, and be fully revived. 
"Want of faith, no feeling of grace for the present, are not fit directions ; we 
must live by faith, not by feeling; 'tis the beginning of grace to wish for 
grace : we must expect and tarry. David, a man after God's own heart, was 
so troubled himself: " Awake, why sleepest thou? O Lord, arise, cast me not 
ofi"; wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest mine afiliction and oppres- 
sion? My soul is bowed down to the dust. Arise, redeem us," &c., Ps. xliv, 23. 
He prayed long before he was heard, expectans expectavit; endured much before 
he was relieved. Psal, Ixix. 3, he complains, " I am weary of crying, and my 
throat is dry, mine eyes fail, whilst I wait on the Lord ;" and yet he perseveres. 
Be not dismayed, thou shalt be respected at last, God often works by contra- 
rieties, he first kills and then makes alive, he woundeth first and then healeth, 
he makes man sow in tears that he may reap in joy; 'tis God's method : he 
that is so visited, must with patience endure and rest satisfied for the present. 
The paschal lamb was eaten with sour herbs; we shall feel no sweetness of 
His blood, till we first feel the smart of our sins. Thy pains are great, intoler- 
able for the time; thou art destitute of grace and comfort, stay the Lord's 
leisure, he will not (I say) suflfer thee to be tempted above that thou art able to 
bear, 1 Cor. x, 13. but will give an issue to temptation. He works all for 
the best to them that love God, Bom. viii. 28. Doubt not of thine election, it is 
an immutable decree ; a mark never to be defaced : you have been otherwise, 
you may and shall be. And for your present aflfliction, hope the best, it will 
shortly end. " He is present with his servants in their afiliction," Ps. xci, 15. 
" Great are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth them out 
of all," Ps. xxxiv. 19. "Our light afiliction, which is but for a moment, 
worketh in us an eternal weight of glory," 2 Cor. iv. 17. "Not answerable 
to that glory which is to come; though now in heaviness," saith 1 Pet. i. 6, 
"you shall rejoice." 

Now last of all to those external impediments, terrible objects, which they 
hear and see many times, devils, bugbears, and mormeluches, noisome smells, 
&c. These may come, as I have formerly declared in my precedent discourse 
of the Symptoms of Melancholy, from inward causes ; as a concave glass 



Mem. 2. Subs. G.] Cure of Despair. ITST 

reflects solid bodies, a troubled brairx for want of sleep, uutriDieiit, aud by- 
reason of that agitation of spirits to which Hercules de Saxonia atti'ibutes all 
symptoms almost, may reflect and show prodigious shapes, as our vain fear and 
crazed phantasy shall suggest and feign, as many silly weak women and children 
in the dark, sick folks, and frantic for want of repast and sleep, suppose they 
see that they see not: many times such terriculaments may proceed from 
natural causes, and all other senses may be deluded. Besides, as I have said, 
this humour is Balneum diaholi, the devil's bath, by reason of the distemper of 
humours, and infirm organs in us: he may so possess us inwardly to molest 
us, as he did Saul and others, by God's permission : he is prince of the air, 
and can transform himself into several shapes, delude all our senses for a time, 
but his power is determined, he may terrify us, but not hurt ; God hath given 
*' His angels charge over us, He is a wall round about his people, " Psal. xci. 
11, 12. There be those that prescribe physic in such cases, 'tis God's instru- 
ment and not unfit. The devil works by mediation of humours, and mixed 
diseases must have mixed remedies. Levinus Lemnius, cap. 57 and 58, exhort. 
ad vit. ep. instit. is very copious on this subject, besides that chief remedy of 
confidence in God, prayer, hearty repentance, &c., of which for youi^ comfort and 
instruction, read Lavater de spectris, part. 3. cap. 5 and 6. Wierus deprcestigiis 
dcemonum, lib. 5. to Philip Melancthon, and others, and that Christian armour 
which Paul prescribes; he sets down certain amulets, herbs, and precious stones, 
which have marvellous virtues all, profligandis dcemonibus, to drive away devils 
and their illusions. Sapphires, chrysolites, carbuncles, &c. Quce mird virtute 
pollent ad lemures, stryges, incubos, genios aereos aixendos, si veterum monu- 
mentis habenda fides. Of herbs, he reckons us pennyroyal, rue, mint, angelica, 
peony: Rich. Argentine de prcestigiis doemonmn, cap. 20. adds, hypericon or 
St. John's wort, perforata lierba, which by a divine virtue drives away devils, 
and is therefore yi^^a dcemonum: all which rightly used by their suflitus, 
DcemonuTYi vexationibus obsistunt, ajfflictas mentes a dcemonibus relevant, et 
venenatis famis, expel devils themselves, and all devilish illusions. Anthony 
Musa, the Emperor Augustus, his physician, cap. 6. de Betonid, approves of 
betony to this purpose; ^ the ancients used therefore to plant it in churchyards, 
because it was held to be an holy herb and good against fearful visions, did 
secure such places as it grew in, and sanctified those persons that carried it about 
them. Idem fere Mathiolus in Dioscoridem. Others commend accurate music, 
so Saul was helped by David's harp. Fires to be made in such rooms where 
spirits haunt, good store of lights to be set up, odours, perfumes, and suffu- 
migations, as the angel taught Tobias, of brimstone and bitumen, thus, 
7)iyrrh, briony root, with many such simples which Wecker hath collected, 
lib. I5.de secretis, cap. 15. If sulphuris drachmam unam. recoquatur in vitis 
albcB aqua, ut dilutius sit sulphur; detur mgro: nam dcemones sunt morbi 
(saith Rich. Argentine, lib. de prcestigiis dcemonum. cap. ult.) Yigetus hath 
a far larger receipt to this purpose, which the said Wecker cites out of Wierus. 
1^ sidphuris, vini, bituminis, opoponacis, gcdbani, castorei, &c. Why sweet per- 
fumes, fires and so many lights should be used in such places, Ernestus Burgra- 
vius, Lucerna vitce et mortis, and Fortunius Lycetus assigns this cause, quod his 
boni genii provocentur, mali arceantur ; "because good spirits are well pleased 
with, but evil abhor them!" And therefore those old Gentiles, present 
Mahometans, and Papists have continual lamps burning in their churches all 
day and all night, lights at funerals and in their graves ; lucernce ardentes ex 
auro liquefacto for many ages to endure (saith Lazius), ne dcemones corpus 
IcEdant; lights ever burning as those vestal virgins, Pythonissse maintained 

k Antiqui soliti sunt banc herbam ponere in coemeteriis ideo quod, &c. 

' 3 B 



738 Religious Melancholy. [Part. 3. Sec. 4. 

heretofore, with many such, of which read Tostatus in 2 Reg. cap, 6, qucest. 
43. Thyreus, cap. 57, 5^, 62, &c. de locis infestis, Pictorius, Isagog. de 
dcemonibus, &c., see more in them. Cardan would have the party affected 
wink altogether in such a case, if he see aught that offends him, or cut the air 
with a sword in such places they walk and abide; gladiis enim et lanceis 
terrentur, shoot a pistol at them, for being aerial bodies (as Cjelius Khodiginus, 
lib. 1. cap. 29, TertuUian, Origen, Psellas, and many hold), if stroken, they 
feel pain. Papists commonly enjoin and apply crosses, holy water, sanctified 
beads, amulets, music, ringing of bells, for to that end are they consecrated, 
and by them baptized, characters, counterfeit relics, so many masses, pere- 
grinations, oblations, adjurations, and what not? Alexander Albertinus a 
Kocha, Petrus Thyreus, and Hieronymus Mengus, with many other pontifical 
writers, prescribe and set down several forms of exorcisms, as well to houses 
possessed with devils, as to demoniacal persons; but I am of ^Lemnius's 
mind, 'tis but damnosa adjuratio, aut potius ludificatio, a mere mockery, a 
counterfeit charm, to no purpose, they are fopperies and fictions, as that absurd 
™story is amongst the rest, of a penitent woman seduced by a magiciaa in 
France, at St. Bawne, exorcised by Domphius, Michaelis, and a company of 
circumventing friars. If any man (saith Lemnius) will attempt such a thing, 
without all those juggling circumstances, astrological elections of time, place, 
prodigious habits, fustian, big, sesquipedal words, spells, crosses, characters, 
which exorcists ordinarily use, let him follow the example of Peter and John, 
that without any ambitious swelling terms, cured a lame man. Acts iii. ^^In 
the name of Christ Jesus rise and walk." His name alone is tlie best and 
only charm against all such diabolical illusions, so doth Origen advise : and so 
Chrysostom, Hcbg erit tibi baculus, hcec turris itiexpugnabiiis, hcec armatura. 
Nos qu'idadhcBC dicemus, plures fortasse expectabunt, saith St. Austin, Many 
men will desire my counsel and opinion what is to be done in this behalf; I can 
say no more, quam utverdjide, qum per dilectionem operatur^ ad Deum unum 
fugiamus, let them fly to God alone for help. Athanasius in his book, De 
variis qucest prescribes as a present charm against devils, the beginning of the 
Ixvii. Psalm : Exurgat Deus^ dissipentur inimiti, &c. But the best remedy is 
to fly to God, to call on him, hope, pray, trust, rely on him, to commit our- 
selves wholly to him. What the practice of the primitive church was in this 
behalf, Et quis dcemonia ejiciendi modus, read Wierus at large, lib, 5. de Cura. 
Earn, meles. cap. 38. et deinceps. 

Last of all : if the party affected shall certainly know this malady to have 
proceeded from too much fasting, meditation, precise life, contemplation of 
God's judgments (for the devil deceives many by such means), in that other 
extreme he circumvents melancholy itself, reading some books, treatises, 
hearing rigid preachers, &c. If he shall perceive that it hath begun first from 
some great loss, grievous accident, disaster, seeing others in like case, or any 
such terrible object, let him speedily remove the cause, which to the cure of 
this disease Navarrus so much commends, ^avertat cogitationem d, re scrupu- 
losa, by all apposite means, art, and industry, let him laxare amrnum, by all 
honest recreations, "refresh and recreate his distressed soul;" let him direct 
his thoughts, by himself and other of his friends. Let him read no more such 
tracts or subjects, hear no more such fearful tones, avoid such companies, and 
by all means open himself, submit himself to the advice of good physicians 
and divines, which is contraventio scrupulorum, as ''he calls it, hear them 
speak to whom the Lord hath given the tongue of the learned, to be able to 

INon desunt nostra setate sacriflculi, qui tale quid attentant, sed a cacodaemone irrisi pudore suffecti sunt, 
et re infecta abierunt. "^ l^one into English by W. B., 1613. ^ Tom. 2. cap. 27. num. 282. Let 

him avert his thoughts from the painfal object." ° Navarrus. 



Mera. 2. Subs. 6.] Cure of Despair. 739 

minister a word to him that is weary, p whose words are as flagons of wine. 
Let him not be obstinate, headstrong, peevish, wilful, self-conceited (as in this 
malady they are), but give ear to good advice, be ruled and persuaded; and 
no doubt but such good counsel may prove as prosperous to his soul, as the 
angel was to Peter, that opened the iron gates, loosed his bands, brought him 
out of prison, and delivered him from bodily thraldom; they may ease his 
afflicted mind, relieve his wounded soul, and take him out of the jaws of hell 
itself I can say no more, or give better advice to such as are any way dis- 
tressed in this kind, than what I have given and said. Only take this for 
a corollary and conclusion, as thou tenderest thine own welfare in this, and 
all other melancholy, thy good health of body and mind, observe this short 
precept, give not way to solitariness and idleness. " Be not solitary, be not 
idle." 

SPERATE, MIS ERI— UNHAPPY, HOPE. 
CAVETE, FGELICES— HAPPY, BE CAUTIOUS. 

Vis ct diibio liberari ? vis quod incertum est evadere ? Agepcenitentiam 
dum sanus es ; sic agens, dico tibi quod securus es, quod pcenitentiam egisti eo 
tempore quo peccare potuisti. Austin. " Do you wish to be freed from doubts? 
do you desire to escape uncertainty? Be penitent whilst rational : by so doing 
I assert that you are safe, because you have devoted that time to penitence in 
which you might have been guilty of sin." 

Pis. 1.4. 



INDEX. 



A. 



ABSENCE a cure of love melancholy, 590 
Absence over long, cause of jealousy, 633 
Abstinence commended, 308 
Academicorum Errata, 209, 210 
Adversity why better than prosperity, 404 
j5^mulation, hatred, faction, desire of revenge, 

causes of melancholy, 176; their cure, 412 
Equivocations of melancholy, 10, 11 
Equivocations of jealousy, 626 
Aerial devils, 115 
Affections, whence they arise, 103; how they 

transform us, 85; of sleeping and waking, 

102 
Affection in melancholy, what, 109 
Against abuses, repulse, injuries, contumely, 

disgraces, scoffs, 414 
Against envy, livor, hatred, malice, 412 
Against sorrow, vain fears, death of friends, 

406 
Air, how it causeth melancholy, 155; how 

rectified it cureth melancholy, 330—336; 

air in love, 511 
Alkerraes good against melancholy, 455 
All are melancholy, 110 
All beautiful parts attractive in love, 516 
Aloes, his virtues, 441 
Alteratives in physic, to what use, 431 ; against 

melancholy, 451 — 459 
Ambition defined, described, cause of melan- 
choly, 176, 185; of heresy, 674; hinders and 

spoils many matches, 6l6 
Amiableness'loves object, 471 
Amorous objects causes of love melancholy, 

531, 543 
Amulets controverted, approved, 456 
Amusements, 344 
Anger's description, effects, how it causeth 

melancholy, 177 
Antimony a purger of melancholy, 440 
Anthony inveigled by Cleopatra, 527 
Apology of love melancholy, 466 
Appetite, 102 

Apples, good or bad, how, 144 
Apparel and clothes, a cause of love melan- 
choly, 525 
Aqueducts of old, 306 
Arminian's tenets, 732 
Arteries, what, 95 

Artificial air against melancholy, 332 
Artificial allurements of love 521 
Art of memory, 353 



Astrological aphorisms, how available, signs 

or causes of melancholy, 133 
Astrological signs of love, 502 
Atheists described, 705 
Averters of melancholy, 450 
Aurum potahile censured, approved, 435 



B. 



Baits of lovers, 545 

Bald lascivious, 636 

Balm good against melancholy, 432 

Banishment's effects, 242; its cure and anti- 
dote, 405 

Barrenness, what grievances it causeth, 243 

Barrenness cause of jealousy, 635 

Barren grounds have best air, 332 

Bashfulness a symptom of melancholy, 252 ; 
of love-melancholy, 263 ; cured, 458 

Baseness of birth no" disparagement, 509 

Baths rectified, 300 

Bawds a cause of love-melancholy, 546 

Beasts and birds in love, 403 

Beauty's definition, 472; cure of melan- 
choly, 519; described, 516; in parts, 516; 
commendation, 507; attractive power, pre- 
rogatives, excellency, how it causeth melan- 
choly, 510, 520; makes grievous wounds, 
irresistible, 515; more beholding to art than 
nature, 520, 521; brittle and uncertain, 
597: censured, 599 ; a cause of jealousy, 634; 
beauty of God, 662 

Beef a melancholy meat, 141 

Beer censured, 145 

Best site of a house, 332 

Bezoar's stone good against melancholy, 454 

Black eyes best, 519 

Black spots in the nails signs of melancholy, 
135 

Black man a pearl in a woman's eye, 517, 518 

Blasphemy, how pardonable, 729 

Blindness of lovers, 563 

Blood-letting, when and how cure of melan- 
choly, 446 

Blood-letting and purging, how causes of 
melancholy, 445 

Blow on the head cause of melancholy, 247 

Body melancholy, its causes, 249 

Bodily symptoms of melancholy, 250 ; of love- 
melancholy, 550 

Bodily exercises, 337 ; body how it works on 
the mind, 164, 244, 260 

Books of all sorts, 351 



742 



INDEX. 



Borage and Bugloss, sovereign herbs against 

melancholy, 431; their wines and juice 

most excellent, 438 
Brain distempered, how cause of melancholy, 

182 ; his parts anatomized, 97 
Bread and beer, how causes of melancholy, 145 
Brow and forehead, which are most pleasing, 

617 
Brute beasts jealous, 629 
Business the best cure of love-melancholy, 

584 



Cardan's father conjured up seven devils at 
once, 113; had a spirit bound to him, 123 

Cards and dice censured, approved, 345 

Care's effects, 179 

Carp fish's nature, 142 

Cataplasms and cerates for melancholy, 438 

Cause of diseases, 82 

Causes immediate of melancholy symptoms, 
275 

Causes of honest love, 480; of heroical love, 
502; of jealousy, 633 

Cautions against jealousy, 657 

Centaury good against melancholy, 434 

Charles the Great enforced to love basely by 
a philter, 549 

Change of countenance, sign of love-melan- 
choly, 553 

Charity described, 484; defects of it, 486 

Character of a covetous man, 186 

Charles the Sixth, king of France, mad for 
anger, 178 

Chess-play censured, 345, 346 

Chiromantical signs of melancholy, 135 

Chirurgical remedies of melancholy, 445 

Choleric melancholy signs, 263 

Chorus sancti Viti, a disease, 90* 

Chymical physic censured, 44 

Circumstances increasing jealousy, 635 

Cities' recreations, 343 

Civil lawyers' miseries, 205 

Climes and particular places, how causes of 
love-melancholy, 504 

Clothes a mere cause of good respect, 229 

Clothes causes of love-melancholy, 525 

Clysters good for melancholy, 4G1 

Coffee a Tui-key cordial drink, 453 

Cold air cause of melancholy, 156 

Combats, 159 

Comets aboye the moon, 323 

Compound alteratives censured, approved, 
436 ; compound purgers of melancholy, 444; 
compound wines for melancholy, 451 

Community of wives a cure of jealousy, 652 

Compliment and good carriage causes of 
love-melancholy, 523 

Confections and conserves against melan- 
choly, 438 

Confession of his grief to a friend a princi- 
pal cure of melancholy, 361 

Confidence in his physician half a cure, 302 

Conjugal love best, 498 

Conscience what it is, 106 

Conscience troubled a cause of despair, 718 

Continual cogitation of his mistress a symp- 
tom of love-melancholy, 558 

Contention, brawling, law-suits, effects, 527, 
528 

Continent or inward causes of melancholy, 244 

Content above all, 392 ; whence to be had, 392 

Contention's cure, 424 

Cookery taxed, 146 



Correctors of accidents in melancholy, 45G 

Correctors to expel windiness and costive- 
ness helped, 462 

Cordials against melancholy, 451 

Costiveness to some a cause of melancholy, 
152 

Costiveness helped, 463 

Covetousness defined, described, how it 
causeth melancholy, 18ft 

Counsel against melancholy, 358, 594; cure 
of jealousy, 650; of despair, 723 

Country recreations, 342 

Crocodiles jealous, 629 

Cuckolds common in all ages, 647 

Cupping-glasses, cauteries, how and when 
used to melancholy, 450 

Cure of melancholy unlawful rejected, 293; 
from God, 295; of head-melancholy, 446; 
over all the body, 459; of hypochon- 
driacal melancholy, 460; of love-melan- 
choly, 584; of jealousy, 646; of despair, 
723 

Cure of melancholy in himself, 358 ; or friends, 
363 

Curiosity described, his effects, 239 

Custom of diet, delight of appetite, how to 
be kept and yielded to, 150 



D. 



DANcma, masking, mumming, censured, 
approved, 541, 542; their effects, how 
they cause love-melancholy, 541; how 
symptoms of lovers, 577 

Death foretold by spirits, 125, ICG 

Death of friends cause of melancholy, 234; 
other effects, 234; how cured, 406; death 
advantageous, 411 

Deformity of body no misery, 379 

Delirium, 87 

Despair, equivocations, 713; causes, 714; 
symptoms, 720; prognostics, 723; cu.re, 723 

Devils, how they cause melancholy, 611; 
their beginning, nature, conditions, 611 ; 
feel pain, swift in motion, mortal, 119; their 
orders, 120; power, 127; how they cause 
religious melancholy, 669 ; how despair, 714; 
devils are often in love, 494; shall be saved, 
as some hold, 733 

Diet what, and how causeth melancholy, 
140; quantity, 146; diet of divers nations, 
148 

Diet how rectified to cure, 304; in quantity, 
307 

Diet a cause of love-melancholy, 505; a 
cure, 586 

Digression against all manner of discontents, 
443 ; digression of air, 313 ; of anatomy, 92 ; 
of devils and spirits, 115 

Discommodities of unequal matches, 654 

Disgrace a cause of melancholy, 173—241; 
qualified by counsel, 421 

Dissimilar parts of the body, 95 

Distemper of particular parts, causes of me- 
lancholy, and how, 246 

Discontents, cares, miseries, causes of melan- 
choly, 178; how repelled and cui'ed by 
good counsel, 363—374 

Diseases why inflicted 'upon us, 82; their 
number, definition, division, 86; diseases 
of the head, 87; diseases of the mind, 87; 
more grievous than those of the body, 285 

Divers accidents causing melancholy, 234^ 

Divine sentences, 423 



Ilv'DEX. 



713 



Divines' miseries, 205; with the causes of 

their miseries, 206 
Dotage what, 87 
Dotage of lovers, 562 
Dowry and money main causes of love- 

melaneholy, 529 
Dreams and their kinds, 102 
Dreams troublesome, hovi^ to be amended, 357 
Drunkards' children often melancholy, 138 
Drunkenness taxed, 148—373 



E. 



Earth's motion examined, 324; compass, 
centre, 327 ; an sit animata, 325 

Eccentrics and epicycles exploded, 323 

Education a cause of melancholy, 218 

Effects of love, 578—580 

Election misconceived, cause of despair, 730 
—733 

Element of fire exploded, 323 

Envy and malice causes of melancholy, 174; 
their antidote, 412 

Epicurus vindicated, 358 

Epicurus's medicine for melancholy, 371 

Epicures, atheists, hypocrites, how mad and 
melancholy, 705 

Epithalamium, G25 

Eunuchs why kept, and where, 642 

Evacuations, how they cause melancholy, 152 

Exercise, if immoderate, cause of melan- 
choly, 158; before meals wholesome, 158; 
exercise rectified, 336; several kinds, when 
fit, 346; exercises of tlie mind, 348-9 

Exotic and strange simples censured, 436 

Extasies, 437, 438 

Eyes main instruments of love, 506; love's 
darts, 518; seats, orators, arrows, torches, 
618 J how they pierce, 522 



F. 



Face's prerogative, a most attractive part, 
516 

Fairies, 124 

Fasting cause of melancholy, 149; a cure 
of love-melancholy, 585; abused, the devil's 
instrument, 677; effects of it, 678 

Fear cause of melancholy, its effects, 171; 
fear of death, destinies foretold, 247; a 
symptom of melancholy, 252 ; sign of love- 
melancholy, 556 ; antidote to fear,'412 

Fenny fowl, melancholy, 142 



Fiery devils, 122 
Fire's 



:'s rage, 84 
Fish, what melancholy, 142 
Fish good, 307 
fishes in love, 493 
Fishing and fowling, how and when good 

exercise, 339 
Flaxen hair a great motive of love, 517 
Fools often beget wise men, 139; by love 

become wise, 575 
Force of imagination, 166 
Friends a cure of melancholy, 362 
Fruits causing melancholy, 144; allowed, 307 
Fumitory purgeth melancholy, 433 



G. 



Gaming a cause of melancholy, his effects, 191 
Gardens of simples where, to what end, 431 



Gardens for pleasure, 3-40 

General toleration of religion, by whom 

permitted, and why, 702; games, 344 
Gentry, whence it came first, 3S6; base 

without means, 386; vices accompanying 

it, 386; true gentry, whence, 385; gentry 

commended, 3S6 
Geography commended, 349 
Geometry, arithmetic, algebra, commended, 

353 
Gesture cause of love-melancholy, 523 
Gifts and promises of great force amongst 

lovers, 543 
God's just judgment cause of melancholy, 

82; sole cause sometimes, 114 
Gold good against melancholy, 435; a most 

beautiful object, 476 
Good counsel a ciiarm to melancholy, 358; 

good counsel for love-sick persons, 601; 

against melancholy itself, 423; for such 

as are jealous, 646 
Great men most part dishonest, 636 
Gristle what, 94 
Guts described, 96 



Hand and paps how forcible in love-melan- 
choly, 517 

Hard usage a cause of Jealousy, 632 

Hatred cause of melancholy, 177 

Hawking and hunting why good, 339 

Head melancholy's causes, 247; symptoms, 
268; its cure, 446 

Hearing, what, 101 

Heat immoderate cause of melancholy, 155 

Health a piteous thing, 242 

Heavens penetrable, 324; infinitely swift, 325 

HeU where, 318 

Hellebore, white and black, purgers of me- 
lancholy, 448; black, its virtues and history, 
448 

Help from friends against melancholy, 363 

Hemorrhage cause of melancholy, 152 

Hemorrhoids stopped cause of melancholy, 
152 

Herbs causing melancholy, 143; curing me- 
lancholy, 306; proper to most diseases, 307 

Hereditary diseases, 137 

Heretics their conditions, 695; [their symp- 
toms, 695 

Heroical love's pedigree, power, extent, 490 ; 
definition, part affected, 496; tyranny, 496, 
497 

Hippocrates' jealousy, 633 

Honest objects of love, 480 

Hope a cure of misery, 408 

Hope and fear, the Devil's main engines to 
entrap the world, 677 

Hops good against melancholy, 459 

Horse-leeches how and when used in melan- 
choly, 447, 459 

Hot countries apt and prone to jealousy, SCO 

How oft 'tis fit to eat in a day, 307 

How to resist passions, 359 

How men fall in love, 520 

Humours what they are, 93 

Hydrophobia described, 89 

Hypochondriacal melancholy, 112; its causes 
inward, outward, 248 ; symptom, 264 ; cure 
of it, 460 

Hypochondries misaffected, causes, 246 

Hypocrites described, 712 



744 



INDEX. 



Idleness a main cause of melancholy, 158; 

of love-melancholy, 466; of jealousy, 632 
Jealousy a symptom of melancholy, 256; 
defined, described, 627; of princes, 628; 
of brute beasts, 629; causes of it, 630— 
632; symptoms of it, 640; prognostics, 
644; cure of it, 646—652 
Jests how and when to be used, 224 
Jews' religious symptoms, 685, 686 
Ignorance the mother of devotion, 678 
Ignorance commended, 425, 426 
Ignorant persons still circumvented, 678 
Imagination what, 102; its force and effects, 

166 
Immaterial melancholy, 110 
Immortality of the soul proved, 105; im- 
pugned by whom, 710 
Impediments of lovers, 620 
Importunity and opportunity cause of love- 
melancholy, 530; of jealousy, 637, 638 
Imprisonment cause of melancholy, 225 
Impostures of devils, 676; of politicians, 

673; of priests, 674 
Impotency a cause of jealousy, 632 
Impulsive cause of man's misery, 82 
Jncubi and succubi, 494 
Inconstancy of lovers, 601 
Inconstancy a sign of melancholy, 256 
Infirmities of body and mind, what griev- 
ances they cause, 244 
Injuries and abuses rectified, 417 
Instrumental causes of diseases, 83 
Instrumental cause of man's misery, 83 
Interpreters of dreams, 102 
Inundations fury, 84 
Inward causes of melancholy, 244 
Inward senses described, 101 
Joy in excess cause of melancholy, 198 
Issues when used in melancholy, 445 



K. 



Kings and princes' discontents, 183 
Kissing a main cause of love-melancholy, 
535; a symptom of love-melancholy, 553 

Labour, business, cure of love-melanchoIy, 
584; Lapis Armenius, its virtues against 
melancholy, 441 

Lascivious meats to be avoided, 580 

Laurel a purge for melancholy, 439 

Laws against adultery, 643 

Leo Decimus the pope's scoffing tricks, 223 

Lewellyn, prince of Wales, his submission, 418 

Leucata petra the cure of love-sick persons, 
608 

Liberty of princes and great men, how 
abused, 639 

Libraries commended, 352 

Liver, its site, 95; cause of melancholy dis- 
tempers, if hot or cold, 246 

Loss of liberty, servitude, imprisonment, 
cause of melancholy, 225 

Losses in general how they offend, 236; 
cause of despair, 406, 714; how eased, 411 

Love of gaming and pleasures immoderate 
cause of melancholy, 191 

Love of learning, overmuch study, cause of 
melancholy, 198 

Love's beginning, object, definition, division, 



471; love made the world, 475; love's 
power, 491; in vegetables, 492; in sen- 
sible creatures, 493; love's power in devils 
and spirits, 494; in men, 496; love a dis- 
ease, 655\ a fire, 560, 561; love's passions, 
561; phrases of lovers, 566; their vain 
wishes and attempts, 571, 572; lovers 
impudent, 573; courageous, 574; wise, 
valiant, free, 575; neat in apparel, 575, 
576; poets, musicians, dancers, 576; love's 
effects, 579; love lost revived by sight, 
589; love cannot be compelled, 616 

Love and hate symptoms of religious me- 
lancholy, 6S4 

Lycanthropia described, 88 



M. 



Mabness described, 88; the extent of me- 
lancholy, 382; a symptom and effect of 
love-melancholy, 578 
Made dishes cause melancholy, 147 
Magicians how they cause melancholy, 130; 

how they cure it, 294 
Mahometans, their symptoms, 698 
Maid's, nun's, widows' melancholy, 271 
Man's excellency, misery, 81 
Man the greatest enemy to man, 84 
Many means to divert lovers, 588; to cure 

them, 594 
Marriage if unfortunate, cause of melan- 
choly, 240; best cure of love-melancholy, 
609; marriage helps, 655; miseries, 601; 
benefits and commendation, 623 
Mathematical studies commended, 350 
Medicines select for melancholy, 426; against 
wind and costiveness, 463; for love-me- 
lanchol)', 587 
Melancholy in disposition, melancholy equi- 
vocations, 90 ; definition, name, difference, 
108; part and parties affected in melan- 
choly, its affection, 109 ; matter, 110; species 
or kinds of melancholy, 112; melancholy 
an hereditary disease, 136; meats causing 
it, 140, &c.; antecedent causes, 244; par- 
ticular parts, 246; symptoms of it, 250; 
they are passionate above measure, 256; 
humorous, 257; melancholy adust symp- 
toms, 262 ; mixed symptoms of melancholy 
with other diseases, 264; melancholy, a 
cause of jealousy, 632 ; of despair, 714; 
melancholy men why witty, 277; why 
so apt to laugh, weep, sweat, blush, 277; 
why they see visions, hear strange noises, 
speak untaught languages, prophesy, &c., 
277 
Memory his seat, 102 
Menstruus concubitus causa melanc, 138 
Men seduced by spirits in the night, 124 
Metempsychosis, 104 
Metals, minerals for melancholy, 433 
Meteors strange, how caused, 322 
Metoposcopy foreshowing melancholy, 135 
Milk a melancholy meat, 142 
Mind how it works on the body, 162 
Minerals good against melancholy, 435 
Ministers how they cause despair, 717 
Mirach, mesentery, matrix, meseraicr veins, 

causes of melancholy, 246 
Mu'abolanes purgers of melancholy, 441 
Mirth and merry company excellent against 

melancholy, 369 ; their abuses, 373 
Miseries of man, 82; how they cause me- 
lancholy, 180; common miseries 17«' 



r4o 



miseries of both sorts, 375 ; no man free, 
miseries' effects in us, sent for our good, 
377; miseries of students and scliolars, 
198 

Mitigations of melancholy, 423 

Money's prerogatives, 176 

Moon inhabited, 326; moon in love, 491, 
492 

Mother how cause of melancholy, 137 

Moving faculty described, 103 

Music a present remedy for melancholy, 367; 
its effects, 367; a symptom of lovers, 576, 
577 ; causes of love-melancholy, 541 



N. 



Nakedness of parts a cause of love-melan- 
choly, 524; cure of love-melancholy, 596 

Narrow streets vs^here in use, 333 

Natural melancholy signs, 260 

Natural signs of love-melancholy, 550 

Necessity to what it enforceth, 151 — 231 

Neglect and contempt, best cures of jealousy, 
648 

Nemesis or punishment comes after, 419 

Nerves what, 04 

News most welcome, 344 

Nobility censured, 381 

Non-necessary causes of melancholy, 210 

Nuns' melancholy, 271 

Nurse, how cause of melancholy, 216 



Objects causing melancholv to be removed, 
588 

Obstacles and hindrances of lovers, 609 

Occasions to be avoided in love-melancholy, 
588 

Odoraments to smell to for melancholy, 455 

Ointments for melancholy 147 

Ointments riotously used, 527 

Old folks apt to be jealous, 632 

Old folks' incontinency taxed, 654 

Old age a cause of melancholy, 136; old men's 
sons often melancholy, 138 

One love drives out another, 593 

Opinions of or concerning the soul, 103 

Oppression's effects, 241 

Opportunity and importunity causes of love- 
melancholy, 530 

Organical parts, 96 

Overmuch joy, pride, praise, how causes of 
melancholy, 193 



Palaces, 342, 343 

Paleness and leanness, symptoms of love- 
melancholy 550 
Papists' religious symptoms, 696, 697 
Paracelsus' defence of minerals, 435 
Parents, how they wrong their children, 616; 
how they cause melancholy by propaga- 
tion, 136; how by remissness and indid- 
gence, 219 
Paraenetical discourse to such as are troubled 

in mind, 724 
Particular parts distempered, how they cause 

melancholy, 246 
Parties affected in religious melancholy, G65 
Passions and pertiirbations causes of melan- 



choly, 164; how they work on the body, 

162; their divisions, 169; how rectified and 

eased, 358 
Passions of lovers, 555, 556 
Patience a cure of misery, 417 
Patient, his conditions that would be cured, 

301 ; patience, confidence, liberality, not 

to practise on himself, 302; what he must 

do himself, 359; reveal his grief to a friend, 

362 
Pennyroyal good against melancholy, 441 
Perjury of lovers, 545 
Persuasion a means to cure love-melancholy, 

367; other melancholy, 365 
Phantasy, what, 101 
Philippus Bonus, how he used a country 

fellow, 347 
Philosophers censured, 194; their errors, 194 
Philters cause of love-melancholy, 546; how 

they cure melancholy, 607 
Phlebotomy cause of melancholy, 445; how 

to be used, when, in melancholy, 446; in 

head melancholy, 450 
Phlegmatic melancholy signs, 261 
Phrenzy's description, 88 
Phvsician's miseries, 205 ; his qualities if he 

be good, 299 
Physic censured, 426, 449; commended, 428; 

when to be used, 429 
Physiognomical signs of melancholy, 135 
Pictures good against melancholy, 348; cause 

love-melancholy, 534 
Plague's effects, 83 
Planets inhabited, 326 
Plays more famous, 343 
Pleasant palaces, 340 
Pleasant objects of love, 478 
Pleasing tone and voice a cause of love-me- 
lancholy, 533 
Poetical cures of love-melancholy, 608 
Poets why poor, 203 
Poetry a symptom of lovers, 580 
Politician's pranks, 674 
Poor men's miseries, 230; their happiness, 

402; they are dear to God, 391 
Pope Leo Decimus, his scoffing, 223 
Pork a melancholy meat, 141 
Possession of devils, 90 
Poverty and want causes of melancholy, 

their effects, 227; no such misery to be 

poor, 389 
Power of spirits, 127 

Predestination misconstrued, a cause of de- 
spair, 730 
Preparatives and purgers for melancholy, 447 
Precedency, what stirs it causeth, 175 
Precious stones, metals, altering melancholy, 

433 
Preventions to the cure of jealousy, 652 
Pride and praise causes of melanclioly, 193 
Priests how they cause religious melancholy, 

674, 675 
Princess' discontents, 183 
Profitable objects of love, 476 
Progress of love-melancholy exemplified, 337 
Prognostics or events of love-melancholy, 

581; of despair, 644; of jealousy, 644; of 

melancholy, 281 
Prospect good against melancholy, 335 
Prosperity a cause of misery, 403 
Protestations and deceitful promises of lovers, 

245 
Pseudo-prophets, their pranks, 699; their 

symptoms, 695 
Pulse, peas, beans, cause of melancholy, 144 



r46 



INDEX. 



Pulse of melancholy men, how it is affected, 

251 
Pulse a sign of love-melancholy, 551, 552 
Pursers and preparatives to head melancholy, 

447 
Purging simples upward, 439; downward, 441 
Purging, how cause of melancholy, 155 



Q. 



Quantity of diet cause, 146; cure of melan- 
choly, 307 

R. 

Kational soul, 103 

Reading Scriptures good against melan- 
choly, 353 

Recreations good against melancholy, 337, 
338 

Redness of the face helped, 458 

Regions of the belly, 96, 97 

Relation or hearing a cause of love-melan- 
choly, 506 

Heligious melancholy, a distinct species, 660; 
its object, 661 ; causes of it, 669; symptoms, 
683; prognostics, 700; cure, 702; religious 
policy, by whom, 674 

Repentance, its effects, 727 

Retention and evacuation causes of melan- 
choly 152; rectified to the cure, 310 

Rich men's discontents and miseries, 188, 396; 
their prerogatives, 227 

Riot in apparel, excess of it, a great cause of 
love-melancholy, 527 — 533 

Rivals and corrivals, 629 

Hoots censured, 144 

Hose cross-men's or Rosicrucian's promises, 
354 

S. 

Saints' aid rejected in melancholy, 297 

Salads censured, 145 

Sanguine melancholy signs, 262 

Scholars' miseries, 200 

Scilla or sea-onion, a purger of melancholy, 
439 

Scipio's continency, 589 

Scoffs, calumnies, bitter jests, how they cause 
melancholy, 422 ; their antidote, 423 

Scorzonera good against melancholy, 432 

Scripture misconstrued, cause of religious 
melancholy, 730; cure of melancholy, 353 

Sea-sick, good physic for melancholy, 433 

Self-love cause of melancholy, his effects, 193 

Sensible soul and its parts, 100 

Senses, why and how deluded in melancholy, 
278, 279 

Sentences selected out of humane authors, 423 

Servitude cause of melancholy, 225; and im- 
prisonment eased, 404 

Several men's delights and recreations, 335 

Severe tutors and guardians causes of me- 
lancholy, 218 

Shame and disgrace how, causes of melan- 
choly, their effects, 173 

Sickness for our good, 442 

Sighs and tears symptoms of love-melan- 
choly, 551 

Sight a principal cause of love-melancholv, 
507 

Signs of honest love, 4G0 



Similar parts of the body, 94 

Simples censured proper to melancholy, 429; 

fit to be known, 431; purging melancholy 

upward, 439; downward, purging simples, 

44 1 

Singing a symptom of lovers, 576; cause of 

love-melancholy, 533 
Sin the impulsive cause of man's misery, 375 
Single life and virginity commended, 605; 

their prerogatives, 606 
Slavery of lovers, 567 
Sleep and waking causes of melancholy, 163; 

by what means procured, helped, 457 
Sm.all bodies have greatest wits, 380 
Smelling what, 101 

Smiling a cause of love-melancholy, 523 
Sodomy, 497 

Soldiers most part lascivious, 636 
Solitariness cause of melancholy, 160, 161; 
coact, voluntary, how good, 161 ; sign of 
melancholy, 259 
Sorrow its effect, 170; a cause of melan- 
choly, 171 ; a symptom of melancholy, 254 ; 
eased by counsel, 407 
Soul defined, its faculties, 98; ex traduce 

as some hold, 103 
Spices how causes of melancholy, 144 
Spirits in the body, what, 
Spirits and devils, their orders, kinds, power, 

&c., 120 
Spleen its site, 95 ; how misaffected cause of 

melancholy, 246 
Sports, 344 
Spots in the sun, 328 
Spruceness a symptom of lovers, 575 
Stars, how causes ' or signs of melancholy, 
133; of love-melancholy, 500; of iealousy, 
632 
Step-mother, her mischiefs, 241 
Stews, why allowed, 653 
Stomach distempered cause of melancholyj 

246 
Stones like birds, beasts, fishes, &c., 316 
Strange nurses, when best, 217 
Streets, narrow, 333 

Study over-much cause of melancholj--, 198; 
why and how, 199, 277 ; study good against 
melancholy, 348 
Subterranean devils, 126 
Supernatural causes of melancholy, 114 
Superstitious effects, symptoms, 687; how 

it domineers, 667, 697 
Surfeiting and drunkenness taxed, 148 
Suspicion and jealousy symptoms of melan- 
choly, 256; how caused, 276 
Swallows, cuckoos, &c,, where are they in 

winter, 316 
Sweet tunes and singing causes of love- 
melancholy, 534 
Symptoms or signs of melancholy in the 
body, 250; mind, 252; from stars, mem- 
bers, 2G0; from education, custom, con- 
tinuance of time, mixed with other dis- 
eases, 264; symptoms of head melancholy, 
268; of hypochondriacal melancholy, 269; 
of the whole body, 271; symptoms of 
nuns', maids', widows' melancholy, 271; 
immediate causes of melancholy symptoms, 
275; symptoms of love-melancholy, 550; 
cause of these symptoms, 555; symptoms of 
a lover pleased^ 557 ; dejected, 557; symp- 
toms of jealousy, 640; of religious melan- 
choly, 684; of despair, 720. 
Synteresis. 106 
Syrups, 457 



747 



T. 



Tai-e of a prebend, 416 

Tarantula's stinging effects, 243 

Taste, what, 101 

Temperament a cause of love-melancholy, 502 

Tempestuous air, dark and fuliginous, how 
cause of melancholy, 157 

Terrestrial devils, 124 

Terrors and affrights cause melancholy, 219 

Theologasters censured, 329 

The best cure of love-melancholy is to let 
them have their desire, 609 

Tobacco censured, 441 

Toleration, religious, 702 

Torments of love, 55Q 

Transmigration of souls, 104 

Travelling commended, good against melan- 
choly, 835; for love-melancholy especi- 
ally, 590 

Tutors cause melancholy, 218 



V. 



Vatngloby described, a cause of melancholy, 

193 
Valour and courage caused by love, 575 
Variation of the compass, where, 314 
Variety of meats and dishes cause melan- 
choly, 308 
Variety of mistresses and objects a cure of 

melancholy, 593 
Variety of weather, air, manners, countries, 

whence, &c., 320 
Variety of places, change of aii*, good against 

melancholy, 335 
Vegetal soul and its faculties, 98 
Vegetal creatures in love, 492 
Vegetal soul and its parts, 98 
Veins described, 95 
Venus rectified, 312 
Venery a cause of melancholy, 153 
Venison a melancholy meat, 142 
Vices of Avomen, 600, 601 
Violent misery continues not, 376 
Violent death prognostic of melancholy, 92; 

event of love-melancholy, 583; of despair, 

723; by some defended, 285; how to be 

censured, 288 
Virginity, by what signs to be known, 643 
Virginity commended, 606 
Virtue and vice principal habits of the will, 

108 
Vitex or agnus castus good against love- 

melanchoy, 586 

U. 

Uncharitable men described, 487 
Understanding defined, divided, 105 
Unfortunate marriages, effects, 184, 240 



Unkind friends cause melancholy, 241 
Unlawful cures of melancholy rejected, 293 
Upstarts censured, their symptoms, 385, 393 
Urine of melancholy persons, 251 
UxoriL 633 



W. 



Waking, cause of melancholy, 161 — 163; a 
symptom, 250; cured, 356 

Walking, shooting, swimming, &;c., good 
against melancholy, 340, 355, 586 

Want of sleep a symptom of love-melancholy, 
551 

Wanton carriage and gesture cause of love- 
melancholy, 524 

Water devils, 124 

Water, if foul, causeth melancholy, 145 

Waters censured, their effects, 145 

Waters, which good, 305 

Waters in love, 511 

Wearisomeness of life a symptom of melan- 
choly, 561 

What physic fit in love-melancholy, 585 

Who are most apt to be jealous, 631 

Whores' properties and conditions, 594 

Why good men are often rejected, 415 

Why fools beget wise children, wise men 
fools, 139, 140 

Widows' melancholy, 271 

Will defined, divided, its actions, why over- 
ruled, 106 

Wine causeth melancholy, 145; a good cordial 
against melancholy, 453; forbid in love- 
melancholy, 585, 586 

Winds in love, 511 

Witty devices against melancholy, 366, 591 

Wit proved by love, 575 

Withstand the beginnings, a principal cure 
of love-melancholy, 588 

Witches' power, how they cause melancholy, 
130; their transformations how caused, 
131; they can cure melancholy, 294; not 
to be sought to for help, 295; nor saints, 297 

Wives censured, 623 ; commended, 623 

Women, how cause of melancholy, 192 ; their 
vanity in apparel taxed, 525; how they 
cozen men, 526; by what art, 526; their 
counterfeit tears, 545; their vices, 6U0 ; 
commended, 624 

Woodbine, amni, rue, lettuce, how good in 
love-melancholy, 586 

World taxed, 182 

Wormwood good against melancholy, 431 

Writers of the cure of melancholy, 293 

Writers of imagination, 166; de consolatione, 
371; of melancholy, 454; of love-melan- 
choly, 579; against idolatry, 692; against 
despair, 723 

Y. 

Young men in love Mdth a picture, 554: 
Youth a cause of love-melancholy, 498 



M'COEQUODALE and CO., FKIKTERS, LONDON— WOKKS, NEM'TON. 



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